
Class _/. 



Book. 



6 

NATIONAL 



EDUCATION m EUROPE; 



BEING AN ACCOUNT 



OEGANIZATION, ADMINISTRATION, INSTRUCTION, AND STATISTICS 



PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF DIFFERENT GRADES 



THE PRINCIPAL STATES. 



By henry BARNARD, LL. D., 

SUPERINTENDENT OP COMMON SCHOOLS IN CONNECTICUT. 



SECOND EDITION. 



NEW YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY CHARL11.S B. NORTON. 

No. 71, CHAMBERS STREET. 

1854. 






V ^^ 



PREFACE, 



The following pages were, in part, published in 1851, 
under the title of " Normal Schools and other Institutions, 
Agencies and Means designed for the Professional Education 
of Teachers." They were prepared from observations made 
during a tour in Europe in 1835-6, and from documents 
subsequently collected, from time to time, to assist the un- 
dersigned in maturing his own views and plans for the im- 
provement of common schools, and particularly in devising 
modes of operating beneficially for the advancement of the 
teachers' profession, in the States of Rhode Island and Con- 
necticut. 

The author has availed himself of a recent visit to Europe, 
to extend his inquiries, and collect additional documents, not 
only respecting the training of teachers, but in every depart- 
partment of the educational field, and particularly respecting 
agricultural schools, and institutions for juvenile delinquents. 
The results are embodied in this new edition of his original 
work, the title of which is changed, so as to convey a more 
adequate idea of its contents. 

To the results of his own observations and study of docu- 
ments, he is able, by permission of the gentlemen named, to 
add freely from the elaborate and valuable reports of Prof 
Calvin E. Stowe, D. D., to the Legislature of Ohio, in 1837, 
of President Alexander Dallas Bache, LL.D., to the Trustees 
of the Girard College of Orphans in Philadelphia, in 1839, of 
Hon. Horace Mann, LL. D., to the Massachusetts Board 
of Education in 1846, and of Joseph Kay, Esq., Traveling 
Bachelor of the University of Oxford, in 1850, on the sub- 
jects treated of in this volume. Without claiming any 



4 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN EUROPE. 

thing for his own labors, the undersigned feels authorized in 
saying that the present edition contains more reliable statistics 
and fuller information respecting the whole subject of public 
education in Europe, than can be found in any one volume 
in the English language, or in any number of volumes easily 
accessible to any large number of American teachers and 
educators. 

It embodies information which can be made available 
in organizing new, and improving existing systems of public 
instruction, and particularly institutions and agencies, de- 
signed for the education of teachers in every state of the 
Union. Its value does not consist in conveying the spec- 
ulations and limited experience of the author, but the 
matured views and varied experience of wise statesmen, 
educators, and teachers, in perfecting the organization and 
administration of educational systems and institutions, through 
a succession of years, under the most diverse circumstances 
of government, society, and religion. 

The experience and views of the undersigned, as to the 
organization and administration of a system of public educa- 
tion adapted to the peculiar circumstances and wants of our 
own country, will be presented to the public in the course 
of another year, under the title of " National Education ; or, 
Contributions to the History and Improvement of Common 
Schools, and other means of Popular Education in the United 
States." 

HENRY BARNARD. 



CONTENTS 



EDUCATION IN EUROPE. 



BY HENRY BARNARD. 



GERMANY. 



Page. 



History of Education, 37 

Parochial Schools, 18 

Public Schools ' 39 

Martin Luther, 19 

Augustus Herrman Franke, 21 

Orphan-House at Halle, 21 

Basedow, 2o 

Pestalozzi, 25 

Zeller 29 

Centennial Birth-day of Pestalozzi, 30 

Pnigress of Normal Schools, 31 

General features of the School Systems, 32 

Table. Normal Schools in Germany in 1848, 34 

Results of the Normal School System, 35 

Testimony of Professor Stowe, 35 

" President Bache, 39 

Mr. Mann 39 

" Rev. Dr. Ryerson, 45 

" Professor Stephens, 46 

Course of Instruction in Primary Schools, ... . 49 

For children between ages of si.x and eight, 50 

Conversotion — Lesson on Objects, 51 

Elements of Reading, 51 

Writing 52 

" Numbers — Arithmetic, 52 

For children between ages of eight and ten, 52 

E.xercises in Reading, . . 52 

E.xercises in Writing, 53 

Moral and Religious Instruction, 53 

Language or Grammar, 54 

Number or Arithmetic, 56 

Doctrine of Space and Form, 55 

Singmg by Note, 55 

For children from ten to twelve, 55 

Exercises in Reading and Elocution, 55 

Writing introductory to Drawing 55 

Bible History 55 

Language and Gramme^r, 55 

Knowledge of Nature, 56 

Arithmetic 57 

Geometry — Doctrine of Magnitudes, . ... 57 

Singing and Science of Vocal Music, .... 57 

Children from twelve to fourteen, 57 

Religious Instruction, 58 

Knowledge of Nature and Mankind, 58 

Language or Exercises in Composition,.. 59 

Application of Arithmetic to Business,.. . 59 

Elements of Drawing 59 

Exercises in Singing and science of Music, 60 

Extracts from Report of Hon. H. Mann, 60 

Classification, 60 

Methods of teaching young children, 60 

Arithmetic and Mathematics, 63 

Grammar and Composition, 64 

Writing and Drawing, 66 

Geography, 68 

Exercises in Thinking, 70 

Knowledge of Nature, 71 

Knowledge of the World, and Society, 72 

Bible History and Bible Knowledge, 73 

Music, 74 

Testimony of Joseph Kay, Esq., as to the prac- 
tical working of the Prim. Sch. of Germany, 74 



PRUSSIA. 

Pag*. 

History of Primary Instruction, 81 

Outline of System, 86 

Statistics of Pri mary Education in 1848, ..... 88 

Remarks on Progress of Primary Schools,.... 89 

Subjects and Methods of Instruction, 91 

Elementary Schools, 91 

Burgher Schools 92 

Higher Town Schools, 92 

Text-books 93 

School Examinations 93 

Results in practical working of System ac- 
cording to Mr. Kay 94 

Education of young children, universal,. .. . 94 

School Attendance, 95 

Children employed in factories, 96 

Voluntary System prior to 1819, 97 

Schools where the people are of one faith,. . 98 

" " " " " different do. 98 

Mixed Schools 99 

Duties of School Committee,.. 99 

Schools in large towns and cities, 101 

Advantages of large schools, 102 

School -houses, 103 

Superior Primary Schools, 105 

'Real Schools, Gymnasia, Endowed Schools, 105 

Large landed Proprietors, 106 

Lancasterian Method, 106 

Paid Monitors or Assistants, 107 

Text-books 109 

Suggestive Character of the Methods, 110 

Interest of Children in their Studies Ill 

Specimens of Schools of different grades, from 

Dr. Bache's Report 112 

Burgher School at Halle 112 

Military Orphan-House at Annaburg 115 

Public Schools of Berlin, 118 

Elementary Schools, 118 

Burgher Schools, 123 

Dorothean Higher City School of Berlin,.. 124 

Model School of Teachers' Seminary, 127 

Seminary School at Weissenfels, 123 

Higher Burgher School of Potsdam 135 

Secondary Instruction in Prussia, 139 

Admission of pupils, 139 

Subjects of Instruction, 140 

Distribution of Teachers, 141 

Number of hours of Recitation, 141 

Plan of Studies 142 

Study out of School Hours, / 143 

Duration of courses, 143 

Examination for University, 114 

Su])posed defects of Teachers, 144 

Physical Education 144 

Religious Education, 145 

Discipline, 145 

Motives to Study, 145 

Regulations for Final Examination 146 

Frederick William Gymnasium of Berlin,... 148 

Royal Real School,. .' 152 

City Trade School, 155 

Institute of Arts 159 

Legal Provision respecting Teachers, 165 

Testimony of Mr. Kay, 169 



6 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN EUROPE. 



Page- 
Social Condition, 170 

Educational Advantages 172 

Schools Preparatory to Normal Schools,... 371 

Examination on entering 172 

" for Diploma as Teachers, 173 

Teachers are Public Officers, 174 

Salaries fixed, and payment certain, 176 

Female Teachers, 178 

Teachers' Conferences J79 

Pensions to old and invalid teachers 181 

Widows and Orphans of deceased teachers, 182 

Educational Periodicals 182 

Teachers' Seminary, or Normal Colleges, .. 183 
Conditions and Examinations for entering,. 185 

Intellectual Training of a Seminary, 186 

Industrial Training, 187 

Diploma 188 

Location and Number of Normal Schools in 

1846 190 

Small Normal Schools of Lastadie, 191 

Small Normal School of Pyritz 194 

Normal School of Potsdam", 197 

Normal Schools at Bruhl 207 

Normal Seminary in Eisleben, 218 

Seminary for Teachers at Weissenfels 219 

Seminary for Teachers of City, at Berlin, 233 

Normal Schools for Female Teachers, 235 

Seminary at Marienweider 236 

Diaconissen Anstalt at Kaisersworth, 236 

Prussian Schools, a few years ago, 24 1 

School Counselor Dinter, 242 

Journal of an Institute, or Conference of 

Teachers 243 

School Counselor Bernhardt 243 

Bernard Overberg 245 

C. B. Zeller — the Influence of Example 253 

Self-examination — by Beckendorf, 254 

SAXONY. 

System of Primary Instruction 257 

Institution for Superannuated Teachers, .... 259 

Statistics of Schools 260 

Royal Seminary for Teachers at Dresden, 261 

Examination for Teachers' Diplomas, 262 

Protection of Teachers' Rights, 265 

Compulsorv Attendance at School, 266 

School Buildings, 267 

Primary Schools of Dresden, 268 

Saxon Sunday Schools, 268 

Plan of Sunday School at Dresden 269 

Public Examination of the Schools 271 

Fletcher Normal Seminary at Dresden, 272 

Burgher School at Leipsic, 273 

Plan of Instruction, 275 

Public Schools of Leipsic and Dresden, 278 

Secondary Education in Saxony, 279 

Blochmann-Vitzhum Gymnasium at Dresden, 280 
School of Mines at Freyberg, 289 

BADEN. 

School Authorities, 293 

System of Primary Schools, 293 

Educational Statistics of Baden, 293 

School Attendance, 299 

" Internal Organization, 299 

" Plan of Instruction, 292 

Evening Classes, 292 

Sunday Classes 297 

Industrial Instruction, 297 

Education of Children employed in Factories, 297 

Teachers' Conferences 298 

Normal Seminary at Carlsrube, 299 

WIRTEMBERG. 

Educational Statistics 301 

System of Primary Schools, 301 

Denzel's Introduction to the Art of Teaching, 303 

Normal Seminary at Esslingen, 310 

Normal Seminary at Nurtingen 306 



Page. 

Subject of Instruction in the Norraal Schools, 305 
Institute of Agriculture at Hohenheim 307 

HESSE CASSEL AND NASSAU. 

Educational Statistics, 312 

Normal Seminary at Schluehtern, 312 

BAVARIA. 

System of Primary Schools, 313 

Normal Seminary at Bamburg, 314 

Plan of Seminary by Jacobi, 314 

Educational Statistics, 315 

Mr. Kay's Estimate of Public Schools 316 

Dr. Grazer's System of Instruction, 319 

Common School at Bayreuth 320 

AUSTRIA. 

System of Public Instruction, 325 

" Popular Schools, 325 

" Upper Schools 326 

" Commercial Academies, .320 

High Schools for Girls 326 

" Gymnasia, 326 

System of Inspection, 329 

Regulations respecting Teachers, 331 

System of Normal Schools 333 

Polytechnic Institute at Vienna, 335 

Statistics of Elementary Schools, 338 

" Secondary Schools, .339 

" Superior 339 

" Academies of Science, 340 

SWITZERLAND. 

Outline of Educational Institutions, 341 

Reconcilement of Difl^erence of Relig. Belief, 341 

School Attendance made Compulsory, 342 

Education of Teachers, 344 

Manual Labor in Normal Schools, 344 

Vehrli's Opinions on the Habits of Teachers, 345 
Course of Instruction in Primary Schools,... 346 

Religious Exercises 347 

Local Inspection of Schools, 347 

Results of the Education of the People, 348 

Education of Girls in Catholic Seminaries,.. 348 

Condition of the Peasantry, 349 

Pauperism and Ignorance, 350 

Educational Establishment at Hofwyl, 351 

Emanuel Fellenberg 351 

Fellenberg's Principles of Education, 354 

Subjects of Study 354 

" Moral Education, 3.55 

" Intellectual Education, 355 

" Physical Education, 356 

Norma! Course for Teachers at Hofywl, .... 357 

Berne Cantonal Society for Teachers, 364 

Normal School at Kruitzlingen-Thurgova, .. 367 

Educational Views of Vehrli, 369 

Programme — Course of Study, 372 

Normal School at Kussnacht, Zurich, 373 

Programme of Studies, 376 

Norm. School at Lausanne — Cant, of Vaud., .378 
Normal School at Lucerne, 380 

FRANCE. 

History of Popular Education, 381 

Ordinances of National Convention, 381 

Decrees of Napoleon, 381 

Law of the Government of Louis Phillippe,. 382 

Report of Victor Cousin, 382 

Speech of M. Guizot 387 

Degrees of Primary Instruction, 387 

Local and State Inspection, 388 

Professional Education of Teachers '389 

M ission of the Teacher, 389 

Society of Elementary Instruction, 390 

Outline of system of Public Instruct, in 1850, 391 
University of France, 391 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN EUROPE. 



Page. 

Council of Public Instruction, 391 

Academies, 391 

Royal Colleges, 392 

System of Pub. Competion for Professorship, 392 

System of Primary Instruction, 393 

School Attendance, 393 

Local Management, 393 

Examination of Teachers, 393 

Departmental Inspection, 394 

Education of Teachers, 394 

Course of Instruction, 395 

Teachers' Associations, 395 

Fund for Relief of Aged Teachers, 395 

Governmental Prizes to Masters, 395 

Expenditures for School-houses, 395 

Schools embraced in the University of France, 396 

Primary Education in the Communes, 397 

Number of Primary Sch. belong, to each Sect, 397 

Attendance in Primary Schools, 398 

Classes for Adults, and Apprentices, 899 

Statistics of Normal Schools, 399 

,^^tate of Secondary Education, 400 

Primary Education in department of Tarn,.. 401 

Institutions for Special Instruction, 405 

Industrial Instruction, 406 

History of Normal Schools in France, 413 

Abbe de Lasalle in 1681 413 

Normal School of Paris, 1794, 413 

Normal Class of Strasbourg in 1811 414 

Report of Cousin in 1832, 415 

Plan framed by Guizot in 1833, 421 

Number of schools in 1849, 424 

Conferences of Teachers, 425 

Libraries of Teachers, 427 

Pecuniary condition of Teachers, 430 

Institute of Christian Brothers, 435 

Life of John Baptist de Lasalle, 435 

Regulations of Institute, 442 

Primary Normal School at Versailles 447 

" Dijon 449 

Secondary Normal School of Paris, 451 

Polytechnic School of France, 457 

School of Engineers 462 

School of Roads and Bridges, 463 

School of Mines, 462 

Central School of Arts and Manufactures,... 453 

Agricultural Education in France, 467 

Model Farm Schools 468 

Regional Schools of Agriculture, 469 

National Agronomic Institute, 470 

Veterinary Schools, 471 

Reform Farm Schools 474 

Agricultural School at Grignon, 475 

" " " Grand Jouan, 485 

Farm Schools for Juvenile Delinquents, 487 

" " in Switzerland, 487 

" " Wirtemberg, 489 

" " Hamburgh 490 

" " France, 492 

" " Belgium 496 

" " England 497 

Conference respecting Reform schools 497 

Remarks of I). M. Hill 498 

Rev. W. E. Osborn, Bath Prison 502 

Rev. S. Turner, Red Hill Farm School,. 504 
Rev. John Clay, House of Correction,. . . 505 

Rev. T. Carter, Liverpool Jail, 508 

Rev. F. Bishop, Liverpool Domestic Mis- 
sion, 510 

W.Locke, Ragged School Union 511 

A. Thompson, Aberdeen Indust. Schools, 512 
Rev. H. T. Powell. Warwiclc Asylum, 515 

Redemption Institute at Hamburgh, 517 

Visit to, by Prof Stowe, 527 

Mr. Mann 528 

Agricultural Reform School at Mettray 5.33 

Horticultural Reform School at Petit-Bourg, . . 549 

Prison of La Roquette in Paris, 553 

Reform School at Ruysselede in Belgium 557 

Philanthropic Soc. Farm School at Red Hill, . . 578 



BELGIUM. 

Page. 

History of Public Instruction, 583 

Outline of System adopted in 1842, 585 

Primary Schools, 586 

Secondary, 587 

Superior, 588 

Special and Industrial, 588 

Industrial Education, 588 

Normal Instruction, 591 

Teachers' Conferences, 592 

Normal School 594 

Reform School at Ruysselede, 555 

HOLLAND. 

History of Primary Instruction, 595 

Outline of System. School Inspection 595 

Regulations as to examination of teachers, . . . 601 

" " school inspectors, 603 

" " general order of Primary 

Schools, 605 

Regulations respecting Religious Instruction, 606 

Table. Primary Education in 1846, 608 

Primary School at the Hague 619 

" Normal School at Harlaem, 617 

HAMBURGH. 
Rauen-Hause, or Redemption Institute at 
Horn Sir 

DENMARK. 
Outline of System of Public Education, 619 

SWEDEN. 
Outline of System of Public Education, 621 

NORWAY. 
Outline of System of Public Education, 623 

RUSSIA. 

History of Public Instruction 625 

Statistics of schools in 1850, 627 

GREECE. 
Outline of System, and Statistics in 1852,. 



633 



FTALY. 
Outline of System in Lombardy and Venice, 635 

" " " " Sardinia, 640 

" " " " Tuscany, 643 

" " " " Rome, 644 

" " " " Naples, 645 

SPAIN. 
Regulations respecting Normal Schools, 647 

PORTUGAL. 
Outline and Statistics of Public Education,.. 646 

SCOTLAND. 

History of Parochial Schools, 651 

Normal School of the Church of Scotland, .. . 661 

School of Free Church, 671 

IRELAND. 

History of National Education, 677 

Legislation of Henry VIII., 685 

Protestant Charter Schools, 677 

Kildare Place Society 669 

Commissioners of English Parliament, 678 

" Notional Education, 766 

Results of the System, 679 

1. Attendance of Cath. and Prot. children, 679 

2. Teachers 680 

3. Different grades of schools 685 

4. School-houses, 689 

5. School-books, 689 



8 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN EUROPE. 



Page. 

6. System of Inspection, 689 

7. Appropriations, 690 

8. Influence on England 691 

Training Department and Model Schools, ... 693 

Agricultural Education, 699 

Professor3hi[)S in Queen's Colleges, 699 

Agricultural Department in National System, 700 

Model Farm at Glasnevin, 703 

List of Lectures at Glasnevin, 707 

National School at Larne, 707 

Dunmanway Model School, 709 

Workhouse Agricultural School, 710 

Operations of similar Schools in England,. 710 

Queen's Colleges and University, 711 

ENGLAND. 

History of Public Elementary Schools, 721 

Cloister and Cathedral Schools, 721 

Benefit of Clergy to those who could read, 722 

Grammar and Free Schools, 723 

Amount of Educational endowments, 724 

Voluntary Associations to promote schools, 725 

Sunday Schools 726 

Monitorial System, 727 

Joseph Lancaster, 728 

Andrew Bell 727 

British and Foreign School Society, 728 

National Society, 729 

Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, 729 

Religions Tract Society, 729 

School for Adults, 729 

Evening Schools, 729 

Infant Schools, 730 

Mechanics Institution, 730 

Society for Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 731 

Central Society of Education, 731 

Ragged School Union 731 

Philanthropic Society's Reform School 732 

Schools for Pauper Children, 733 

Education of Children in Factories, 746 

Schools of Industry, 733 

Schools of Design, 734 

Lancashire Public School Society, 734 

National Public School Association, 734 

Parliamentary action in behalf of Schools, . . 735 

Bill of Mr. Whitbread in 1807, 735 

Education Committee in 1816, 736 

Bill of Mr. Brougham 1820, 736 

Educational Charities, 736 

Education Inquiry of, 1833, 736 

Educational grant in 1833, 736 

Report of Select Committee of 1834 736 

Efforts ot\Lord Brougham in 1835 and 1837, 737 

Committee of Council in 1839, 739 

Action of Committee of Council on Education, 740 
Appointment of James P. Kay, as Secretary, 741 

Aid towards School Buildings, 741 

" Normal School Buildings, .... 741 

" Normal Pupils, 741 

" Salaries of Teachers 741 

" Apprentice Teachers, 741 

" School-books and Apparatus,. 742 

" Inspection of Schools, 742 

Summary of results up to 1852, 745 

Remarks of T. B. Macauley, 747 

Thomas Carlyle, 750 

History and Condition of Normal Schools or 

Training Colleges 751 

Examination Papers on School Management 
and Alt of Teaching, 757 



Page. 
Normal School of British and Foreign School 

Society 761 

Normal Department for Young Men 763 

Course of Conversational Reading, 775 

(iuestio'ns to test a School, 777 

Model School 779 

Female Department of Normal School,.... 780 

Hints to Candidates for Admission 784 

Normal and Model Schools of the Home and 

Infant School Society 787 

Qualifications of Cand idates, 787 

Course of Instruction for Teachers 789 

Graduated Course in the Model School, 795 

Syllabus of Lectures on Education, 800 

St. Mark's College, or Training Establishment 

for Masters for National Schools, 805 

General Plan, by Rev. Derwent Coleridge,. 806 

Musical Instruction, 812 

Industrial Occupations, 814 

Schools of Practice, 816 

Oral Teaching 820 

Battersea Normal School, 823 

Condition of the Laboring Poor, 824 

Training nf Pauper Children, . , 824 

Visit to Normal Schools of Switzerland,. .. 826 

External Training of the Pupils 826 

Gymnastic Exercises, 830 

Excursions into the Country, 831 

Household Life 832 

Intellectual Training, 836 

Phonic Method of Teaching Reading, 837 

Arithmetic, 838 

Elements of Mechanics 839 

Geography, 839 

Drawing 840 

Vocal Music 842 

Lectures on Pedagogics, 843 

Motives and Habits 844 

Training of Teachers for Large Towns,. . . 844 

Formation of Character, 846 

Religious Life 849 

Theory and Practice of Teaching 851 

Results of the Experiment, 852 

Chester Diocesan Training College, 855 

Commercial and Agricultural School, 856 

Model School 862 

Statistics of the Diocese, 863 

Industrial Training 867 

Regularity of Attendance, 872 

Normal Schools for Female Teachers, 875 

Whiteland Institution, 875 

Salisbury Diocesan Institute 876 

Lectures on the Principles of Education,.... 877 

" Practice of Education 878 

Kneller Hall Training School for Teachers of 

Pauper Children, 879 

Number of Pauper Children, 879 

" Juvenile Criminals, 879 

Condition of, as to Education, 879 

Parish Apprenticeship, 880 

Pauperism Hereditary, 880 

Workhouse Schools 881 

Industrial Instruction, 882 

District Pauper Schools, 884 

Training School for Teachers, 885 

Industrial Department of, 888 

Daily Routine, 886 

Discipline, 888 

Order of Lessons, 889 

Model Pauper School 890 



INDEX. 



Aberdeen, industrial schools, 512, 731. 
Adults, schools and classes for, 269, 399, 729. 
Adventure schools in Scotland, 609. 
Agriculture, schools of, in France, 467, 
Ireland, 699. 
" Wirteinberg, 307. 

" " Belgium, 589. 

" Russia, 626. 

Agricultural education, 467. 

" colonies, 487, 557. 

Agronomic institute at Versailles, 470. 
Alfort, veterinary school at, 472. 
Alphabet, how taught. 51. 
Amusement, taste and habit of, cultivated, 494. 
Annaburg, military orphan school at, 115. 
Annuaire des deux mondes, e.xtracts from, 406. 
Anthropology, 361. 
Apparatus, for primary schools, 267. 
" " polytechnic, 103, 336. 

" agricultural, 467, 473, 336. 
" " veterinary, 472. 

Apprentices, house or family for, 410, 412. 

" schools, 590. 

Architecture, study of, 164,486. 
Arithmetic, how taught, 6(1, 63, 130, 137, 617. 
Arts, schools of, in Prussia, 155, 1.59. 

• Berlin, 159. 

" " " " Vienna, 335. 

" " " " France, 406. 

" " " England, 734. 
Ashley, Lord, 511. 

Association of teachers, 179, 298, 364, 425, 592. 
Attendance, law respecting, in Prussia, 95, 121. 
" " " Baden, 294. 

" " " Saxony, 266. 

" " " Bavaria, 313. 

" " " Switzerland, 342. 

Atcham union workhouse school, 711. 
Athenaeum in Belgium, 587. 
Austria, 325. 
System of public instruction, 32.5. 
" popular schools, 325. 
" upper schools, 326. 
" commercial academies, 326. 
" high schools for girls, 326. 
" gymnasia, 326. 
" lyceum, 326. 
" university, 326. 
" inspection, 329. 
Regulations respecting teachers, 331. 
System of normal schools, 333. 
Polytechnic institute at Vienna, 335. 
Statistics of elementary schools, 338. 
" secondary schools, 339. 
" superior, 339. 
" academies of science, 340. 

Baehe, A. D., Report on Education in Europe, 3. 
" " extracts from, 81, 85, 117, 139, 122, 
273, 457, 599. 



Baden, 293. 

School authorities, 293. 

System of primary schools, 293. 

Educational statistics of Baden, 293. 
" school attendance, 294. 
" internal organization, 294. 
" plan of instruction, 296. 

Evening classes, 297. 

Sunday classes, 297. 

Industrial instruction, 297. 

Education of children in factorieSj 297. 

Teachers' conferences, 298. 

Normal seminary at Carlsruhe, 300. 
Bamberg, normal school at, 314. 
Basedow, 25. 

Battersea, training college at, 823. 
Bavaria, 314. 

System of primary schools, 313. 

Normal seminary at Bamburg, 314. 

Plan of seminary by Jacobi, 314. 

Educational statistics, 315. 

Mr. Kay's estimate of public schools. 316. 

Dr. Grazer's system of instruction, 319. 

Common school at Bayreuth, 320. 
Bayreuth, Dr. Grazer's method at, 319. 
Beckendorf on self-education, 254. 
Belgium, 583. 

History of public instruction, 583. 

Outline of system adopted in 1842, 585. 

Primary schools, 586. 

Secondary, 537. 

Superior, 588. 

Special and industrial, 588. 

Industrial education, 588. 

Normal instruction, 591. 

Teachers' conferences, 592. 

Normal school, 593 

Reform school at Ruysselede, 555. 
Bell, Andrew, system of sciiools, 727. 
Benefit of clergy, 722. 

Berlin, schools of, 118, 124, 127, 142, 148, 233. 
Berne, association of teachers of, 36't. 
Bernhardt, teachers' conference by, 243. 
Bible in Prussian schools, 53, 73. 
Black-book, 135. 

Blockman college at Dresden, 280. 
Boarding round, 168. ' 

Books. 93, 110, 689, 403. 
Borough Road normal school, 761. 
Brevet de capacity, 423. 
British and Foreign School Society, 761. 
Brougham, Henry (Lord,) educational services, 735. 

" " extracts from, 754, 737. 

Brothers, institute of, at Horn, 491, 501, 524. 

" of the Christian doctrine, 436. 
Briihl, normal school at, 207. 
Burgh school in Scotland, 669. 
Burgher school, detinition of, 92. 
" " in Berlin, 123. 

" Halle, 112. 



10 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN EUROPE. 



Burgher school in Leipsic, 273. 
Bursary or gratuity to teachers, 421, 618. 

Campe. 25. 

Cnrlsriihe, normal school at, 300. 

Carter, Rev. 'J'., remarks on young criminals, 308. 

Carved wood work, school for, 410. 

Cathedral schools, 721. 

Catholic church and schools, 17, 75, 183, 206. 

" cantons in Switzerland, 343. 
Central society of education. 731. 
Central school of arts in Paris, 408, 463. 
Certificate to pupils leaving school, 93. 

" " teachers in Prussia, 166, 188. 

" " " Sa.xony, 263. 

" " " France, 423. 

'• England, 753. 

Chalmers, Dr., on parochial schools of Scotland, 658 
Chemistry, 459, 460. 
Chester, training college at, 855. 
Children, personal appearance, 75, 105, 109. 

" rich and poor in same school, 105,^09. 

" catholics and protestants, 343, 428. 
Christian Brothers, 435, 420. 

" knowledge society, 729. 
Christmas at a reform school, 522. 
City Trade School at Berlin, 155. 
Classical instruction, 156, 281, 383. 
Classification in schools, 60, 103. 107. 
Clay, Rev. J., on crime, &c.,'515. 
Cloister schools, 19, 279. 
Coleman, H., extracts from, 475, 548. 
Coleridge, Derwent, 806. 
Collective teaching, 775. 
College in French system, 383, 400. 

" training. See Training College, 
Comenius, 20. 
Commercial school, 337. 
Committee. See School Committee. 
Committee of council on edncntion, 739. 
Common as applied to school, 401. 
Composition, how taught, ,56. 
Compulsory school attendance, 21, 95, 121, 342. 
Concours, nature of, 392. 

Conference of teachers in Prussia, 167, 169, 243. 
" Baden, 298 
" " " " France, 425. 

" " " " Belgium, 592. 

" respecting reformatory schools, 497. 
Conversation, exercises in, 50, 60, 66. 
Conservatory of arts in Paris, 467, 407. 
Correction, house of, 492. 
Courses of study, 49, 92, 115, 119, 126, 127, 140, 

152. 156. 
Courteilles, Viscount, labors at Mettray, 534. 
Cousin, extracts from, 382, 414, 598. 

" on Prussian schools, 382. 
" Holland, .597. 

" " normal schools, 414, 
Cramming system discarded, 270. 
Crime, juvenile, 732. 
Cuvier on schools of Holland, 597. 

Demetz, founder of Mettray reform school, 493. 
Denmark, 619. 

Outline of system, 620, 

Iceland, 620. 
Denzel, teachers' manual by, 303. 
Diaconissen Anstalt at Kaiserswerth, 236, 
Dick's bequest, 663. 

Didactic, or art of teaching, 222, 843, 851. 
Diesterweg, Dr., 127. 
Dijon, normal school at, 447. 
Diocesan schools in England, 85.5, 876. 
Diploma to teachers, 173, 188, 263. 
Discipline in polytechnic schools, 461. 
" normal schools. 449, 455. 

Dismission of a teacher, 265. 
Domergue on primary schools, 401. 
Dorothean Higher City School in Berlin, 124. 
Drawing, how taught, 59, 66, 51, 154, 320, 460. 



Dresden, schools in, 261, 268, 272, 278. 

Dublin, normal schools at, 693. 

Ducpetiaux, E ; report on reform schools, 496. 

" extracts from, 517, 532 549, 557. 

Dunmanwny, model agricultural school, 7U9. 
Dupin, Charles, educational map of France, 401. 
Dwelling-house for teacher, J 67, 259, 652, 394. 

Ecclesiastical authority as to schools, 183, 327. 
Edinburgh, normal schools at, 661, 671. 
Eislehen, normal seminary of, 218. 
Elberfeld, schools in, 97. 
Elementary schools, 92. 
Employment of young children, 97, 226,297. 
Encouragements to pupils, 1J2. 
Endowed schools, 103, 279, 668, 723, 736. 
England, 721. 

History of public elementary schools. 721. 

Cloister and cathedral schools, 721. 

Benefit of clergy to those who could read, 722. 

Grammar and free schools, 723. 

Amount of educational endowments. 724. 

Voluntary associations to promote schools, 725. 

Sunday schools, 726. 

Monitorial system, 727. 

Joseph Lancaster. 728. 

Andrew Bell, 727. 

British and Foreign School Society, 728. 

National society, 729. 

Society for promoting Christian knowledge, 729. 

Religions tract society, 729. 

School for adults, 729. 

Evening schools, 729. 

Infant schools, 730. 

Mechanics' institution, 730. 

Society for diffusion of useful knowledge, 731. 

Central society of education, 731. 

Ragged school union, 731. 

Philanthropic society's reform school, 732. 

Schools for pauper children, 733. 

Education of children in factories. 746. 

Schools of in.Uistry, 733. 

Schools of design, 734. 

Lancashire public school society, 734. 

National public school association, 734. 

Parliamentary action in behalf of schools, i35. 

Action of Committee of Privy Council, 740. 

Remarks of T. B. Maca\ilay, 747. , 

" Thomas Carlyle, 750. 

History and condition of normal schools, 751. 

Examination papers on school management and 
art of teaching, 757. 

Normal school of British and Foreign School So- 
ciety, 761. 

Normal department for young men, 763. 

Course of conversational reading, 775. 

Questions to test a school, 777. 

Model school, 779. 

Female department of normal school, 780. 

Hints to candidates for,*id mission, 784. 

Normal and model schools of the Home and In- 
fant School Society, 787. 

Syllabus of lectures on education, 800. 

St. Mark's college, or training school, 805. 

Battersea normal school, 823. 

Chester diocesan training college, 855. 

Normal schools for female teachers, 875. 

Lectures on the principles of education, 877. 
" " practice of education, 878. 

Kneller Hall training school, 879. 

Conference respecting reform schools, 497. 

philanthropic sue, farm school at Red Hill, 578. 
Engineers, schools for, 461, 588. 
English language, 837. 
" literature, 837. 
Esslingen, normal school at, 310. 
Evening schools, 297, 685, 729. 
Examination, public, 271. 
" oral, 460. 

" by written questions, 231. 

" of teachers in Prussia, 230. 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN EUROPE. 



11 



Exaniiimtiun of teiichers in Saxony, 264, 270. 
' " " France, 423. 

Holland. 601. 
" for universities, 14:!, 14.5. 

Example, influence of, in teachers, 253. 
Exhibition for poor scholars, 422. 

Factory children in Prussia. 96. 
" " " Baden, 2!I7. 

" " " England, 74(). 

Family arrangement at reform schools, 545. 
Farm schools for young criminals, 487. 
Feblnger, 31. 

Fees, or tuition, 176, 596, 599, 658, 746. 
Felbiger, 25. 
Fellenberg's institute at Hofvvyl, 351. 

" principles of education, 354. 

" normal course, 3,57. 

Female teachers, 179, 235, 240. 

" normal schools for, 235. 240, 404, 767. 
Fleidner, institute at Kaiserswerth, 236. 
Fletcher normiil seminary, 272. 
Foreman in reform schools, how trained, 491, 535, 

554. 562. 
Forestry, schools of, 307. 
Formal instruction, 203. 
Fr.vnce, 381. 

History of popular education, 381. 

Ordinances of national convention, 381. 

Decrees of Napoleon, 381. 

Law of the government of Louis Phillippe, 382. 

Report of Victor Cousin, 382. 

Speech of M. Guizot, 387. 

Degrees of primary instruction, 387. 

Local and state inspection, 388. 

Professional education of teachers, 389. 

Mission of the teacher, 389. 

Society of elementary instruction, 390. 

Outline of system in 1850, .391. 

University of France, 391. 

Council of public instruction, .391. 

Academies, 391. 

Royal colleges, 392. 

System of competion for professorship, 392. 

System of primary instruction, 393. 

School attendance, 393. 

Local management, 393. 

Examination of Teachers, 393. 

De|)artmental inspection, 394. 

Education of teachers. 394. 

Course of instruction, 395. 

Teachers' associations, 395. 

Fund for relief of aged teachers, 395. 

Governmental prizes to masters, 395. 

Expenditures for school-houses, 395, 

Schools embraced in university of France, 39fi 

Primary education in the communes, 397. 

Number of primary sch. belong, to each sect, 397 

Attendance in primary schools, 398. 

Classes for adults, and apprentices, 899. 

Statistics of normal schools, 399. 

State of secondary education, 400. 

Primary education in department of Tarn, 401. 

Institutions for special in.struction, 405. 

" " industrial instruction, 406. 

History of normal schools in France, 413. 

Conferences of teachers, 425. 

Libraries of teachers, 427 

Pecuniary condition of teachers, 430. 

Institute of Christian Brothers, 435. 

Primary normal school at Versailles, 447. 
" ■ " " " Dijon, 449. 

Secondary normal school of Paris, 451. 

Polytechnic school of France, 457. 
" " engineers, 462. 

" " roads and bridges, 462. 

" " mines, 462. 

Central school of arts and manufactures, 453. 

.Agricultural education in France, 467. 

Model farm schools, 468. 

Regional schools of agriculture, 469. 



National agronomic institute, 470 

Veterinary schools, 471. 

Reform farm schools, 474. 

Agricultural school at Grignon, 475. 

" " " Grand Jouan, 485. 

Farm schools for juvenile delinquents, 487. 

Agricultural reform school at Mettray, 533. 

Horticultural reform school at Petit-Bourg, 549. 

Prison of I^a Roquette in Paris, 553. 
Franke, educational labors of, 21. 
" teachers' class, 24. 
" orphan-house, 21, 112. 
Frederick William Gymnasium, Berlin, 148. 
Free church of Scotland, 669. 

" schools, 325. 
French language, how taught, 137, 142, 154. 
Freres Chretiens, 441. 
Freyberg, school of mines at, 289. 
Funds, must not diminish school rate or tax, 167. 

I Gallery lesson, 720, 801. 
I Garden for teacher, 167. 
I Gardening, art of, acquired by teachers, 203,431,815. 

Geography, how taught, 68, 114, 131, 138, 613. 
I Geometry, how taught, 131, 137. 

Germany, 17. 
I History of education, 17. 
! Parochial schools, 18. 
Public schools, 19. 
Martin Luther, 19. 
Augustus Herrman Franke, 21. 
Orphan-house at Halle, 21. 
Basedow, 25. 
Pestalozzi, 25. 
Zeller, 29. 

Centennial birth-day of Pestalozzi, 30. 
Progress of normal schools, 31. 
General features of the school systems, 32. 
Table. Normal schools in Germany in 1848,34. 
Results of the normal school system, 35. 
Course of instruction in ))rimnry schools, 49. 
For children between ages of six and eiglit, 50. 
Fjr children from ten to twelve, 55. 
Children from twelve to fourteen, 57. 
Extracts from report of Hon. H. Mann, 60. 
Testimony of Joseph Kay, Esq., as to the practi- 
cal working of the Prim. Sch. of Germany, 74. 
Glasnevin, agricultural school at, 683. 
Government, educational duty of, 76, 387, 747, 750. 
Graded schools, 102. 
Grammar, how taught, 54, 56, 59, 65. 
Grand Jouan, agricultural school at, 485. 
Grazer, system of instruction of, 319. 
Greece, 633. 

Outline of system, and statistics in 1852, 633. 
Greek church, 628. 
Grignon, agricultural school at, 475. 
Guizot, plan of schools for France, 387. 

" extracts from, 387. 
Gymnasium, in Prussia, 105, 139. 
" " Saxony, 279. 

" " Austria, 326. 

Gymnastics, 830. 

Hague, primary school at, 609. 
Halle, orphan-house at, 21, 113. 

" burgher school at, 112. 
Hamburgh, reform school at, 517. 
Hamilton, Sir William, extract from, 91, 382. 
Harnisch, method of teaching reading, 114. 

'■ plan of studies, 115. 
Hebrewschools, 311, 631. 
Hecker, 24, 31. 

Hermann, seminary for classic teachers, 259. 
Hesse Cassel, 311. 
Hickson, W. E. German nationality, 7. 

" " schools in Holland, 24,597. 

Higher burgher school, 124, 127, 135. 
Hill, M. D., on juvenile crime, 498. 
Hitchcock, E., Report on agricultural schooll,703. 
" extF^cts from, 469, 703. 



12 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN EUROPE. 



Hofwyl, Fellenberg's establishment at, 351. 
Hohenheim, agricultural institute at, 307. 
Holland, 595. 

History of primary instruction, .595. 

Outline of system. School inspection, 595. 

Regulations as to examination of teachers, 601. 
" " school inspectors, 003. 

" " primary schools, 605. 

Regulations respecting religious instruction, 606. 

Table. Primary education in 1846, 608. 

Primary school at the Hague, 609. 

" normal school at Harlaem, 617. 
Home and colonial infant school society, 721, 746. 
Horn, reform school at, 517. 
Horology, practical school of, 410. 

Iceland, family instruction, 620. 
Iferten. See Yverdim. 
Ignorance and crime, 749. 
Indigent children, 487. 
Induction, methods of, 117, 128. 
Industry, school of, 733. 

Industrial instruction, in normal schools, 187, 367. 
" " primary schools, 297, 687. 

" " pauper schools, 882. 

" " reform schools, 487. 

" " special schools, 406. 

^ Infant schools, 730. 

Inspection of schools in Austria, 327, 329. 
Baden, 293. 
" " . " England, 742. 

France, 388, 394. 
Holland, .596, 603. 
" '• " Ireland, 689. 

" " " Suxonv, 258.. 

" " " Spain; 649. 

" " " Switzerland, 347. 

" " " Wirtemberg, 302. 

Institute of arts at Berlin, 159. 

" " agriculture at Hohenheim, 307. 
Instruction, methods of, 43, 50, 60, 91, 110, 113, 128. 
Intellectual education, 836. 
Ionian Islands, schools in, 634. 
Ireland, 675. 
History of national education, 675. 
Legislation of Henry Vlll., 676. 
Protestant charter schools, 676. ^ 
Kildare-place society, 677. 
Commissioners of English Parliament, 677. 
" National Education, 677. 

Results of the system, 678. 
Training department and model schools, 693. 
Agricultural education, 699. 
Professorships in dueeii's Colleges, 699. 
Agricultural department in national system, 700. 
Model farm at Glasnevin, 703. 
List of lectures at Glasnevin, 707. 
National school at Lame, 707. 
Dunmanway model school, 709. 
Workhouse agricultural school, 710. 
Operations of similar schools in England, 710. 
Queen's Colleges and University, 711. 
Irregular attendance, 266. 
Italy, 635. 

System in Lombardy and Venice, 635. 
" " Sardinia, 640. 
" " Tuscany. 643. 
" " Rome, 644. 
" " Naples, 645. 
Itinerant schools in Norway, 623. 

Jacobi, plan of normal school by, 314. 

Julius, Dr., Prussian schools as they were, 241. 

Journals of education, 46, 182, 390. 

Journal of Education, London, e.ttract from, 401. 

Jury of examination, 460. 

Juvenile crime, origin of, 493. 

" cost of, 501, 503. 

" criminals, school for in Belgium, 496, 557. 

" " " " France, 492. 

" " " " Wirtemberg, 489. 



Juvenile criminals, school for, in Hamburgh, 490. 
" " " " England, 497. 

" " " " Switzerland, 487. 

" " conference respecting, 497. 

Kaiserswerth, school for nurses, governesses, 236 
Kay, Joseph, on education of jieople, 94. 

extracts from, 74, 94, 222, 226, 261, 
305,315,341,367,441. 
Kay, James Phillips. See ShiiUleworth. 
Kneller Hall, 879. 
Kindermaim, 31. 

Kirk session, nature and power of, 6.55. 
Kirkpatrick, Dr., on agricultural schools, 700. 
Knighton, W., lectures on teaching by, 877. 
Koenigsberg, seminary for teachers at, 83. 
Kribben, or nursery schools, 730. 
Kruitzlingen, normal school at, 367. 
Kussnaclit, normal school at, 373. 

Lalor, author of prize essay, 731. 
Lamartine, on duty of educated men, idii 
Lancashire public school association, 734. 
Lancaster, Joseph, 727. 
Lancasterian system, in England, 728. 
" " Denmark, 620. 

> " " Holland, 595, 610. 

" '■ Prussia, 106. 

" •• Spain, 647. 

Landed proprietors, duties to poor children, 106. 
Lap-bag, for needlework, 780. 
Ltt Roquette, prison of, 555. 
Larne, agricultural school at, 707. 
Lasalle, Abbe de, educational labors of, 435. 
Lastadie, normal school at, 192, 
Lateran, council of, 18 
Latin, how taught, 137, 285 813. 
Lausanne, normal school at, 378. 
Learned societies, 405. 
Liberty of instruction, 584. 
Libraries for teachfers, 427. 
Lierre, normal school at, 593. 
Liepsic, burgher school in, 273. 

" real school. 273. 

" seminary for classic teachers, 259. 
Locke, John, 25. 
Lombardy. schools in, 635. 
Lucerne, normal school nt, 380. 
Luther, Martin, educational labors of, 19. 

" letter to elector of Saxony, 19. 

" address in behalf of Christian schools, 19. 
Lyceum, in Austria, 326. 
France, 383. 

Macauley, T. B. on public schools, 747. 

Madras system, of Dr. Bell, 727. 

Mnlthus, on state of schools in England, 726. 

Manufactures, schools of, 406. 

Management clauses, 744. 

Manners of school children, 305, 77. 

Mann, Horace, report on schools of Europe, 4. 

" extracts from, 39, 60, 528. 
Manufacturing districts, 96, 266, 297, 325. 
Marienweider, normal school for females at, 236. 
Material instruction, 203. 
Map-drawing, 69, 015. 
Maynooth, 713. 

Mc Neil, Sir John, on agricultural schools, 701. 
Mechanics, science of, 866. 
Mechanics' Institutions, 730 
Mecklenberg, duchy of, 311. 
Mental arithmetic, 64. 
Methodick, 206. 

Mercantile and commercial schools, 335, 856. 
Methods of teaching left with teacher, 93, 110. 
Mettrav, reform school at, 533. 
Middle schools, 91. 
Milne's Free .School, 668. 
Mines, schools of, 2«9, 462, 410. 
Minutes of committee of council on education, 739. 
Military schools, 590, 631. 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN EUROPE. 



13 



Military orphan schools, 115, 532. 
Mixed schools, 79, 98, 401. 
Model farm school, 468, 532. 

" schools, annexed to normal schools, 165. 
Models for drawing, 1U3. 
Monasteries, schools in, 279, 72]. 
Monitorial system, 106, 401, 610. 
Monitors, 106, 175, 343. 
Moral Education, 355. 
More, Sir Thomas, extract from, 725. 
Mother school of Christian Brothers, 352. 
Motives to study, 145. 
Miilhauser's system of writing, 838. 
Munich, 317. 

Music, 74, 126, 131, 211, 228, 842. 
Mutual instruction, 107, 610, 729. 

Nassau, duchy of, 311. 

National society, in England, 729. 

Natural history, how taught, 131, 866, 

Nature, knowledge of. 70, 137. 

Naval schools, 405, 625. 

Navigation, 589, 625. 

Needle work in school, 780, 590. 

" taught by teachers' wives, 432. 
Neufchatel, 343, 349. 
New Lanark, infant school at, 730. 
Nichols, G., extracts from, 598. 
Non-attendance at school, 403. 
Normal schools, definition of, 31, 333. 

" " remarks on by C. E. Stowe, 35. 

" " " A. D. Bache, 39. 

" " " H. Mann, 39. 

" E. Ryerson, 45. 

" L. Stephens, 46. 

" " " Joseph Kay, 183, 232. 

" " " Shuttleworth, 826. 

' " " V. Cousin, 414. 

;| " 'I M. Guizot, .388. 

Lord Brougham, 751. 
history of, 20, 30, 413, 661, 751. 
" " number and condition of, — 

" in Prussia, 165, 172, 185, 189, 190. 
" " Saxon V, 259, 261. 

" " Wirteiiiberg, 310, 305. 

" " Austria, 333. 

" " Switzerland, 343, 357, 366, 37.3, 

" " Bavaria, 313. , 

" " Baden, 300. 

" " Hesse Cussel, 312. 

" " France, .399, 421, 431, 447, 451. 

" " Spain, 647. 

" Portugal, 646. 

" Russia. 627. 

" " Belgium, 591. 

" Holland, 617, 844. 

" " Denmark, 620. 

"■" " Greece, 634. 

" " England. 751. 

" " Ireland, 693. 

" " Scotland, 661, 671. 

" " Germany, 34. 

" " different grades of, 189. 415. 

" " forfemaleteachers,235, 404, 594, 875. 

" catholic teachers, 207. 

" " protestant teachers, 317, 197. 

" " teachersof primary schools, 191. 

" secondarvschools, 451. I 

259, 264. 
" j] " pauper children, 879. 

" reform schools, 490. 

524. 535. 
II " " agricultural do., 700. 

" " " city schools, 440, 233. 

" ruraldislricts, 415, 445 

" " description of particular, — 

" " in Prussia. Lastadie, 192. 

" " " " Pyritz, 194. 

" " " Potsdam, 197. 
" " " " Bruhl, 207. 

" " " " Eisleben, 218. 



Normal schools in Prussia, Weissenfels, 219. 
»' " Berlin, 233. 
" " " " Kaiserswerth, 236. 

" " " Saxony. Leipsic, 259. 

" " " " Dresden, 261. 

" " " Baden. Carlsruhe, 300. 

" " " Wirtemberg. Esslingen, 310. 

" " " Hesse Cassel. Schluchtern, 312. 

" " " Bavaria. Bamberg, 314. 

" " " " Schwabach, 314. 

" " " Austria. Vienna, 333. 

" " " Switzerland. Hofwyl, 357. 

" " " " Kruitzlingen, 367. 

" " " " Zurich, 372. 

" '' " Switzerland. Kussnacht, 373. 

" " Lausanne, 378. 

" " Lucerne, 380. 

" " France. Paris, 451. 

" " " Versailles, 447. 

" " " Dijon, 449. 

" " Belgium. Lierre, 593. 

Holland. Harlaem, 617. 
" Scotland. Edinburgh, 661, 671. 
" " Ireland. Dublin, 693. 

" England. Boroughroad, Lon.761. 
j " " " Chester, 8.55. 

Chelsea, 80.5. 
" " " Battersea, 833. 

I " " " Whiteland, 875. 

" " . " Kneller Hall, 879. 

" " administration and instruction of, — 

" direction of, 197, 219, 233,262, 373, 617. 
" " buildings and fixtures, 197, 207, 367. 

I " " domestic arrangements, 225, 227, 233, 

I 262, 367, 202, 421, 447, 449. 

" " director, or principal of, 416. 

I " " discipline of, 449, 455, 018. 

" " plan of study, 416. 

{ " " expenses, &c., 197, 229, 424, 421. 

[ " " number of teachers, 198. 217, 261, 305 

I " " " of pupils, 198, 208, 261. 

! " " age of admission, 422, 810. 

" " conditions of admission, 165, 185, 199, 

I 219, 226, 232, 261, 303, 617, 694. 

i " " pledge to teach, 422. 

" " course and subjects of study, 186, 192, 

218, 272, 300, 306, 312, 372, 376, 378. 
" " length of course, 166, 184, 220, 225 

260, 261, 333, 617. 
" physical, 209, 225. 
" " intellectual, 180, 201, 213. 

" " moral and religious, 196, 211, 220, 225. 

234. 
" " industrial, 187, 814, 881, 888. 

" " science of teaching, 229, 232, 234, 617. 

" " art of teaching, 204, 216, 234, 262, 6I7! 

" " musical education, 228, 280. 

" " examination for diploma, 166, 188, 204, 

230, 262, 423. 
" " privileges of graduates. 189. 

" " general results of, 35, 39, 755. 

Norway, 623. 

Outline of system of public education, 623. 
Norwood, industrial school for paupers, 733. 
Novitiate of the Christian Brothers, 444. 
Nursery schools, 730. 
Nurses, training of, 236. 

Oberlin, J. J., author of infant schools, 730. 

Observation, how cultivated, 50, 206. 

Oral instruction, 761, 612. 

Order of exercises in school. See Time Table. 

Organization of public schools. See Prussia, 

France, S-c. 
Orphans, number of, increased by war, 487. 

" of teachers provided for, 181. 

" house for at Halle, 21, 112. 

" " " " Annaburg, 115. 

Osborn, Rev. W. C, on cost of crime, 502. 
Outline maps, 69, 613. 
Overberg, Bernard, labors of, 247. 



14 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN EUROPE. 



Overseers of schools in Austria, 330. 

Parents, duties' of, to schools, in Prussia, 74, 7.5. 
" " " " " Bavaria, 313. 

" " " " " Saxony, 266. 

' " France, 393. 

" " " " " Switzerland, 34i2. 

Paris, polytechnic school, 457. 
" normal school at, 451. 
" school of arts, 463. 
Parish or parochial schools, 346, 651. 
Parkhurst, prison for juvenile criminals, 732. 
Patronage society, for discharged criminals, 555. 
Pauperism and education, 350, 879. 
Pauper children, number of, 733, 879. 
" " schools for, 733. 

" " teachers for, 885. 

Pedagogy, 183, 222. 
Pecuniary condition of teacher, 430. 
Pennmanship, see Writing. 
Pensions for disabled teachers, 181,402. 
Periodicals, educational, 46, 183, 390. 
Pestalozzi, educational principles of, 25. 
" system of in Prussia, 83. 
" orphan-house at Neuhof, 487. 
". contrasted with Basedow, 26. 
Petit-Bourg, reform school at, 549. 
Philanthopinum of Basedow, 25. 
Philanthopic society, 578, 

" " reform school of, 578. 

Phonic method, 25, 613, 836. 
Physical education, 138, 144. 
Physiology, 830, 361. 
Pietists, 25. 

Piety of teachers, how shown, 194. 
Play-ground, 106, 274. 
Polytechnic school ut Berlin, 159. 
" " " Vienna, 335. 

" Paris, 457. ' 

Poor schools, in Holland, 609. 
Portugal, 646. 

Potsdam, higher burgher school at, 135. 
" normal school, 197. 

" orphan-bouse, 532. 

Pounds, John, author of ragged schools, 731. 
Practical instruction. 203. 
Practice, or model schools, 165, 204, 216. 
Preparatory normal school, 226. 
Prevention, in school government, 211. 
Preventive schools, conference respecting, 468. 
Primary school in Sa.tony, 269. 
Primary schools. See Prussia, France, <$-c. 
" gradation of, 91, 387, 609. 
" " course of instruction in Germany, 49. 

" " " " " Holland, 609. 

" " " " " " Austria, 327. 

" " " " " " Bavaria, 313. 

" " " " " " France, 401. 

" " " " " " Sa.xony, 258, 

" " " " " " Baden, 296. 

" " inspection of. See Inspection. 

" " teachers of. See Teachers. 

Prince schools, 279. 
Princen's reading board, 612. 
Private schools, 103. 
Pro-seminaries, 226. 

Prussia, description of primary instruction, 81. 
History of primary instruction, 81. 
Outline of system, 85. 
Statistics of primary education in 1848, 88. 
Remarks on progress of primary Schools, 89. 
Subjects and methods of instruction, 91. 
Results, according to Mr. Kay, 94. 
" " Mr Mann, 39. 
" " Mr. Stephens, 46. 
Education of young children, universal, 94. 
School attendance, 95. 
Children employed In factories, 96. 
Voluntary system prior to 1819, 97. 
Schools where the people are of one faith, 98. 
" ' " different do. 98. 



Prussia, Mixed schools, 99. 

Duties of school committee, 99. 

Schools In large towns and cities, 101. 

Advantages of large school;*, 102. 

School-houses, 103. 

Superior primary schools, 105. 

Real schools, gymnasia, endowed schools, 105. 

Large landed proprietors, 106. 

liancasterian method, 106. 

Paid monitors or assistants, 107. 

Text-books, 109. 

Suggestive character of the methods, 110. 

Interest of children In their studies. 111. 

Burgher school at Halle, 112. 

Military orphan-house at Annaburg, 115. 

Public schools of Berlin, 118. 

Elementary schools. 118. 

Burgher schools, 123. 

Dorothean higher city school of Berlin, 124. 

Model school of teachers' seminary. 127. 

Seminary school at Weissenfels, 123. 

Higher burgher school of Potsdam, 135. 

Secondary Instruction in Prussia, 139. 

Frederick William Gymnasium of Berlin, 143. 

Royal real school, 152. 

City trade school, 1.55. 

Institute of Arts, 159. 

Legal provision respecting teachers, 165. 

Testimony of Mr. Kay, 169. 

Social condition, 170. 

Educational advantages, 172. 

Schools preparatory to normal schools, 41, 171. 

Examination on entering, 172. 

Teachers are public officers 174. 

Salaries fixed, and payment certain, 176. 

Fiemale teachers, 178. 

Teachers' conferences, 179. 

Pensions to old and invalid teachers, 181. 

Widows and orphans of deceased teachers, 182. 

Educational periodicals, 182. 

Teachers seminary, or normal colleges, 183. 

Conditions and examinations for entering, 41,185. 

Intellectual training of a seminary, 186. 

Industrial training, 187. 

Diploma, 173, 188. 

Location of normal schools in 1846, 190. 

Small normal schools of Lastadie, 191. 

Small normal school of Pyrifz, 194. 
•Normal school of Potsdam, 197. 

Normal schools at Bruhl, 207. 

Normal seminary In Elsleben, 218. 

Seminary for teachers at Weissenfels, 219. 

Seminary for teachers of city, at Berlin, 233. 

Normal schools for female teachers, 235. 

Seminary at Marienwelder, 236. 

Diaconlssen Anstalt, at Kaisersworlh, 236. 

Prussian schools, a few years ago, 241. 

School counselor, Dinter, 242. 

Journal of a conference of teachers, 243. 

School counselor, Bernhardt, 243. 

Bernard Overberg, 246. 

C. B. Zeller — the influence of example, 253. 

Self examination'— by Beckendorf, 254. 
Publicity of public schools, 75. 
Public schools, rich and poor attend, 75, 316. 

" " protestant and catholic, 63, 317. 

Punishments, in reform schools, 512, 537, 552. 
Pupil teachers, 753. 
Pyritz, normal school at, 194. 

Qualifications required in a teacher in Prussia, 165. 
" " " " Austria, 331. 

" " " " Saxony, 2.59. 

" " " " Ireland, 693. 

" " " " France, 423. 

Queen's College and University in Ireland, 7i3. 

" scholars, in England, 753. 
Questions for self-examination by teachers, 254. 
" " examiners In schools, 777. 

" " on school management and art «f 

teaching,757. 



POBLIC EDUCATION IN EUROPE. 



15 



Ragged schools, origin of, 731. 
Raikes, Robert, and Sunday schools, 726. 
Rambult, 25. 

Rate, or tax for schciuls, 734. 
Ratich, labors of, 20. 
Rauhen-hrtus, at Horn, 490, 517. 
Rnumer, F., extracts from, 635. 
Reading, how taught, 50, 51, 55, 61, 114, 131, 612, 
Realia, 91, 321. 
Real instruction, 56, 59. 
Real schools at Berlin, 152. 
" " " Leipsic, 277. 
" " " Vienna, 335. 
Real objects, lessons on, 70. 
Red Hill, reform school at, 578. 
Reformation, influence of, 18. 
Reform schools for young criminals 487, 559. 
" " public or |)rivate, 557. 

buildings, 493, 5J8, 539, 549, 558. 
" " farm, 559, 561. 

" " family arrangement, 545, 581. 

officers, 519, 53.5, 5,i0, 562. 
foremen, 491, .5.35, .'562, 554. 
" " conditions of admission, 558, 560. 

number, 519, 536, 555, 560. 
age, 520, 561. 
" " previous life, 561, 557. 

" " classification, 518, 550, 564. 

" " dress, 540, 563. 

" " instruction, 519, 538, 566. 

" " employments, 535, 540, 558, 571. 

" " daily routine, 521, 544, 564. 

" " amusements. 522. 

food, 519, .562. 
" " infirmary, 544, 563. 

" " dormitories, 539, 549, 563. 

" " punishment, 541, 552, 569. 

" reward, 495, 530, 553, 568. 
" " meetings of pupils and officers, 569. 

" " discharge, 560. 

cost, 501, 526, 534, 543, 565, 573. 
result, 495. 520, 530, 556, 570. 
" " aid to discharged inmates, 555, 576. 

" " in Switzerland, 487. 

" " " Wirtemberg, 48<L 

" " " Hamburgh, 490,117. 

'' " " France, 492. 

" " Belgium, 496,5.57. 
" " England, 497, 578. 
Reichelen, M., extracts from, 118. [134, 138, 145. 
Religious instruction in Prussia, .53, 55, 57, 73, 124, 
" Holland, 60.% 614. 
" " " Ireland, 679. 

" denominations, 103, 183, 302. 
Regional school of agriculture, 469. 
Repeaters, in French seminaries, 447, 458, 466. 
Repetition schools in Austria, 326. 
Rewards in school, 145. 
Rochow, caiion of, 27, 31. 

Rosier, Abbe, founder of agricultural schools, 467. 
Rousseau, 25. 

Roval real school at Berlin, 152. 
Rules, 862, 209, 211, 618. 
Rural schools or colonies, 487. 
Russia, 625. 

History of Public Instruction, 625. 
Statistics of schools in 1850, 630. 
Ruysselede, reform school at, 557. 
Ryerson, Dr., extracts from, 45. 

Salaries of teachers, 176, 265, 302, 432. 

Salle, Abbe de la. See Lasalle. 

Salzman, 25. 

Sampson, Abbot, 721. 

Sand, writing in, suggested the Madras system, 727. 

Sardinia, 640. 

Savings' society for teachers, 433, 444. 

BA..XONY, 257. 

System of primary instruction, 257. 

Institution for superannuated teachers, 259. 

Statistics of schools, 260.. 



Saxony, Royal sem. for teachers at Dresden, 261. 
Examination for teachers' diplomas, 262. 
Protection of teachers' rights, 265. 
Compuliorv attendance at school, 266. 
School buildings, 267. 
Primary schools of Dresden, 268. 
Saxon Sunday schools, 268. 
Plan of Sunday school at Dresden, 269. 
Public examination of the schools, 271. 
Fletcher normal seminary at Dresden, 272. 
Burgher school at Leipsic, 273. 
Plan of instruction, 275. 
Public schools of Leipsic and Dresden, 278' 
Secondary education in Snxony, 279. 
Blochmann Gymnasium at Dresden, 280. 
School of mines at Freyberg 289. 
Sears, Barnas, extracts fnjni, 19. 
Secondary education, in Austria, 326, 339. 

" Prussia, 139. 

" " " " Saxony, 279. 

" " " " Russia, 627. 

" " France, 400. 

" normal schools at Paris, 451. 

Sects, can unite in same school system, 75, 79, 99 

102, 343. 
Seminary for teachers. See JVonnal Schools. 
Seminary school at Berlin, 127. 

" '' '' Weissenfels, 133. 
Sessional school in Scotland, 655. 
Sexes, separation of, in schools, 490. 
Seydlitz, endowment for schools of arts, 1.59. 
Schluchtern, normal school at, 312. 
Schmidt, method of drawing, 154. 
Scholars. See Pupils. 
School fittings, requisites of, 38. 
School-houses and furniture in Austria, 329. 
" " " Baden, 78. 

" " " England, 742. 

" " France, 395. 

" Prussia, 61, 78, 108. 
" Ireland, 689. 
School-houses and furniture in Saxony, 267. 
School committee, local, in Prussia, 98. 
" " " •• Saxony, 258. 

" " " " Baden, 293. 

" management 757, 769, 800. 
School regulations, 139. 
Schul-vorstand, 86. See School Committee. 
Scientific institutions, 406, 591, 626. 
Scotland, 651. 
History of Parochial School, 651. 
Normal School of the Church of Scotland, 661. 
'• School of Free Church, 671. 
Sbuttleworth, Sir James Kay, 740, 823. 
" extracts from, 444, 367. 

Singing, See Music. 
Simultaneous method. 111. 
Siste.-s of Charity, 348, 535, 548. 
Smith, Adam, on parish schools, 725. 
Social influence of good jjublic schools, 317, 657. 
Society for the public good, in Holland, 595. 
Spain," 647. 

Special instruction, schools for, 405. 

State, relation of, to schtxds, 76, 747. 

Statisticsof education in Austria, 338. 

1 " " " " Prussia, 48, 88. 

I " " " " Holland, 608. 

' " Saxony, 260. 

I. " " " " Baden, 291. 

I " Bavaria, 318, 315. 

" " " " Wirtemberg, 301. 
" " " " Lombardy, 636. 
" " " " Sardinia, 640. 
" " " " Rome, 644. 
" " " " Naples, 645. 
" " " " Portugal, 646. 
" " " " Denmark, 619. 
" " " " Norway, 623. 
" " " " Sweden, 622. 
" " " " Russia, 627. 
" Greece, 633. 



16 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN EUROPE. 



Statisticsof education in England, 745. 
" " " Ireland, 694. 

" Scotland, 669. 
" " " " France, 366. 

" " "• " Belgium, 583. 

Stephens, Prof. L., extract from, 46, 84. 
Stettin, normal schools at, 31. 
Steinmetz, 24, 31. 

St. Mark's training college at Chelsea, 805. 
Stock, X, and Sunday schools, 726. 
Stowe, Calvin E., extracts from, 35, 49, 537. 
Stow's training system at Glasgow, 661. 
Strasbourg, normal school at, 413. 
Study room in boarding-school, 460. 

" table. See Time Table. 
Study out of school, 143. 

St. Vincent de Paul, agricultural brothers of, 495. 
Subjects of study in primary schools, Austria, 326. 
Baden, 194. 
" " " Prussia, 92. 

" " " France, 395. 

" " " Holland, 305. 

" " " Saxony, 258. 

" " " Switzerland, 346. 

Suggestive methods, 110. 
Sunday schools, 268, 438, 726. 
Superior schools or colleges, statistics of, 260, 293, 

301, 315, 318, 339, 392. 
Supervision. See Inspection. 
Support of schools, mode of, in Holland, 596. 
" " " " " Austria, 325. 

" " " " " Prussia, 176. 

" " " " " Scotland, 658. 

Sweden. 621. 

Syllabus of lectures on education, 668, 877. 
Switzerland, 341. 
Outline of educational institutions, 341. 
Reconcilement of difference of relig. belief, 341. 
School attendance made compulsory, 342. 
Education of teachers, 344. 
Manual labor in normal schools, 344. 
Vehrli's opinions on the habits of teachers, 345. 
Course of instruction in primary schools, 346. 
Religious exercises, 347. 
Local inspection of schools, 347. 
Results of the education of the people, 348. 
Education of girls in catholic seminaries, 348. 
Condition of the peasantry, 349. 
Pauperism and ignorance, 3,10. 
Educational establishment at Hofwyl, 351. 
Emanuel Fellenberg, 351. 
Fellenberg's principles of education, 354. 
Korma! course for teachers at Hofywl, 357. 
Berne cantonal society for teachers, 364. 
Normal school at Kruitzlingen, 367. 
Educational views of Vehrli,369. 
Programme — course of study, 372. 
Normal school at Kussnacht, Zurich, 373. 
Programme of studies, 376. 
Normal school at Lausanne 378. 
Normal school at Ijucerne, 380. 

Tarn, report on schools in department of, 401. 
Taxation for schools, 100. 

Teacher, estimate of, 33, 37, 42, 46, 167, 169, 599, 
809. 

" legal provision for, 33, 176, 432. 

qualifications, 36, 112, 141, 263, 259, 423. 

" pecuniary condition of, 37, 23, 176, 433. 
civil state of, 33, 174, 401. 

" employment out of school, 431. 

" saving's box, or bank for, 434. 

" associations, 33 425. 

" conferences, 298, 418, 592. 

" retiring, pensions of, 33, 434. 

" dwelling and garden for, 177, 265. 

" fixed salaries ot, 177, 265. 

" social position, 170. 

" seminaries for, 190. 

" superannuated and disabled, 182. 

" widow and children of, 181. 



Teacher, sympathies with people, 184. 
" professional training of, 36, 388. 
" authority of 37. 
" appointment of, 100. 
Teaching, science of 800, 877. 

art of 800, 878. 
Technical schools, 335, 637. 
Technology, how taught, 136. 
Temple, R., description of KnellerHall, by, 885. 
Term, length of school, 274, 294. 
Text-books in Prussia, 109, 110. 

" Ireland, 689. 
Theological students must qualify themselves to 

inspect schools, 2.55, 327. 
Thinking exercises for little children, 70, 113. 
Time table in primary schools, 115, 268, 614. 

burgher, 126, 133, 135, 136, 275. 
" " gymnasia, 142. 

" " Sunday schools, 269. 

" normal schools, 134, 214, 220, 234, 

262, 272, 300, 312, 447, 449. 
" " agricultural schools, 308, 470, 478. 

" " polytechnic schools, 459. 
" " school of arts, 162. 
" " reform schools, 517, 531. 

" " secondary schools, 142, 149, 287. 

" " real schools, 153, 158, 277. 

" " school of mines, 289. 

Topics, or themes for composition, 775, 
Town, or higher grade of burgher schools, 93. 
Trade schools, 1.55. 

Training schools for teachers. See JVormal Schools. 
Trivial schools in Austria, 325. 
Trotzendorf monitorial system of, 20, 
Turner, E , on reform schools, 578. 
Tuscany, 643. 

Union workhouse schools, 733. 
Universities, 588, 639, 638, 641, 713. 
University of France, 391. 
Upper schools in Austria, 326. 

Vehrli, pupil of Pestalozzi, 367. 

Venetian States, educational statistics, 339, 636. 

Versailles, normal school at, 447. 

" a^ifonomic institute at, 470. 
Vienna, polytechnic institute at, 335, 
Vincent de Paul, philanthropy, 420. 
Von Tiirk, 532. 

Wages of teachers, 265, 302, 394 

Warwick county asylum, 515. 

Watson, VV., founder of industrial school, 731. 

Weaving, practical school for, 410, 412. 

Weights and measures, taught, 395, 615. 

Weissenfels, seminary for teachers at, 219. 

" school of practice, 133. 

Whipping in prison, ,503. 

Whitbread, author of first school bill for Eng. 727. 
Wichern, F. H., teacher of reform school, 517. 
Widows of teachers, 181, 395. 
Willm, extracts from, 425, 427. 
Wimmer, S., account of Blockman college, 280. 

WiRTEMBERO, 301. 

Educational statistics, 301. 

System of primary schools, 301. 

Denzel's introduction to the art of teaching, 303. 

Normal seminary at Esslingen, 310. 

Normal seminary at Nurtingen, 306. 

Institute of agriculture at Hohenheim, 307. 
Woodbridge, W. C, extracts from, 25. 
Workhouse schools, 685. 
Writing, bow taught, 52, 66, 114, 119, 613. 

Young children, exercises for, 50. 

" " in factories, 96, 297, 726. 

Yverdun, 29. 

Zeller, C. B., labors of, 29, 83,253. 

Zinzendorf, 24. 

Zurich, normal school at, 376. 



GERMANY. 



To Germany,* as a whole, as one people, and not to any particular 
state of Germany, as now recognized on the map of Europe, belongs the 
credit of first thoroughly organizing a system of public education under 
the administration of the civil power. Here, too. education first assumed 
the form and name of a science, and the art of teaching and training 
children was first taught systematically in seminaries established for tliis 
special purpose. 

But not to Germany, or to any one people or any civil authority any 
where, but to the Christian Church, belongs the higher credit of first in- 
stituting the public school, or rather the parochial school, for the elemen- 
tary education of the poor, which was the earliest form which this mighty 
element of modern society assumed. After the third century of the 
Christian era, whenever a Christian church was planted, or religious in- 
stitutions established, there it was the aim of the higher ecclesiastical 
authorities to found, in some form, a school for the nurture of children and 
youth for the service of religion and duties of society. Passing by the 
ecclesiastical am^ catechetical schools, we find, as early as 529, the council 
of Vaison strongly recommending the establishment of village schools. 
In 800 a synod at Mayence ordered that th^e parochial priests should have 

' Mr. W. E. Hickson, in his valuable pamphlet, entitled '■'■Dutch and German Schools," 
publi^hpii in London in 1840, well says : 

" We must bear in mind that the German states, although under different governments, are 
not nations as distinct from, and independent of each other, as France and Spain, or as Russia 
and Great Britain. Each of the German states is influenced more or less by every other ; the 
whole lying in close juxtaposition, and being linked together by the bond of a common lan- 
guage and literature. The boundary line that separates Prussia from Hesse on one side, or 
from Saxony on another, is not more defined than thnt of a county or parish in England. A 
stone in a lield, or a post painted with stripes, in a public road, informs the traveler that he is 
passing from one state into another, that these territorial divisions make no change in the great 
characteristics of the people : whatever the name of the state, or the color of the stripes, the 
people, with merely provincial differences, are the same : from the Baltic to the Adriatic, they 
are still Germans. The national spirit may always be gathered from the national songs, and in 
Germany the most popular are those which speak of all Germans as brothers, and all German 
states as belonging to one common country, as may be gathered from the following passage of 
a Bong of M. Arndt : — 

"What country does a German claim 1 Adorn the landscape of the Rhine 1 

His Fatherland ; know'st thou its name'? Oh no. oh no. not there, alone, 

Is it Bavaria. — Saxony ? The land, with pride, we call our own. 

An inland state, or on the seal Not there. A German's heart or mind 

There, on the Baltic's plains of sand 1 Is to no narrow realm confined. 

Or mid the Alps of Switzerland 7 Where'er he hears his native tongue, 

Austria, the Adriatic shores ] When hymns of praise to God are suog, 

Or where the Pru^sian eagle soars'! There is his Fatherland, and he 

Or where hills covered by the vine, Has but one country— Germany !" 



18 HISTORY OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN GERMANY. 

schools in the towns and villages, that the little children of all the faith- 
ful might learn letters from them ; " let them receive and teach these 
with the utmost charity, that they themselves may shine as the stars for 
ever. Let them receive no remuneration from their scholars, unless what 
the parents through charity may voluntarily offer." A council at Rome, 
in 836, under Eugene II., ordained that there should be three kinds of 
schools established throughout Christendom ; episcopal, parochial in 
towns and villages, and others wherever there could be found place and 
opportunity. In 836, Lothaire I. promulgated a decree to establish eight 
public schools in some of the principal cities of Italy, " in order that oppor- 
tunity may be given to all, and that there may be no excuse drawn from 
poverty and the difficulty of repairing to remote places," The third 
council of Lateran, in 1179, says: " Since the Church of God, as a pious 
mother, is bound to provide that opportunity for learning should not be 
withdrawn from the poor, who are without help from patrimonial riches, 
be it ordained, that in every cathedral there shouJd be a master to teach 
both clerks and poor scholars gratis." This decree was enlarged and 
again enforced by Innocent III. in the year 1215. Hence, in all colleges 
of canons, one bore the title of the scholastic canon. The council of 
Lyons, in 1215, decreed "that in all cathedral churches, and others pro- 
vided with adequate revenues, there should be established a school and a 
teacher by the bishop and chapter, who should teach the clerks and 
other poor scholars gratis in grammar, and for this purpose a stipend 
should be assigned him."* 

Such was the origin of the popular school, as now generally under- 
stood — every where the offspring, and companion of the Church ; sliaring 
with her, in large measure, the imperfections which attach to all new 
institutions and ail human instrumentalities; encountering peculiar diffi- 
culties from the barbarism of the age and people through whicli it passed, 
and which it was its mission to enlighten ; and every where crippled by 
insufficient endowments, unqualified teachers, and the absence of all text 
books, and necessary aids to instruction and illustration. The discovery 
of the art of printing, in 1440, and the consequent multiplication of books at 
prices which brought tliem more within reach of the great mass of the 
people ; the study and use of the vernacular language by scholars and 
divines, and particularly its employment in the printing of the Bible, 
hymns, popular songs, school books, and in religious instruction gener- 
ally; the recognition by the municipal authorities of cities, and at a later 
period by the higher civil power, of the right, duty and interest of the 
state, in connection with, or independent of the church, to provide liberally 
and efficiently for the education of all children and youth; and above all 
the intense activity given to the human mind by the religious movement 
of Luther, in the early part of the sixteenth century ; the assertion of the 
right of private judgment in the interpretation of the scriptures; the break- 
ing up of^existing ecclesiastical foundations, and the diversion of funds 

' Digby's MoreK Catholici. 



HISTORY OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN GERMANY. jg 

from religioas to educational purposes. — all these causes, combined with 
the general progress of society, co-operated to introduce an advantageous 
change in the organization, administration, instruction and discipline ot 
the popular school. But the progress actually made from year to year, 
and century even to century, was slow, and after three hundred years of 
effort, there is much yet to be done even in those states and communities 
which have accomplished the most toward improving the outward or- 
ganization and instrumentalities of the schools, and above all its internal 
life m the improved qualification and position of the teachers — for as is 
the teacher, so is the school. A brief reference to a few of the more 
prominent names in the history of popular education in Germany, and 
through Gerijiany, of Modern Europe, is all that can be attempted at 
this time and in this connection. Among these names stands prominent 
that of Martin Luther. ^ 

In a letter to the Elector of Saxony, in the year 1526, Luther says:* 

"Since we are all required, and especially the magistrates, above all other 
things, to educlate the youth who are born and are growing up among us, and 
to train them up in the fear of God and in the ways of vii^ue, it is needful that 
we have schools and preachers and pastors. If the parents will not reform, 
they must go their way to ruin, but if the young are neglected, and left without 
education, it is the fault of the state; and the effect will be that the country 
will swarm with vile and lawless people, so that our safely, no less than the 
command of God requireth us to foresee and ward otf the evil." He maintains 
in that letter that the government, " as the natural guardian of all the voung," 
has the right to compel the people to support schools. "What is necessary to 
the well-being of a state, that should be supplied by those who enjoy the privi- 
lege of such state Now nothing is more necessary than the training of those 
who are to come after us and bear rule. If the people are too poor to pay the 
expense, and are already burdened with taxes, then the monastic funds, which 
were originally given for such purposes, are to be employed in that way to re^ 
lieve the people." The cloisters were abandoned in many cases, and the diffi- 
cult question, what was to be done with their funds, Luther settled in this judi- 
cious manner. How nearly did he approach to the policy now so extensively 
adopted in this country, of supporting schools partly by taxation and partly by 
funds appropriated for that purpose. 

In 1524 he wrote a remarkable production, entitled " An Address to the 
Common Councils of all the Cities of Germany in behalf of Christian Schools," 
from which a few passages may here be extracted. After some introductory 
remarks, he comes directly to his point, and says to his countrymen collec- 
tively : 

" I entreat you, in God's behalf and that of the poor youth, not to think so 
lightly of this matter as many do. It is a grave and serious thing, affecting 
the interest of the kingdom of Christ, and of all the world, that we apply our- 
selves to the work of aiding and instructing the young If so 

much be expended every year in weapons of war, roads, dams, and countless 
other things of the sort for the safety and prosperity of a city; why should not 
we expend as much lor the benefit of the poor, ignorant youth, to provide them 
with skillful teachers'? God hath verily visited us Germans in mercy and 
given us a truly golden year. For we now have accomplished and learned 
young men, adorned with a knowledge of literature and art, who could be of 
great service if employed to teach the young. . . . 

Even if the parents were qualified, and were also inclined to teach, they have 
so much else to do in their business and household affairs that they can not find 
the time to educate their children. Thus there is a necessity that public teach- 



* The followine extracts are taken /rom Dr. Sears' " Life of Martin Luther," published br 
the American Sunday School Union. 



20 HISTORY OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN GERMANY. 

ers be provided. Otherwise each one would have to teach his own children, 
which would be for the common people too great a burden. Many a fine boy 
WiiukI be neglected on account of poverty; and many an orphan would suffer 
from the negligence of guaidians. i\nd those who have no children would 
not trouble themselves at all about the whole matter. Therefore it becometh 
rulers and magistrates to use the greatest care and diligence in respect to the 
education of the young. 

The diligent and pious teacher who properly instructeth and traineth the 
young, can never be fully rewarded with money. If I were to leave my office 
as preacher, I would next chose that of schoolmaster, or teacher of boys; for I 
know that, next to preaching, this is the greatest, best, and most useful voca- 
tion ; and I am not quite sure which of the two is the better; for it is hard to 
reform old sinners, with whom the preacher has to do, while the young tree 
can be made to bend without breaking." 

In 1527, a visitation was made of the churches and schools of the elec- 
torate of Saxony, in which more than tliirty men were employed a whole 
year. The result in respect tew education was, that tlte '"Saxon school 
system," as it was called, was drawn up by tlie joint labors of Luther and 
Melancthon ; and thus the foundation was laid for the magnificent organ- 
ization of schools to which Germany ov/es so much of her present fame. 

In a letter to Margrave George, of Bradenburg, July 18, 1529: — 

" I will tell you what Melancthon and myself, upon mature consideration, 
think best to be done. First, we think the cloisters and foundations may con- 
tinue to stand till their inmates die out Secondly, it would be 

exceedingly well to establish in one or two places in the principality a learned 
school, in which shall be taught, not only the Holy Scriptures, but law, and all 
the arts, from whence preachers, pastors, clerks, counselors, &c., may be 
taken for the whole principality. To this object should the income of the 
cloisters and other religious foundations be applied, so as to give an honorable 
support to learned men; two in theology, two in law, one in medicine, one in 

mathematics, and four or five for grammar, logic, rhetoric, cVc 

Thirdly, in all the towns and villages, good schools for children should be es- 
tablished, from which those who are adapted to higher studies might be taken 
and trained up for the public." 

Under these instructions and appeals a school law was adopted in 
Wirtemberg in 1559, and modified in 1565; in Saxony in 1560, and 
improved in 1580; in Hesse in 1565; and in Brandenberg, still earlier; 
which recognized and provided for the classification, inspection, and sup- 
port of public schools on substantially the same plan which prevails to 
this day throughout .Germany. 

The pedagogical work of Luther — his labors to improve the method of 
instruction — were continued by Trotzendorf,* in Goldberg, from 1530 to 
1556; by Sturm, in Strasbourg, from 1550 to 15S9; by Neander. in Ile- 
feld, fiom 1570 to 1595, whose schools were all Normal Schools, in the 
original acceptation of the term, pattern or model schools, of their time. 
They were succeeded by Wolfgang Ratich, born at Wiister, in Holstein, 
in 1571 ; by Christopher Helwig, born near Frankfort, in 1581 ; and by 
Amos Comenius, born at Comna, in Moravia, in 1592; who all labored, 
by their writings, and by organizing schools and courses of instruction, to 
disseminate improved methods of teaching. Comenius was invited by 
an act of parliament in 1631, to visit England for the purpose of intro- 

* Trotzendorf practicpd the monitorial system of instruction two hundred and fifty years be- 
fore Dr. Bell or Joseph Lancaster set up tlieir claims for its discovery. 



inSTORY OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN GERMANY. 21 

ducing his method into the public institutions of that country. But in- 
ternal commotions interrupted and ultimately defeated his plans. 

In 1618, the religious war — known as the Thirty Years' war — broke out 
in Germany, and for an entire generation swept over the land, wasting 
harvest fields, destroying cities, tearing fathers from the protection ot 
their families, scattering teachers and schools, and arresting the progress 
of all spiritual and educational improvement. At the close of the war, and 
in some of the smaller states during its progress, the civil government be- 
gan to take effectual steps to secure the attendance of children at school, 
by making it compulsory on parents, on penalty of fine and imprisonment 
for neglect, to send them during a certain age. This was first attempted 
in Golha, in 1643 ; in Heildesheim, in 1663; and in Prussia, in 1669 ; and 
Calemberg, in 1681. About this period, two men appeared, Philip J. 
Spener. born in the Alsace in 1635, and Augustus Herman Franke, born 
at Liibeck in 1663 ; who, the first by the invention of the catechetic 
method, and tlie last, a pupil of the former, by the foundation of the 
orphan-house at Halle in 1606, were destined to introduce a new era in 
the history of education in Germany. 

The history of the orphan-house at Halle, is a beautiful illustration of 
practical Christian charily, and the ever-extending results of educational 
labor. While pastor of Glaucha, a suburb of Halle, he was in the habit 
of distributing bread to the poor, with whose poverty and ignorance he 
was equally distressed. To relieve at once their physical and spiritual 
destitution, he invited old and young into his house, and while he distributed 
alms, he at the same time gave oral and catechetical instruction in the 
principles of the Christian faith. To benefit the orphan children still 
more, he took a few into his family in 1694, and to avail himself of the 
gifts of the charitable, he resorted to the following expedient, according 
to his biographer. Dr. Guerike : 

"He caused a box to be fastened up in the parlor of the parsonage-house, 
and wrote over it, ' Whoso hath this world's goods, and seeth his brother have 
need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the 
love of God in him V (1 John iii. 17,) and underneath, ' Every one according as 
he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly or of necessity; for 
God loveth a cheerful giver,' (2 Cor. ix. 17.) This box, which was destined 
for the reception of the casual gifts of those who visited Franke, was fixed up 
at the commencement of ltJ95; and not in vain. The passage (2 Cor. ix. 8,) 
had fallen in his way, a shoit time before this circumstance, and now occurred 
the incident related in his letter to Schade. ' This,' says he, 'served to show 
me, how God is able to make us abound in every good work.' 

' After the poor's-hox had been fixed up in my dwelling about a quarter of a 
year,' relates Franke, ' a certain person put, at one time, four dollars and six- 
teen groschen into it. On taking this sum into my h^nd, I exclaimed with 
great liberty of faith, — This is a considerable sum, with which something really 
good must be accomplished; I will commence a school with it for the poor. 
Without conferring, therefore, with flesh and blood, and acting under the im- 
pulse of faith, I made arrangement for the purchase of books to the amount of 
two dollars, and engaged a poorstudent to instruct the poor children fora couple • 
of hours daily, promising to give him six groschen weekly for so doing, in the 
hope that God would meanwhile grant more; since in this manner a ceuple of 
dollars would be spent in eight weeks.' 

Franke, who was ready to oft'er up whatever he had to the service of his 
neighbbr, fixed upon the ante-chamber of his study, for the school-room o{ the 



22 HISTORY OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN GERMANY. 

poor children, who began regularly to receive instruction at Easter, 1695. In 
this school-room, he caused a second box to be fixed up, with the inscription, 
' For the expenses of ihe instruction of the children, needful books. &;c.,' and un- 
derneath, ' He that hath pity upon the poor, lendeth to the Lord; and that which 
he hath given, will he pay him again,' (Prov. xix. 17.) 

At Whitsuntide, Franke was visited by some friends, who were much pleased 
at his eiforts in behalf of the poor, to which they contributed a few dollars. 
Others also gave small donations, from time to time, to the school-box. Soon 
after Whitsuntide, when some of the townspeople saw how regularly the 
children of the poor received instruction, they became desirous of sending their 
children likewise to the same teacher, and offered to pay him weekly a gros- 
chen for each child ; so that the teacher now received sixteen groschen weekly 
for a five-hours' daily instruction. The number of his scholars, that summer, 
amounted to between fifty and sixty, of which the poor, besides gratuitous in- 
struction, also received alms, twice or thrice a-week, to incite them to attend 
school the more willingly. Donations in money, and linen, for shirts for the 
poor children, began now to arrive from other places. 

About Whitsuntide of the same year, Franke laid also the first foundation 
lor what was subsequently called the royal school. The widow of a nobleman 
desired him to send her a domestic tutor for her own, and one of her friend's 
children. He found no one who was sufficiently far advanced in his studies, 
and therefore proposed to the parents, to send their children lo Halle, and that 
he would then provide for their education, by able teachers and guardians. 
The parents agreed to this plan ; and a few months afterward, an additional 
number of 3^ouths were sent, and thus originated the seminary above mentioned, 
which, in 1709, coVisisted of an inspector, twenty-three teachers, and seventy- 
two scholars ; and in 1711, by means of Franke's exertions, had a building ap- 
propriated exclusively to it. 

In the summer of the same year, 1695, Franke unexpectedly and unsolicit- 
edly received a very considerable contribution ; for a person of rank wrote to 
him with the offer of five hundred dollars, for the purpose of distribution among 
the poor, and especially among the indigent students. This money was shortly 
afterward paid over to him. He then selected twenty poor students, whom he 
assisted with a weekly donation of four, eight, or twelve groschen; 'and this,' 
says he, ' was in reality the origin of the poor students' participating to the pres- 
ent hour, in the benefits of the orphan-house." 

In the autumn there was no longer suflrcient room in the parsonage for the 
increasing number of scholars ; he therefore hired a school-room of one of his 
neighbors, and a second in the beginning of the winter. He then divided the 
scholars into two classes, and provided a separate teacher for the children of 
the townspeople, and another for the children of the poor. Each teacher gave 
four hours instruction daily, and received a guilder weekly, besides lodging 
and firing gratis. 

But Franke was soon made to see, that many a hopeful child was deprived, 
when out of school, of all the benefit he received in it. The idea therefore 
occurred to him, in the autumn of 1695, to undertake the entire charge and edu- 
cation of a limited number of children ; 'and this,' says he, ' was the first in- 
citement I felt, and the first idea of the erection of an orphan-house, even before 
I possessed the smallest funds for the purpose. On mentioning this plan to 
some of my friends, a pious individual felt induced to fund the sum of five 
hundred dollars for that purpose, — twenty-five dollars for the interest on which 
were to be paid over every Christmas, which has also been regularly received. 
On reflecting upon this instance of the divine bounty, I wished to seek out some 
poor orphan child, who might be supported by the yearly interest. On this, 
four fatherless and motherless children, all of the same family, were brought to 
me. I ventured, in confidence upon God, to receive the whole four; hut as one 
of them was takenrby some other good people, only three were left ; but a fourth 
soon appeared in the place of the one that had been taken. I took therefore 
*these four; placed them with religious people, and gave them weekly half a 
dollar for the bringing up of each. On this, it happened to me, as is generally 
the case^ that when we venture to give a groschen to the poor in faith, we feel 
afterward no hesitation in venturing a dollar upon the same principle. For 
after having once begun in God's name, to i;eceive a few poor orphans without 
•tny human prOspect of certain assistance, (for the interest Of the fiv'e hundred 



HISTORY OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN GERMANY 23 

dollars was not sufficient to feed and clothe a single one ) I boldly left it to the 
Lord to make up for whatever might be deficient. Hence the orphan-house was 
b)' no means commenced and founded upon any certain sum in hand, or on the 
assurances of persons of rank to take upon themselves'the cost and charges, or 
upon any thing of a similar nature, as was subsequently reported, and as some 
were inclined to suppose; but solely and simply in reliance on the living God 
in heaven. 

' The day after I had undertaken the charge of the four orphans above-men- 
tioned, two more were added; the next day, another; two days afterward, a 
fourth, and one more after the lapse of a week. So that, on the i6th November, 
161)5, there were already nine, who were placed with pious people.' He fixed 
upon George Henry Neubauer, a student of divinity, to have the oversight of 
their education and their bringing up. ' Meanwhile,' continues he, ' the faithful 
God and Father of the fatherless, who is able to do abundantly above what we 
can ask or think, came so powerfully to my aid, that foolish reason could never 
have expected it. For he moved the heans of those persons of rank, who had 
given me the five hundred dollars already mentioned, to present me with an 
additional sum of a thousand dollais in the beginning of the winter. And in 
the middle of the winter, another person of rank was incited to send me three 
hundred dollars to enable me to continue my attention to the poor. Another 
individual gave a hundred dollars, and others gave donations of smaller sums.' 

Franke had hitherto distributed the money destined for the poor students 
weekly ; but in 1093, the idea occurred to him, instead of a weekly allowance, 
to give them dinner giatuitoiTsly ; ' in the firm confidence in God, that he would 
from time to time send such supplies, as to enable this arrangement to be con- 
tinued.' By this he expected to be of greater service to the poor studefits; he 
could also, in this manner, become better acquainted with them, and possess a 
belter insight into their life and conduct ; and lastly, restrain the applications 
of the less needy, • who would gladly have been more delicately fed.' Two 
open tables were therefore provided— each for twelve poor students; and that 
one thing might assist the other, he selected the teachers of the charity-school 
from them. This was the origin of the teachers' seminary, which afterward 
gradually arose out of it. 

The schools of the children of the townspeople who paid a certain sum for 
their instruction, though inadequate to the expense, were separated from the 
school for the poor, at the request of the townspeople themselves; and in Sep- 
tember 1697, another school was added for those tradesmen's children who 
were instructed in the elements of superior science. About this time also, more 
classes were required in the orphan school, on account of the increased number 
of the pupils. The boys and girls received separate instruction, and when any 
of the former manifested abilities, they were again separated from the rest, and 
instructed in languages and the sciences by particular teachers. In May, 1699, 
Franke united this class of the orphan children with the class of the trades- 
men's children, who likewise received superior instruction. These arrange- 
ments for imparting a more learned education, show us the rudiments from 
whence the Latin school or Gymnasium afterward developed itself in Franke's 
institutions, which in 1709 was attended by two hundred and fifty-six children, 
of whom sixty-four were orphans, divided into seven classes ; and in 1730, 
by more than five hundred pupils. 

At the time of his death, the Orphan House, or Hallische Waisen- 
haus, embraced all the institutions which now belong to it. 

1. The Orphan Asybtm, established in 1694. in Avhich over 5.000 or- 
phans had been educated, up to 1838, gratuitously. Such of the boys as 
manifest peculiar talent, are prepared for the university, and supported 
there. 

2. The Royal Pcsdagogium, founded in 1696, for the education of 
children of rich and noble families. Up to 1839, 2,850 individuals had 
been educated in this boarding institution. The profits of this* school are 
paid crver to the or{rfian asylum. 



24 HISTORY OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN GERMANY. 

3. The Latin School, established in 1697, for pupils from abroad, of 
less wealthy condition than the former, and for boys of the city of Halle. 

4. The German School, for boys and girls whose parents do not wish 
to give them a classic education. 

These several schools number from 3,000 to 4,000 pupils,*of every age, 
and in every study. Besides these schools there are other features in the 
institution. 

5. The Canstein Bible Press, established in 1712, to furnish the Bible 
at a cheap rate. The profits on the sale of an edition are applied to 
diminish the expense of the next edition. 

6. A Library, commenced by Franke by setting apart his own books 
for the use of his schools, and which now number 20,000 volumes. 

7. An Apothecary''s Shop, commenced by Franke as a medicine chest 
for the poor, and the profit of which, after furnishing the wants of the 
orphan-house, are applied to the support of the institution. 

8. A Book Establishment, in which the classics, and school books, are 
published at a low price, not only for the institution, but for the trade 
generally. 

9. A house for widows. 

We have dwelt on the labors of Franke, because he proved his faith in 
God by his works, and because he was an educator in the largest and • 
best sense of that designation. 

According to his biographer, the first teachers' class was founded by 
Franke in 1697, by providing a table or free board for such poor students 
as stood in need of assistance, and selecting, a few yeafs later, out of the 
whole number, twelve who exhibited the right basis of piety, knowledge, 
skill and desire for teaching, and constituting them his " Seminarium 
Prseceptorum," Teachers' Seminary. These pupil teachers received 
separate instruction for two years, and obtained a practical knowledge of 
methods, in the classes of the several schools. For the assistance thus 
rendered they bound themselves to teach for three years in the institution 
after the close of their course. In 1704, according to Raumer, this plan 
was matured, and the supply of teachers for all the lower classes were 
drawn from this seminary. But besides the teachers trained in this 
branch of Franke's great establishment, hundreds of others, attracted by 
the success of his experiment, resorted to Halle, from all parts of Europe, 
to profit by the organization, spirit, and method of his various schools. 
Among the most distinguished of his pupils and disciples, may be named, 
Count Zinzendorf the founder of the communities of United Brethren, 
or Moravians, in Herrnhut, in 1722 ; Steinmetz, who erected a Normal 
School in Klosterbergen, in 1730 ; Hecker, the founder of the first Real 

* It is interesting to a visitor to remark in the chief cities of Germany, during certain hours 
the silence of the streets, with their entire desertion by children, and the contrast of the change 
produced by the clock striking twelve. The road and footway then suddenly swarm with 
children, carrying books and slates, and returning from the studies of the morning. The most 
striking sight of the kind we ever witnessed was at Halle, where, as we approached a large 
educational establishment, called the " Ilallische Waisenliaus," the whole of its juvenile in. 
mates, 3,000 in number, burst forth into the street, and filling up the entire roadway, formed 
■A unbroken stream of a quarter of a mile in length. — Hic/eson's Dutch and German Schoala, 



HISTORY OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN GERMANY. 25 

School in Berlin, to which a seminary for teachers was attached in 174S ; 
Rambalt, who lectured in theUniversiriesin Jena andGiessenin pedagogic, 
a.nd reformed the schools in Hesse-Uarmstadt ; Felbiger, who reorgan- 
ized the schools of Silesia, and afterward those of Austria; — these, and 
others scarcely less distinguislied, were among the most eminent and suc- 
cessful teachers of the day, and were known as the school of Pietists. 

The eduQational school of Franke was followed by Basedow, (born at 
Hamburg, in 1723,) Campe, and Saizman, who acquired for themselves 
a European reputation by the Philanthropinum. founded by the former at 
Dessau, in 17S1. 

This institution gave its name to the school of educationists, known 
as Philanthropinic. and which prevails at this day in some sections of Ger- 
many. Its earliest development on the continent was made by Rous- 
seau, in his" Emile," and by John Locke, in England, in his ■• Thoughts 
on Edacation." Its great aim was the formation of a practical charac- 
ter, and this was to be accomplished by following the indications of na- 
ture. The body, as well as the mind, was to be hardened and invigora- 
ted, and prepared to execute with energy the designs of the mind. The 
discipline of the family and school was softened by constant appeals to 
the best principles in the child's nature. Particular attention was paid to 
instruction in language, music, and the laws and objects of nature. Many 
of these principles became engrafted on to the teachers of Normal Schools, 
and through their pupils were introduced into the common schools. 

About this time appeared Henry Pestalozzi, who followed in the 
track of the Philanthropinic School, and by his example and writings, dif- 
fused a new spirit among the schools of primary instruction, all over Eu- 
rope. Although born in Switzerland, at Zurich, in 1746, and although 
his personal labors were confined to his native country, and their immedi- 
ate influence was weakened by many defects of character, still his gen- 
eral views of education were so sound and just, that they are now adopted 
by teachers who never read a word of his life or writings, and by many 
who never heard of his name. They have become the common property 
of teachers and educators all over the world. A brief notice* of the lead- 
ing principles of the system, which now bears his name, and which has 
moulded the entire character of the schools of Germany, during the last- 
half century, can not be deemed irrelevant. 

"The father of Pestalozzi, who was a ptiysician, died when he was quite 
young, and his early education was left to his mother, and an old domes;ic of 
the family, until he was of an age to pass into the grammar school of Zurich. 
In consequence of such an education, oorresponding entirely to his natural dis- 
position, he retained a remarkable gentleness andsimplicitv of manners, which 
continued through his long life, and produced that agreeable mi.xture of manly 
and female excellence, which rendered him peculiarly interesting to children, 
to whom his person was unattractive. Oppressive treatment at school, and 
misapprehension of his views in riper years, gave him, however, a keen sense 
of justice, which roused him to vindicate the cause of the oppressed among the 
lower classes of the people, and often made his language as a writer, bitter and 
sarcastic. 

• Abriilged from an arlicle by William C. WooUbridge, in the Annals of Education, for Janu- 
ary, 1847. ■ ' 



26 HISTORY OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN GERMANY 

Pestalozzi first liv^ed in the miMst of the people, in order that he might under- 
stand their misery, and endeavor to discover its source. He believed that he 
found it in the want of an observation of nature ami mankind — in the absence 
of spiritual elevation and religious sentiment — in the prejudice, thouglitless- 
ness, levity and disorderly conduct which were the natural re^ults, and the 
distrust, and obstinate and revengeful disposition which necessarily followed 
toward tho>e who profiled by their weaknesses, or punished their offenses. 
He believed that a good education for the children of the people was the only 
means of remedying this evil. The ravages of war had left a multitude of des- 
titute orphans in the small cantons of Switzerland. His first attempt to carry 
his benevolent plan into e.Neciition, was in collecting a number of these poor 
children at Stanz, devoting himself to their instruction and care in the sacri- 
fice of most of the comforts of life, and providing for their sup) oit fiom his own 
resources, or from the charity which he solicited from others. Here, he la- 
bored to discover the Irus and simple means of education. He treated his pu- 
pils with uniform sympathy and tenderness and thus attempted to awaken love 
and confidence in their hearts, and to sow the seed of eveiy good feeling. He 
therefore assumed /«i7A «/t./ /in' as the only true foundation of a system of edu- 
cation. 

He subsequently established a school in more regular form in Btirgdorf, in 
the canton of Beine, to which his benevolence and talents attracted a number 
of fellow-laborers. Here he endeavored to ascertain the principles which 
should govern the developm.ent of the ii'.fant faculties, and the proper peiiod 
for the commencement and completion of each course of instruction in this 
view. 

As the result of his investigations, Pestalozzi assumed as a fundamental prin- 
ciple, that education, in order to fit man for his destination must proceed ac- 
cording to the laws of nature. To adopt the language of his followers— that it 
must not act as an arbitrarj' mediator between the child and nature, between 
man and God, pursuing its own artificial arrangements, instead of the intiica- 
tionsof P<-ovidence — that it should assist the cour.se of natuial development, in- 
stead of doing it violence — that it should watch, and folloM' its progress, instead 
of attempting to mark out a path agreeably to a preconceived system. 

I. In view of this principle, he did not choose, like Ba.sedow, to cultivate the 
mind in a material way, meielv by inculcating and engrafting every thing rela- 
ting to external objects, and giving mechanical skill. He sought, on the con- 
trary, to develope, and exercise, and strengthen the faculties of the child by a 
steady couise of excitement to sclt-activity, with a limited degree of assistance 
to his efforts. 

II. In opposition to the haste, and blind groping of many teachers without 
system, he endeavored lo find the proper point for commencing, and to proceed 
in a slow and gradual, but uninterrupted- course, from one point to another — 
always wailing until the first should have a certain degiee of distinctness in the 
mind of the child, before enteiing uj on the exhibition of the second. To pur- 
sue any other course would only give superficial knowledge, which would 
neither afford pleasure to the child, nor promote its real progress. 

III. He opposed the undue cultivation of the memoiy and understanding, as 
lios.ile to true education. He j laced the essence of education in the harmoni- 
ous and uniform development of every faculty, so that the body should not be 
in advance of the mind, and that in the development of the mind, neither the 
physical powers, nor the aflfections, should be neglected; and that skill in ac- 
tion should be acquired at the same lime with knowledge. When this point is 
secured, we may know thai education has really begun, and thai it is not 
merely supe:ficial. 

IV. He required close attention and constant reference to the peculiarities of 
every child, and of each sex, as well as to the characteristics of the people 
among whom he lived, in order that he might acquire the development and 
qualificaiion.s necessary for the situation to which the Creator destined him, 
when he gave him these active faculties, and be prepared to labor successfully 
for those among whom he was placed by his birth. 

V. While Basedow introduced a multitude of subjects of instruction into the 
schools, without special regard to the development of the intellectual powers, 
Pestalozzi considered tiiis plan as superficial. He limited the elementary sub- 
jects of instruction to Form, Number and Language, as the essfential c. ..ditibn 



HISTORY OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN GERMANY. 27 

of definite and distinct knowledge; and believed that these elements should be 
tau'^hl wilh the inmost possible simplicity, comprehensiveness and mutual con- 

nec.ion. , , , . • . u 

VI. Pestalozzi, as well as Basedow, desired ihat mstruction should com- 
mence with the intuition or simple perception of external objects and their rein- 
ti jns He was not, however, sati-ficd with this alone, but wished that the art of 
o'j^ rviwr should also be acquired. He th,)ught the things perceived o( less con- 
sequence than the cultivation of the perceptive powers, which should enable 
the child to observe completely,— to exhaust the subjects which should be 
brought before his mind. . 

Vii While the Philanihropinists attached great importance to special exer- 
cises of rellection, Pestalozzi would not make this a subject of separate study. 
He maintained that every subject of instiuction should be properly treated, and 
thus becom- an exercise'of thought; and believed, that lessons on Number, and 
Proportion and Size, would give ihe best occasion for it. 

VIII Pestalozzi, as well as Basedow, attached great importance to Arithme- 
tic particularly to Mental Arithmetic He valued it, however, not merely in 
the limited view of its practical usefulness, hat as an excellent means ot 
strengihening the mind. He also introduced Geometry into the eleniensary 
schools, andlhe art connected with it, of modeling and "drawing beautiful ob- 
jects. He wished, in this way. to train the eye^ the hand, and t'le touch, lor 
that more advanced species of drawing which had not been thought ol helore. 
Proceeding from the simple and intuitive, to the more complicated and dilR- 
cult formsjie arranged a series of exercises so gradual and com;, le:e that the 
method of leaching this subject was soon brought to a good degree ol perlection. 

IX The Philanihropinists introduced the insiructioa of language into the 
common schools, but limited it chiefly to the writing of letters and preparation 
of essays. But Pestalozzi was not satisfied with a lifeless repctiliori oi the 
rules of grammar, nor yet with mere exetcises for common life. He aimed at 
a development of the laws of language from within— an introduction into its iri- 
ternal nature and construction and peculiar spirit— which would not only culti- 
vate the intellect, but also improve the affections. It is impossible to do justice 
to his method of instruction on this subject, in a brief sketch like the present- 
but those who have witnessed its progress and results, are fully aware of us 
practical character and value. . 

X. Like Basedow, Rochow and others, Pestalozzi introduced vocal music 
into the circle of school studies, on account of its powerful influence on the 
heart. But he was not satisfied that the children should learn to sing a few melo- 
dies by note or by ear. Hewi.-^hed ihem to know the rules of melody and rhythm, 
and dynamics- to pursue a regular course of instruction, descending to its very 
elements, and rendering the musical notes as familiar as the sounds of the let- 
ters. The extensive work of Nageli and Pfeiffer has contributed very much lo 
give this branch of instruction a better form. 

XI. He opposed the abuse which was made of the Socratic method in many 
of the Philanthropinic and other schools, by attempting to draw something out 
of children before they had received any knowledge. He recommends, on the 
contrary, in the early periods of instruction, the established method of dictation 
by the teacher and'repetilion by the scholar, with a proper legard to rhythm, 
and at a later period, especially'in the mathematical and other subjects which 
involve reasoning, the modern method, in which the teacher merely gives out 
the problems in a proper order, and leaves them lo be solved by the pupils, by 
the exertion of their own powers. 

XII. Pestalozzi opposes strenuously the opinion that religious instruction 
should be addressed exclusively to the understanding; and shoAvs that religion 
lies deep in the hearts of men, and that it should not be enstamped from with- 
out, but developed from within; that the basis of religious feeling is to be 
found in the childish disposition to love, to thankfulness, to veneration, obedi- 
ence and confidence toward its parents; that these should be cultivated and 
strengthened and directed toward God; and that religion should be formally 
treated of at a later period in connection with the feelings thus excited. As he 
requires the mother to direct the first development of all the faculties of her child, 
he assigns to her especially the task of first cultivating the religious feelings. 

XILI. Pestalozzi agreed wilh Basedow, that mutual affection ought to reign 
betwtfen the educator and the pupil, both in the house and in the school, in dr- 



2S inSTORY OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN GERMANY. 

der to render education effectual and useful. He was, therefore, as little dis- 
posed as Basedow, to sustain school despotism ; but he did not rely on artificial 
excitements, such as those addressed to emulation. He preferred that the chil- 
dien should find their best reward in the consciousness ol'increased inielleciual 
vigor ; and expected the teacher tu render the instruction .so attractive, that the 
delightful ieeling of progress should be the strongest excitement to industry and 
to morality. 

XIV. Peslalozzi attached as much importance to the cultivation of the 
bodily powers, and the exercise of the sen.ses, as the Philanthropinists, and in 
his publications; pointed out a graduated course for this purpose. But as Guts- 
muths, Vieth, Jahn. and Clias treated this subject very fully, nothing further 
was v\ritlen concerning it by his immediate followers. 

Such are the great principles which eiititle Pestalozzi to the high praise of 
having given a more natural, a more comprehensive and deeper foundation /or 
education and instruction, and of having called into being a method which is 
far superior to any that preceded it. , 

But with all the excellencies of the system of education adopted by Pesta- 
lozzi, truth requires us to state that it also involves serious defects. 

1. in his zeal for the improv^ement of the mind it.self, and lor those modes of 
instruction which were calculated to develop and invigorate its Jaculties, Pes- 
talozzi forgot too much the necessity of general positive knowledge, as the ma- 
terial for thought aijd for practical use in future life. '1 he pupils of his estab- 
lishment, instructed on his plan, were too ofien dismissed with inielleciual 
poweis which weie vigorous and acute, but without the stores of knowledge 
important for immediate use — well qualified lor mathematical and abstract 
reasoning, but not prepared to apply it to the business of common lile. 

2. He commenced with intuitive, mathematical studies loo early, attached 
loo much importance to them, and devoted a portion of time to Ihem, which 
did not allow a reasonable attention to other studies, and which prevented the 
regular and harmonious cultivation of other poweis. 

3. The wrfAw/of instruciion was also defective in one important point. Sim- 
plification was carried too far, and continued too long. The mind became so ac- 
customed to receive knowledge divided into its most simple elements and small- 
est portions, that it was not piepared to embrace complicated ideas, or to make 
those rapid strides in investigation and conclusion v\hich is one of the most im- 
portant results of a sound education, and which imiicates the most valuable 
kind of mental vigor both for scientific purposes and for practical lile. 

4. He attached loo little importance to testimony as one of the sources of our 
knowledge, and devoted too little attention to histoiical truth. He was accus- 
tomed to observe that history was but a ' tissue of lies;' and forgot that it was 
necessary to occupy the pupil with man, and with moral events, as w ell as with 
nature and matter, if we wish to cultivate properly his moral powers, and ele- 
vate him above the material world. 

5. But above all, it is to be regretted, that in reference to religious education, 
he fell into an impoitant error of his predecessors. His too exclusive attention 
to mathematical and scientific subjects, tended, like the system of Basedow, to 
give his pu[)ils the habit of undervaluing historical evidence and of demanding 
rational demonstration for every truth, or of requiring the evidence of iheir 
senses, or something analogous to it, to which they were constantly called to 
appeal in their studies of Natural Histoiy. 

it is precisely in this way, that many men of profound scientific attainments 
have been led to reject the evidence of revelaiion, and some, even strange as it 
may seem, to deny the existence of Him, whose works and laws they study. 
In some of the early Pestalozzian schools, feelings of this nature weie paiticu- 
larly cherished by the habit of asserting a falsehood in the lessons on Mathe- 
malics or Natural history, and calling upon the pupils to contradict it or dis- • 
prove it if they did not admit its irulh. No improvement of the inielleciual 
powers, can, in our view, compensate for ihe injury to the moral sense and the 
diminished respect for truth, which will naturally result from such a course. 

6. While Pestalozzi disapproved of the attempts of the Philanthropinists to 
draw forth from the minds of children, befoie they had stoies of knowledge, he 
seemed to forget the application of his principle to moral subjects, or to imagine 
that this most elevated species of knowledge was innate. He attempted too 
much to draw from the minds of his punils those great truths of religion and the 



fflSTORY OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN GERMANY. 29 

spiritual world which can only be acquired from revelation ; and thus led them 
to imagine they were competent to judge on this subject without external aid. 
It is obvious iluU such a course would fall in most unhappily M'ith the tenden- 
cies produced by other parts of the plan, and that we could not hope to educate 
in such a mode, a truly Christian community. 

The personal character of Pestalozzi also influenced his views and methods of 
education on religious subjects. He was remarkably the creature of power- 
ful impulses, which were usually of the most mild and benevolent kind; and 
he preserved a child-like character in this respect even to old age. It was 
probably this temperament, which led him to estimate at a low rate the import- 
ance of positive religious truth in the education of children, and to maintain 
that the mere habit of faith and love, if cultivated toward earthly friends and 
benefactors, would, of course, be transferred to our Heavenly Father, whenever 
his character should be exhibited to the mind of the child. The fundamental 
error of this view was established by the unhappy experience of his own insti- 
tution. His own example afforded the most striking evidence that the noblest 
impulses, not directed by established principles, may lead to imprudence and 
ruin, and thus defeat their own ends. As an illustration of this, it may be men- 
tioned that, on one of those occasions, frequently occurring, on which he was 
reduced to extremity for want of the means of supplying his large family, he 
borrowed four hundred dollars from a friend for the purpose. In going home, 
he met a peasant, wringing his hands in despair for the loss of his cow. Pes- 
talozzi put the entire bag of money into his hands, and ran off to escape his 
thanks. These circumstances, combined with the M'ant of tact in reference to 
the affairs of common life, materially impaired his powers of usefulness as a 
practical instructor of youth. The rapid progress of his ideas rarely allowed 
him 10 execute his own plans; and, in accordance with his own system, too 
much time was employed in the profound development of principles, to admit 
of much attention to their practical application. 

But, as one of his admirers observed, it was his province to educate ideas and 
not children. He combated, with unshrinking boldness and untiring perse- 
verance, throu2;h a long life, the prejudices and abuses of the age in reference to 
education, both by his example and by his numerous publications. He attacked 
with great vigor and no small degree of success, that favorite maxim of bigotry 
and tyranny, that obedience and devotion are the legitimate offspring of igno- 
rance. He denounced that degrading system, which considers it enough to 
enable man to procure a subsistence for himself and his offspring — and in this 
manner, merely to place him on a level with the beast of the forest; and which 
deems every thing lost whose value can not be estimated in money. He urged 
upon the consciences of parents and rulers, with an energy approaching that of 
the ancient prophets, the solemn duties which Divine Providence had imposed 
upon them, in committing to their charge the present and future destinies of 
their fellow-beings. In this way. he produced an impulse, which pervaded the 
continent of Europe, and which, b)'- means of his popular and theoretical works, 
reached the cottages of the poor and the palaces of the great. His institution 
at Yverdun was crowded with men of every nation; not merely those who 
were led by the same impulse which inspired him, but by the agents of kings 
and noblemen, and public institutions, who came to make themselves ac- 
quainted with his principles, in order to become his fellow-laborers in other 
countries." 

When the Prussian Government, in 1809, undertook systematically the 
work of improving the elementary schools, as a means of creating and 
diffusing a patriotic spirit among the people, the fame of Pestalozzi was 
at its height. To him and to his school, to his method and to his disci- 
ples, the attention of the hest teachers in the kingdom was turned for 
guidance and aid. Several enthusiastic young teachers were sent to his 
institution at Yverdun, (Iferten.) to study his methods and imbibe his 
spirit of devotion to the children of the poor. One of his favorite pupils, 
C, B. Zeller, of Wirteraberg, and who shared with him in certain weak' 



30 HISTORY OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN GERMANY. 

iiesses of character, which prevented his attaining the highest success as 
a practical educator in carrying out the details of an extensive plan, was 
invited to organize a Normal School at Rcnigsberg, in the orphan- 
house (orphanotrophy) established by Frederick III., on the 13th of 
January, 1701, the day on which he declared his dukedom a kingdom, 
and caused himself to be crowned king, under the name of Frederick the 
First. To this seminary, during the first year of its existence, upward of 
one hundred clergymen, and eighty teachers, resorted, at the expense of 
the government, to acquire the principles and methods of the Pestaloz- 
zian system. Through them, and the teachers who went directly to Pes- 
talozzi, these principles and methods were transplanted not only into 
various parts of Prussia, but also into the schools and seminaries of other 
states in Germany. Not even in Switzerland is the name of this philan- 
thropist and educator so warmly cherished as in Prussia. 

His centennial birthday was celebrated throughout Germany, and par- 
ticularly in Prussia, on the 12t.h of January, 1846, with an enthusiasm 
usually awarded only to the successful soldier. In more than one hundred 
cities and villages, in upward of one thousand schools, by more than 
fifty thousand teachers, it is estimated in a German school journal, was 
the anniversary marked by some public demonstration. The following 
notice of the appropriate manner in which it was celebrated in Leipsic, by 
founding a charity for the orphans of teachers, and for poor and neglected 
children generally, is abridged from an extended notice in Reden's 
School Gazette. 

" At the tirst .school hour, the elder pupils of the city school at Leipsic, were 
informed by a public address of the eminent merits of Pe.stalozzi as an eminent 
teacher, and a program, with his portrait, handed to them; this program 
contained an address to the citizens of Leipsic. by the Rev. Dr. Naumann ; the 
plan of a public charity, to be called the Pestalozzi Foundation, (Hiftung,) by 
Director Vogel ; and a biographical sketch, by Professor Plato. At ten o'clock, 
the elder pupils of the burgher school, and delegates from all the schools, with 
their teachers, and the friends of education, assembled in the great hall of one 
of the public schools; on the walls were portraits of Pestalozzi, adorned with 
garlands. Addresses were made by the Kev. Dr. Naumann, who had visited 
Pestalozzi in Iferten, and by other gentlemen, while' the intervals were enliv- 
ened by songs and music composed for the occasion. In the evening a general 
association of all the teachers in Leipsic was formed, for the purpose of estab- 
lishing ' the Pestalozzi foundation,' designed for the education of poor and 
neglected children." 

In Dresden a similar charity was commenced for the benefit of all orphans 
of teachers from any part of Saxony. The same thing was done in nearly 
all the large cities of Germany. In Berlin a Pestalozzi foundation was com- 
menced for an orphan-house, to which contributions had been made from 
all provinces of Prussia, and from other states of Germany ; to the direction 
of this institution Dr. Dieslerweg has been appointed. 

The schools of most of the teachers and educators, whose names have 
been introduced, were in reality Teachers' Seminaries, although not 
so designated by themselves or others. ' Their establishments were not 
simply schools for children, but were conducted to test and exemplify 



HISTORY OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN GERMANY. 



31 



principles and methods of education, and these were perpetuated and 
disseminated by means of books in which they were embodied, or of pupils 
and disciples who transplanted ihem into other places. 

As has been already stated, on the authority of Franke's biographer, 
and of Schwartz, Raumer, and other writers on the history of education 
in Germany, the first regularly-organized Teachers' Seminary, or Normal 
School, (not normal in the sense in which the word was originally used, 
as a school of children so conducted as to be a model or pattern for teach- 
ers to imitate, but a school of young men, who had already passed through 
an elementary, or even a superior school, and who were preparing to be 
teachers, by making additional attainments, and acquiring a knowledge 
of the human mind, and the principles of education as a science, and of its 
methods as an art,) was established in Halle, in a part of Hanover, prior 
to 1704. About the same period, Steinmetz opened a class for teachers 
in the Abbey of Klosterberge, near Magdeburg, and which was continued 
by Resewitz, by whom the spirit and method of f^ranke and the pietists 
were transplanted into the north of Germany. In 1730, lectures on 
philology and the best methods of teaching the Latin, Greek and German 
languages, were common in the principal universities and higher schools. 
The first regularly-organized seminary for this purpose, was established 
at Gottingen, in 1738. and by its success led to the institution of a similar 
course of study and practice in Jena, Helle, Helmstadt, Heidelberg, Ber- 
lin, Munich, &c. 

In 1735, the first seminary for primary school teachers was established 
in Prussia, at Stettin, in Pomerania. In 1748, Hecker, apupil of Fratike, 
and the founder of burgher, or what we should call high schools, estab- 
lished an institution for teachers of elementary schools, in Berlin, in which 
the king testified an interest, and enjoined, by an ordinance in 1752, that 
the country schools on the crown lands in New Mark and Pomerania 
should be supplied by pupil teachers from this institution who had learned 
the culture of silk and mulberries in Hecker's institution, with a view of 
carrying forward industrial instruction into that section of his kino-dom. 
In 1757, Baron von Fiirstenbecg established a seminary for teachers at 
Munster, in Hanover. In 1767, the Canan von Rochow opened a school 
on his estate in Rekane, in Bradenburg, where, by lectures and practice, 
he prepared schoolmasters for country schools on his own and neio-liborino- 
properties. To these schools teachers were sent from all parts of Ger- 
many, to be trained in the principles and practice of primary instruction. 
In 1770, Bishop Febinger, organized a Normal (model) School in Vienna, 
with a course of lectures and practice for teachers, extending through 
four months ; and about the same time the deacon Ferdinand Kinder- 
mann,.or von Schulstein, as he was called by Maria Theresa, converted 
a school in Kaplitz. in Bohemia, into a Normal Institution. Between 
1770 and 1800. as will be seen by the following Table, teachers' semina- 
ries were introduced into nearly every German state, which, in all but 
three instances, were supported in whole or in part by the government, 



32 HISTORY OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN GERMANY 

As the demand for good teachers exceeded the supply furnished by these 
seminaries, private institutions have sprung up, some of which have at- 
tained a popularity equal to the public institutions. But in no state have 
Buch private schools been able to sustain themselves, until the gov- 
ernment seminaries and the public school system had created a demand 
for well-qualified teachers. And in no state in Europe has the experi- 
ment of making seminaries for primary school teachers an appendage to 
a university, or a gymnasium, or any other school of an academic char- 
acter, proved successful for any considerable period of time, or on an ex- 
tensive scale. 

At the beginning of the present century, there were about thirty 
teachers' seminaries in operation. The wars growing out of the French 
Revolution suspended for a time the movements in behalf of popular ed- 
ucation, until the success of the new organization of schools in Prussia, 
commencing in 1809, arrested the attention of governments and individ- 
uals all over the continent, and has led, within the last quarter of a 
century, not only to the establishment of seminaries nearly sufficient to 
supply the annual demand for teachers, but to the more perfect organiza- 
tion of the whole system of public instruction. 

The cardinal principles of the system of Primary Public Instruction as 
now organized in the German states, are. 

First. The recognition on the part of the government of the right, duty 
and interest of every community, not only to co-operate with parents in 
the education of children, but to provide, as far as practicable, by efficient 
inducement and penalties, against the neglect of this first of parental 
obligations, in a single instance. The school obligation, — the duty of pa- 
rents to send their children to school, or provide tor their instruction at 
home, — was enforced by law in Saxe-Gotha, in 1643 ; in Saxony and 
Wirtemberg. in 1659; in Hildesheim in 1663; in Calemberg, in 1681; in 
Celle, in 1689 ; in Prussia, in 1717 ; and in every state of Germany, before 
the beginning of the present century. But it is only within the last thirty 
years, that government enactments have been made truly efficient by en- 
listing the habits and good will of the people on the side of duly. We 
must look to the generation of men now coming into active life for the 
fruits of this principle, universally recognized, and in most cases wisely 
enforced in every state, large and small, Catholic and Protestant, and 
having more or less of constitutional guaranties and forms. 

Second. The establishment of a sufficient number of permanent schools 
of different grades, according to the population, in every neighborhood, 
with a suitable outfit of buildings, furniture, appendages and apparatus. 

Third. The specific preparation of teachers, as far as practicable, for 
the particular grade of schools for which they are destined, with oppor- 
tunities for professional eniploynient and promotion through life. 

Fourth. Provision on the part of the government to make the schools 
accessible to the poorest, not, except in comparatively a few instances, 



HISTORY OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN GERMANY. 



33 



V 



and those in the most despotic governments, by making them free to the 
poor, but cheap to all. 

Fifth. A system of inspection, variously organized, but constant, gen- 
eral, and responsible — reaching every locality, every school, every 
teacher, and pervading the whole state from the central government to 
the remotest district. 

The success of the school systems of Germany is universally attributed 
by her own educators to the above features of her school law — especially 
those which relate to the teacher. These provisions respecting teachers 
may be summed up as follows : — 

1. The recognition of the true dignity and importance of the office of 
teacher in a system of public instruction. 

2. The e.ctablishment of a sufficient number of Teachers' Seminaries, or 
Normal Schools, to educate, in a special course of instruction and practice, 
all persons who apply or propose to teach in any public primary school, 
with aids to self and professional improvement through life. 

3. A system of examination and inspection, by which incompetent per- 
sons are prevented from obtaining situations as teachers, or are excluded 
and degraded from the ranks of the profession, by unworthy or criminal 
conduct. 

4. A system of promotion, by which faithful teachers can rise in a scale 
of lucrative and desirable situations. 

5. Permanent employment through the year, and for life, with a social 
' position and a compensation which compare favorably with the watres 

paid to educated labor in other departments of business. 
y' 6. Preparatory schools, in which those who wish eventually to become 
teachers, may test their natural quaUties and adaptation for school teach- 
ing before applying for admission to a Normal School. 

7. Frequent conferences and associations for mutual improvement, by an 
interchange of opinion and sharing the benefit of each others' experience. 

8. Exemption from militaty service in time of peace, and recognition, 
in social and civil life, as public functionaries. 

9. A pecuniary allowance when sick, and provision for years of infirmity 
and old age, and for their famihes in case of death. 

10. Books and periodicals, by which the obscure teacher is made par- 
taker in all the improvements of the most experienced and distinguished 
members of the profession in his own and other countries. 

With this brief and rapid survey of the history and condition of Popu- 
lar Education in Germany, we will now pass to a more particular desc,rip- 
tion of primary schools in several states, with special reference to the or- 
ganization and course of instruction of Normal Seminaries, and other 
means and agencies for the professional training of teachers. Before 
doing this, we publish a table, prepared from a variety of school docu- 
ments, exhibiting the number and location of Normal Schools in Germany, 
with the testimony of some of our best educators as to the result of this 
Normal School system. 

3 



34 



NORMAL SCHOOLS IN GERMANY. 
TABLE. 



NUMBER AND LOCATION OP NORMAL SEMINARIES IN THE DIFFERENT STATES OP GERMANY. 

The following Table has been compiled from recent official documents 
and school journals, and without being complete, is accurate as far as it 
goes. Cahnich, in an article in Reden's Magazine, estimates the whole 
number of public and private seminaries in Germany, at one hundred and 
fifty-six, and the preparatory schools at two hundred and six. 

HANOVER 7 

Alfeld. t; 1750; Hanover, Hildes- 
heim, Osnabriick, Siade ; one for 
Jewish teachers in Hanover. 



PRUSSIA, 45 

SUPERIOR SEMINARIES. 

Stettin, founded 1735; Potsrlam, foun, 
1748; Breslou, foun. 1765; Hal- 
berstadt, f. 1778; Magdeburg, f. 
1790; Weissenfels, f, 1794; Kara- 
lene, f. 1811; Braunsherg, f. 1810; 
Marienburg. f. 1814; Grandenz, i. 
1816; Neuzelle, f. 1817; Berlin, f, 
1830; Coslin. f. 1806; Bnnzlau, f. 
1816; Bromberg, f 1819; Paradies, 
f. 1838; Erfurt, f. 1820; Biiren, f. 
1825; Meurs. f. 1820; Neuwied, f. 
1816; Briihl, f. 1823; Kempen, f. 
1840; K6nissberg, re-organized, 
1809; Ober-Glogau, re-or., 1815; 
Posen, C 1804 ; Soest, f, 1818 ; Low- 
en, f. 1849. I 

BMALL, OR SECONDARY SEMINARIES. 

Angerburg, f, 1829; Muhlhausen,' 
Greifswald, f. 1791; Kammin, f. 
1840 . Pyritz, f. 1827 ; Trzemesseo. f, 
1829; Gardelegen,f. 1821 ; Ei.sleben, 
f 18.36; Petershagen, f. 1831 ; Lan-; 
genhorst, f. 1830; Heiligenstadt, 
Eylau, Alt-Dobern, Stralsund. I 

FOR FEMALE TEACHERS. 

Miinster; Paderborn ; private semi- 
naries in Berlin, (Bormann) ; Ma- 
rienwerder, (Alberti ;) Kaisers- 
werth, (Fleidner.) 

AUSTRIA. : 11 

Vienna, f. 1771 ; Prague, Trieste, Salz- 
burg, Inspruck, Graz, Gorz, Kiag- 
enfurt, Laibach, Linz, Briinn. 

SAXONY, lO; 

Dresden, f. 1785 ; Fletcher's seminarv, 
f. 1825; Freiberg, f. 1797; Zittau,! 
Budissin, Plauen, Grimma, Anna- 
berg, Pirna, Waldenl^urg. ' 

BAVARIA, 9 

Bamberg, f. 1777; Eichstudt, Speyer, 
Kaiserslautern, Lauingen, Altdorf, 
Schwabach. 

V^IRTEMBERG, ..... 8 
Esslingen, Oehringen, Gm^nd, Niir- 
tingen, Stuttgart, Weingarten, Tu- 
bingen. 



BADEN, 4 

Carlsruhe, f. 1768; Ettlingen, Meers- 
burg, MuUheim. 

Hes.se-Cassel, 3 

Fulda, Homberg, Schlichtern. 
Hesse-Darmstadt, .3 

Friedbeig, Bensheim. 
Anhalt 3 

Bernburg, Cothen, Dessau. 
Reuss, 3 

Greiz, Gera, Schleiz. 
Saxe Coburg-Gotha, 2 

Coburg; Go/ha, f, 1779. 
Saxe Meiningen, 1 

Hildburghausen. 
Saxe Weimar, 2 

Weimar, Eisenach. 
Oldenburg, 2 

Oldenburg, Birkenfeld. 
Holstein, , 

Segeberg, f 1780. 
Saxe-Altrnburg, , 

Altenburg. 
Nassau, , 

Idsiein. 
Brunswick, 

Wolfenbuttel. 
Luxemburg, 



Luxemburg. 
LlPPE, 

Detmold. 
Mecklenburg Schwerin, 

Ludwigslust. 
Mecklenburg Strelitz, 

Mirow. 
Schwarzburg, . , . . 

lludolstadt. 

Lubeck, 

Bremen, 

Hamburg, 

Frankfort , , . . , 



RESULTS 

OF THE NORMAL SCHOOL SYSTEM IN GERMANY. 



The following testimony as to tlie results of the system of training teach- 
ers in institutions organized and conducted with special reference to com- 
municating a knowledge of the science and art of education, is gathered from 
American documents. 

Rev. Calvin E. Stowe, D. D„ Professor of Biblical Literature in Lane 
Seminary, Cincinnati, Ohio, in a " Report on Elementarij Public Instruction 
in Europe,^'' submitted to the General Assembly of Ohio, December, 1839, 
after describing the course of instruction pursued in the common schools of 
Prussia and Wirteniberg, thus sums up the character of the system in refer- 
ence particularly to the wants of Ohio : 

" The strikini^ features of this system, even in the hasty and imperfect sketch 
wliich my limits allow me to give, are obvious even to superficial observation. 
No one can fail to observe its great completeness, both as to the number and 
kind of subjects embraced in it, and as to its adaptedness to develop every 
power of every kind, and give it a useful direction. What topic, in all that is 
necessary for a sound business education, is here omitted ? I can think of noth' 
ing, unless it be one or two of the modern languages, and these are introduced 
wherever it is necessary. I have not taken the course precisely as it exists in 
any one school, but have combined, from an investigation of many institutions, 
the features which I suppose would most fairly represent the whole system. In 
the Rhenish provinces of Prussia, in a considerable part of Bavaria, Baden, and 
Wirtemberg, Freucli is tauglit as well as German ; and in the schools of Prussian 
Poland, German and -Polish are taught. Two languages can be taught in a school 
quite as easily as one, provitled the teacher be perfectly familiar with both, as 
any one may see by visiting Mr. Solomon's school in Cincinnati, where all the 
instruction is given botli in German and English. 

Wliat faculty of mind is there that is not developed in the .scheme of instruc- 
tion sketcheil above ? I know of none. Tlie perceptive and reflective faculties, 
the memory and the jiulgment, the imagination and tlio taste, tlie moral and re^ 
ligious faculty, antl oven tlie various kinds of physical antl manual dexterity, all 
have opportunity for development and exercise, buloed, I think the system, in 
its great outlines, as nearly complete as human ingenuity and skill can make it ; 
though undoubtedly some of its arrangements aiul iletails atlmit of improvement ; 
and some cliaiiges will of course be necessary in adapting it to the circumstances 
of (lirterent coiuitries. 

The entirely practical cliaracter of the system is obvious throughout. It 
views every subject on the practical side, and in reference to its adaptedness to 
use. The dry, technical, abstract parts of science are not those first presented ; 
but tlie system i)roceeds, in tlie only way which nature ever pointed out, from 
practice to theory, from facts to demonstrations. It has often been a complaint 
ill respect to some .systems of education, that the more a man studied, the less he 
knew of the actual business of life. Such a complaint cannot be made in refer- 
ence to tliis system, for, being intended to educate for the actual business of life, 
this object is never for a moment lost sight of. 

Anotlier striking feature of the system is its moral and religious character. 
Its morality is pure and elevated, its religion entirely removed from the narrow- 
ness of sectarian bigotry. What parent is there, loving his children, and wishing 
to have them respected and happy, who would not desire that they should be 



36 RESULTS OF NORMAL SCHOOL SYSTEM. 

educated under such a kind of moral and religious influence as has been described * 
Wliether a believer in revelation or not, does he not know that without sound 
morals there can be no happiness, and that there is no morality like the morality 
of the New Testament ? Does he not know that Avithout religion the human 
heart can never be at rest, and that there is no religion like the religion of the 
Bible ? Every well-informed man knows that, as a general fact, it is impossible 
to impress the obligations of morality with any efficiency on the heart of a child, 
or even on that of an adult, without an appeal to some code which is sustained 
by the authority of God ; and for wliat code will it be possible to claim this 
authority, if not for the code of the Bible ? 

But perhaps some will be ready to say, ' The scheme is indeed an excellent 
one, provided only it were practicable ; but the ideii of introducing so extensive 
and complete a course of study into our common schools is entirely visionary, and 
can never be realized.' I answer, that it is no theory which I have been exliib- 
iting, but a matter of fact, a copy of actual practice. The above system is no 
visionary scheme, emanating from the closet of a recluse, but a sketch of the 
course of instruction now actually pursued by thousands of schoolmasters, in tiie 
best district schools that have ever been organized. It can be done ; for it has 
been done — it is now done : and it ought to be done. If it can be done in 
Europe, I believe it can be done in the United States : if it can be done in Prus- 
sia, I know it can be done in Ohio. The people have but to say the word and 
provide the means, and tlie thing is accomplished ; for the word of the people 
here is even more powerful than the word of the king there ; and the means of 
the people here are altogether more abundant for such an object than the means 
of the sovereign there. Shall this object, then, so desirable in itself, so entirely 
practicable, so easily within our reach, fail of accomplishment ? For the honor 
and welfare of our state, for the safety of our whole nation, I trust it will not 
fail ; but that we shall soon witness, in this commonwealth, the introduction of a 
system of common-school instruction, fully adequate to all the wants of our pop- 
ulation. 

But the question occurs. How can this be done ? I will sive a few brief hints 
as to some things which I suppose to be essential to the attainment of so desira- 
ble an end. 

1. Teachers must be skillful, and trained to their business. It will at once be 
perceived, that tiie plan above sketched out proceeds on the supposition that the 
teacher has fully and distinctly in his mind the whole course of instruction, not 
only as it respects the matters to be taught, but also as to all tlie best modes of 
teaching, that he may be able readily and decidedly to vary his method accord- 
ing to the peculiarities of each individual mind which may come under his care. 
This is the only true secret of successful teaching. The old mechanical method, 
in which the teacher reUes enthely on his text-book, and drags every mind along 
through the same dull routine of creeping recitation, is utterly insufficient to 
meet the wants of our people. It may do in Asiatic Turkey, where the whole 
object of tlie school is to learn to pronounce the words of the Koran in one dull, 
monotonous series of sounds ; or it may do in China, where men must never speak 
or think out of tlie old beaten track of Chinese imbecility ; but it will never do 
in the United States, where the object of education ought to be to make imme- 
diately available, for tlie highest and best purposes, every particle of real talent 
that exists in the nation. To effect such a purpose, the teacher must possess a 
strong and independent mind, well disciplined, and well stored witli every thing 
pertaining to his profession, and ready to adapt his instructions to every degree 
of intellectual capacity, and every kind of acquired habit. But how can we 
expect to find such teachers, unless they are trained to their business ? A very 
few of extraordinary powers may occur, as we sometimes find able mechanics, 
and great mathematicians, who had no early training in their favorite pursuits ; 
but these few exceptions to a general rule will never multiply fast enough to 
supply our schools Avith able teachers. The management of the human mind, 
particularly youtliful mind, is the most delicate task ever committed to the hand 
of man ; and shall it be left to mere instinct, or shall our schoolmasters have at 
least as careful a training as our lawyers and physicians ? 

2. Teachers, then, must have the means of acquiring the necessary qualifica- 
tions ; in other words, there must be institutions in which the business of teachino- 



RESULTS OF NORMAL SCHOOL SYSTEM. 3I7 

is made a systematic object of attention. I am not an advocate for multiplying 
our institutions. We already have more in number than we support, and it 
■would be wise to give power and efficiency to those we now possess before we 
project new ones. But the science and art of teaching ouglit to be a regular 
branch of study in some of our academies and high schools, that those who are 
looking forward to this profession may have an opportunity of studying its prin- 
ciples. In addition to tl)is, in our populous towns, where tliere is opportunity 
for it, there should be large model schools, under the care of the most able and 
experienced teachers that can be obtained ; and the candidates fur the profession 
who have already completed the theoretic course of the academy, should be em- 
ployed in this school as monitors, or assistants — thus testing all their theories by 
practice, and acquiring skill and dexterity under the guidance of their head 
master. Thus, while learning, they would be teaching, and no time or effort 
■would be lost. To give efficiency to the whole system, to present a general 
standard and a prominent point of union, there should be at least one model 
teachers' seminary, at some central point — as at Columbus — which shall be amply 
provided with all the means of study and instruction, and have connected with it 
schools of every grade, for the practice of the students, under the immediate 
superintendence of their teachers. 

3. The teachers must be competently supported, and devoted to their busi- 
ness. Few men attain any great degree of excellence in a profession unless they 
love it, and place all their hopes in life upon it. A man cannot, consistently 
with liis dutv to himself, engage in a business which does not afford him a com- 
petent support, unless he has other means of living, wdiich is not the case with 
many who engage in teaching. In this country especially, where there are such 
vast fields of profitable employment open to every enterprising man, it is not 
possible that the best of teachers can be obtained, to any considerable extent, for 
our district schools, at the present rate of wages. We have already seen what 
encouragement is lield out to teachers in Russia, Prussia, and other European 
nations, and what pledges are given of competent support to their families, not 
only wliile engaged in the work, but when, having been worn out in the public 
service, they are no longer able to labor. In those countries, where every pro- 
fession and walk of life is crowded, and where one of the most common and 
oppressive evils is want of employment, men of high talents and qualifications 
are often glad to become teachers even of district schools ; men who in this coun- 
try would aspire to the highest places in our colleges, or even our halls of legis 
lation and courts of justice. How much more necessary, then, here, that the 
profession of teaching should afford a competent support ! 

Indeed, such is the state of tilings in this country, that we cannot expect to 
find male teachers for all our schools. The business of educating, especially 
young chiUlren, must fall, to a great extent, on female teachers. There is not 
the same variety of tempting employment for females as for men ; they can be 
supported cheaper, and the Creator has given them peculiar qualifications for 
the education of the young. Females, then, ought to be employed extensively 
in all our elementary schools, and tliey should be encouraged and aided in ob- 
taining the qualifications necessary for tliis work. There is no country in the 
world where woman iiolds so high a rank, or exerts so great an influence, as 
here ; wherefore, her responsibilities are tlie greater, and she is under obliga- 
tions to render herself the more actively useful. 

4. The children must be made comfortable in their school ; they must bo 
punctual, and attend the whole course. There can be no profitable study with- 
out personal comfort ; and the inconvenience and miserable arrangements of 
some of our school-iiouses are enough to annihilate all that can be done by the 
best of teachers. No instructor can teach unless the pupils are present to be 
taught, and no plan of systematic instruction can be carried steadily through 
unless the pupils attend punctually and through the whole course. 

5. Tiie cliil Iren must be given up implicitly to the disciplj^ie of the schooL 
Notlung can be done unless the teacher has the entire control of his pupils in 
school-hours, and out of school too, so far as the rules of the school are concerned. 
If the parent in any way interferes with, or overrules, the arrangements of the 
teacher, he may attribute it to himself if the school is not successful. No teacher 
evw dught tt> be emjAoyW to whbku tine fentirb management of the children cat>- 



38 RESULTS OF NORMAL SCHOOL SYSTEM. 

not be safely intrusted ; and better at any time dismiss the teacher than coun- 
teract his discipline. Let parents but take the pains and spend the money 
necessary to provide a comfortable school-house and a competent teacher for 
their children, and they never need apprehend that the disciplitie of the school 
•will be unreasonably severe. No inconsiderable part of the corporal punishment 
that has been inflicted in schools, has been made necessary by the discomfort of 
school-houses and the unskillfulness of teachers. A lively, sensitive boy is stuck 
upon a bench full of knot-holes and sharp ridges, without a support for his feet 
or his back, with a scorching fire on one side of him and a freezing wind on the 
other ; and a stiff Orbilius of a master, with wooden brains and iron hands, orders 
him to sit perfectly still, with nothing to employ his mind or his body, till it is 
his turn to read. Thus confined for hours, what can the poor little fellow do but 
begin to wriggle like a fish out of water, or an eel in a frying-pan ? For this 
irrepressible eifort at relief he receives a box on the ear ; this provokes and ren- 
ders him still more uneasy, and next comes the merciless ferule ; and the pool 
child is finally burnt and frozen, cuffed and beaten, into hardened roguery or 
incurable stupidity, just because the avarice of liis parents denied him a comfort- 
able school-house and a competent teacher. 

6. A beginning must be made at certain points, and the advance toward 
completeness must be gradual. Every thing cannot be done at once, and such a 
system as is needed cannot be generally introduced till its benefits are first de- 
monstrated by actual experiment. Certain great points, then, where the people 
are ready to co-operate, and to make the most liberal advances, in proportion to 
their means, to maintain the schools, should be selected, and no pains or expense 
spared, till the full benefits of the best system are realized ; and as the good 
effects are seen, other places will very readily follow tiie example. All experi- 
ence has shown that governmental patronage is most profitably employed, not to 
do the entire work, but simply as an incitement to the people to help themselves. 

To follow up this great object, the Legislature has wisely made choice of a 
Superintendent, whose untiring labors and disinterested zeal are worthy of all 
praise. But no great plan can be carried through in a single year ; and if the 
Superintendent is to have opportunity to do what is necessary, and to preserve 
that independence and energy of official character which are requisite to the 
successful discharge of his duties, he should hold his office for the same term, and 
on the same conditions, as the Judges of the Supreme Court. 

Every officer engaged in this, or in any other public work, should receive a 
suitable compensation for his services. This, justice requires ; and it is the only 
way to secure fidelity and efficiency. 

There is one class of our population for whom some special provision seems 
necessary. The children of foreign emigrants are now very numerous among us, 
and it is essential that they receive a good English education. But they are 
not prepared to avail themselves of the advantages of our common English 
schools, their imperfect acquaintance with the language being an insuperable bar 
to their entering on the course of study. It is necessary, therefore, that there be 
some preparatory schools, in which instruction shall be communicated both in 
English and their native tongue. The EngUsh is, and must be, the language of 
this country, and the highest interests of our state demand it of the Legislature 
to require that the English language be thoroughly taught in every school wliich 
they patronize. Still, the exigencies of the case make it necessary that there 
should be some schools expressly fitted to the condition of our foreign emigrants, 
to introduce them to a knowledge of our language and institutions. A school of 
this kind has been established in Cincinnati, by benevolent individuals. It has 
been in operation about a year, and already nearly three hundred children have 
received its advantages. Mr. Solomon, the head teacher, was educated for his 
profession in one of the best institutions of Prussia, and in this school he has 
demonstrated the excellences of the system. The instructions are all given both 
in German and English, and this use of two languages does not at all interrupt 
the progress of the children in their respective studies. I cannot but recommend 
this philanthropic institution to the notice and patronage of the Legislature.* 

In neighborhoods where there is a mixed population, it is desirable, if possible, 

* German schools now form a part of the system of public scbools in Cincinnati. 



RESULT!? OF NORMAL SCHOOL SYSTEM. 39 

to employ teachers wlio understand both languages, and that the exercises of the 
school be conducted in both, with the rule, however, that all the reviews and 
examinations be in English only." 

Alexander Dallas Bache, LL. D., Superintendent of the United States 
Coast Survey, in a " Report on Educalion in Europe" to the Trustees of the 
Girard College of Orphans, Philadelphia, in 1838, remarks as follows: 

" When education is to be rapidly advanced, Seminaries for Teachers offer the 
means of securing this result. • An eminent teaclier is selected as Director of the 
Seminary ; and by the aid of competent assistants, and while benefiting the com- 
munity by the instruction given in the schools attaclied to the Seminary, trains, 
yearly, from thirty to forty youths in the enlightened practice of his methods ; 
these, in their turn, become teachers of schools, which they are fit at once to 
conduct, without the failures and mistakes usual with novices ; for though begin- 
ners in name, they have acquired, in the course of the two or three years spent at 
the Seminary, an exj)erience equivalent to many years of unguided efforts. This 
result has been fully realized in the success of the attempts to spread the meth- 
ods of Pestalozzi and others through Prussia. The plan has been adopted, and is 
yielding its appropriate fruits in Holland, Switzerland, France, and Saxony ; while 
in Austria, where the method of preparing teachers by their attendance on the 
primary' scliools is still adhered to, the schools are stationary, and behind those of 
Northern and Middle Germany. 

These Seminaries produce a strong esprit de corps among teachers, which 
tends powerfully to interest them in their profession, to attach them to it, to ele- 
vate it in tlieir eyes, and to stimulate them to improve constantly upon tlie at- 
tainments with wJiich they may have commenced its exercise. By their aid a 
standard of examination in the theory and practice of instruction is furnished, 
■which may be fairly exacted of candidates who have chosen a different way to 
obtain access to the profession." 

Hon. Horace Mann, in his " Seventh Annual Report as Secretary of the 
Board of Educalion in Massachusetts" in which he gives an account of an 
educational tour through the principal countries of Europe in the summer 
of 1843, says: 

" Among the nations of Europe, Prussia has long enjoyed the most distin- 
guished reputation for the excellence of its schools. In reviews, in speeclies, in 
tracts, and even in graver works devoted to the cause of education, its schools 
have been exhibited as models for the imitation of the rest of Christendom. For 
many years, scarce a suspicion was breathed that the general plan of education 
in that kingdom was not sound in theory and most beneficial in practice. Re- 
cently, however, grave charges have been preferred against it by high authority. 
The popular traveler, Laing, has devoted several chapters of his large work on 
Prussia to the disparagement of its school system. An octavo volume, entitled 
' The Age of Great Cities,' has recently appeared in England, in which that sys- 
tem is strongly condemned ; and during the pendency of the famous ' Factories' 
Bill' before the British House of Commons, in 1843, numerous tracts were issued 
from the Engli-sh press, not merely calling in question, but strongly denouncing, 
the whole plan of education in Prussia, as being not only designed to produce, 
but as actually producing, a spirit of blind acquiescence to arbitrary power, in 
things spiritual as well as temporal — as being, in fine, a system of education 
adapted to enslave, and not to enfrancliise, the human mind. And even in some 
parts of the United States — the very nature and essence of whose institutions 
consist in the idea that the people are wise enough to distinguish between what 
is right and what is wrong — even here, some have been illiberal enough to con- 
demn, in advance, every thing that savors of the Prussian system, because that 
system is sustained by arbitrary power. 

********* 

But allowing all these charges against the Prussian system to be true, there 
were still two reasons why I was not deterred from examining it. 

In the first place, the evils imputed to it were easily and naturally separable 



40 RESULTS OF NORMAL SCHOOL SYSTEM. 

from the good which it was not denied to possess. If the Prussian schoolmaster 
has better methods of teaching reading, writing, grammar, geography, arithme- 
tic, &c., so that, in half the time, he produces greater and better results, surely 
we may copy his modes of teaching these elements without adopting his notions 
of passive obedience to government, or of blind adherence to the articles of a 
church. By the ordinance of nature, the human faculties are substantially the 
same all over the world, and h^nce the best means for their development and 
growth in one place, must be substantially the best for their development and 
growth everywhere. The spirit which shall control the action of these faculties 
when matured, which shall train them to self-reliSnce or to abject submission, 
which shall lead them to refer all questions to the standard of reason or to that 
of authority, — this spirit is wholly distinct and distinguishable from the manner 
in which the faculties themselves ought to be trained ; and we may avail our- 
selves of all improved methods in the earlier processes, without being contami- 
nated by the abuses which may be made to follow them. The best style of 
teaching arithmetic or spelling has no necessary or natural connection with the 
doctrine of hereditary right ; and an accomplished lesson in geography or gram- 
mar commits the human intellect to no particular dogma in religion. 

In the second place, if Prussia can pervert the benign influences of education 
to the support of arbitrary power, we surely can employ them for the support 
and perpetuation of republican institutions. A national spirit of liberty can bo 
cultivated more easily than a national spirit of bondage ; and if it may be made 
one of the great prerogatives of education to perform the unnatural and unholy 
work of making slaves, then surely it must be one of the noblest instrumentali- 
ties for rearing a nation of freemen. If a moral power over the understandings 
and affections of the people may be turned to evil, may it not also be employed, 
for the highest good ? 

Besides, a generous and impartial mind does not ask whence a thing comes, 
but what it is. Those who, at the present day, would reject an improvement 
because of the place of its origin, belong to the same school of bigotry with those 
who inquired if any good could come out of Nazareth ; and what infinite bless- 
ings would the World have lost had that party been punished by success ! 
Throughout my whole tour, no one principle has been more frequently exempli- 
fied than this, — that wherever I have found the best institutions, — educational, 
reformatory, charitable, penal, or otherwise, — there I have always found the 
greatest desire to know how similar institutions were administered among our- 
selves ; and where I have found the worst, there I have found most of the spirit 
of self-complacency, and even an offensive disinclination to hear of better 

methods. 

************ 

All the subjects I have enumerated were taught in all the schools I visited, 
whether in city or country, for the rich or for the poor. In the lowest school in 
the smallest and obscurest village, or for the poorest class in overcrowded cities ; 
in the schools connected witli pauper establLshments, with houses of correction, 
or with prisons, — in all these, there was a teacher of mature atje, of simple, unaf- 
fected, and decorous manners, benevolent in his expression, kind and genial in 
his intercourse with the young, and of such attainments and resources as qualified 
him not only to lay down the abstract principles of the above range of studies, 
but, by familiar illustration and apposite example, to commend them to the at- 
tention of the children. 

I speak of the teachers whom I saw, and with whom I had more or less of 
personal intercourse ; and, after some opportunity for the observation of public 
assemblies or bodies of men, I do not hesitate to say, that if those teachers were 
brought together, in one body, I believe they would form as dignified, intelligent, 
benevolent-looking a company of men as could be collected from the same amount 
of population in any country. They were alike free from arrogant pretension 
and from the affectation of humility. It has been often remarked, both in Eng- 
land and in this country, that the nature of a school-teacher's occupation exposes 
him, in some degree, to overbearing manners, and to dogmatism in the statement 
of his opinions. Accustomed to the exercise of supreme authority, moving 
among those who are so much his inferiors in point of attainment, perhaps it is 
proof of a very well-balanced mind, if he keeps himself free from assumption 



RE?;ULTS OF NORMAL SCHOOL SYSTEM. 41 

in opinion and haughtiness of demeanor. Especially are such faults or vices apt 
to spring up in weak or ill-furnished minds. A teacher who cannot rule by love, 
must tlo so by fear. A teaclier who cannot supply material for the activity of 
liis pupils" minds by his talent, must put down that activity by force. A teacher 
who cannot answer all the questions and solve all tho doubts of a scholar as they 
arise, must assume an awful and mysterious air, and must expound in oracles, 
which themselves need more explanation than the original difficulty. When a 
teacher knows much, and is master of his whole subject, he can afford to be mod- 
est and unpretending. Butwhen-the head is the only text-book, and the teacher 
has not been previously prepared, he must, of course, have a small library. 
Among all the Prussian and Saxon teachers whom I saw, there were not half a 
dozen instances to remind one of those unpleasant characteristics, — Avhat Lord 
Bacon would call the ' idol of the tribe,' or profession, — wliich sometimes de- 
grade the name and disparage the sacred calling of a teacher. Generally speak- 
ing, there seemed to be a strong love for the employment, always a devotion to 
duty, and a profound conviction of the importance and sacredness of the office 
they filled. The only striking instance of disingenuousness or attempt at decep- 
tion, which I saw, was that of a teacher who looked over the manuscript books of 
a large class of his scholars, selected the best, and, brhiging it to me, said, ' In 
seeing one you see all. 

Wlience came tMs beneficent order of men, s:\Tttered over the whole coun- 
try, molding the character of its people, and carrying them forward in a career 
of civilization more rapidly than any other people in tiie world are now advanc- 
ing ^ This is a question nvhich can be answered only by giving an account of the 
Seminaries for Teachers. 

From tlie year 18 20 to 1830 or 1835, it was customary, in all accounts of 
Prussian education, to mention the number of these Seminaries for Teachers. 
TJiis item of information has now become unimportant, as there are seminaries 
sufficient to supply the wants of the whole country. The stated term of resi- 
dence at these seminaries is three years. Lately, and in a few places, a class of 
preliminary institutions has sprung up, — institutions where pupils are received 
in order to determine whether they are fit to become candidates to be candi- 
dates. As a pupil of the seminary is liable to be set aside for incompetency, 
even after a three years' course of study; so the pupils of these preliminary in- 
8titutit)ns, after having gone through witli a shorter course, are liable to bo set 
aside for incompetency to become competent. 

Let us look for a moment at the guards and securities which, in that country, 
environ this sacred calling. In the first place, the teacher's profession holds such 
a high rank in public estimation, that none who have failed in other employments 
or departments of business, are encouraged to look upon school-keeping as an 
ultimate resource. Those, too, who, from any cause, despair of success in other 
departments of business or walks of life, have very slender prospects in looking 
forward to this. Tliese considerations exclude at once all that inferior order of 
men wlio, in some countries, constitute the main body of the teachers. Then 
come, — though only in some parts of Prussia, — these preliminary schools, wliere 
those who wish eventually to become teachers, go, in order to have their natural 
qualities and adaptation for school-keeping tested ; for it must be borne in mind 
that a man may have the most unexceptionable cliar.acter, may be capable of 
mastering all the branches of study, may even be able to make most brilliant 
recitations from day to day ; and yet, from some coldness or repulsiveness of 
manner, from harshness of voice, from some natural defect in his person or in one 
of his senses, he may be adjudged an unsuitable model or archetype for children 
to be conformed to, or to grow by ; and hence he may be dismissed at the end of 
his probationary term of six months. At one of these preparatory schools, which 
I visited, the list of subjects at the examination, — a part of which I saw, — was 
divided into two classes, as follows : — 1. Readiness in thinking, German language, 
including orthography and composition, history, description of the earth, knowl- 
edge of nature, thorough bass, calligrapiiy, drawing. 2. Religion, knowledge of 
the Bible, knowledge of nature, mental arithmetic, singing, violin-playing, and 
readiness or facility in speaking. The examination in all the brandies of the first 
class was conducted in writing. To test a, pupil's readiness in thinking, for in- 
BtancB, several topics for cblHpbsdtion are given out, and, aftfer the lapse ctf a cer- 



42 RESULTS OF NORMAL PCIIOOL SYSTEM. 

tain number of minutes, whatever has been written must be handed in to the 
examiners. So questions in arithmetic are given, and the time occupied by the 
pupils in solving them, is a test of their quickness of thouglit, or power of com- 
manding their own resources. This facility, or faculty, is considered of great im- 
portance in a teacher.* In the second class of subjects the pupils were exam- 
ined orallji. Two entire rlayswrre occupied in examining a class of thirty pupils, 
and only twenty-one were admitted to tlic seminary school ; — that is, only abcjut 
two-thirds were con.'^idere 1 to be eligible to become eligible, as teachers, after 
three years' further study. Thus, in this first process, the chaff is Avinnowed out, 
and not a few of the lighter grains of the wheat. 

It is to be understood that those who enter the seminary directly, and with- 
out this preliminary trial, have already studied, under able mastersln the Com- 
mon Schools, at least all the briiuches I have above described. The first two of 
the three years, they ex])end mainly in reviewing and expanding their element- 
ary knowledge. The German language is studied in its relations to rhetoric 
and logic, and as ajstlietic literature ; aritlnnetic is carried out into algebra and 
mixed mathematics ; geography into commerce and manufactures, and into a 
knowledge of the various botanical and zoological productions of the different 
quarters of the globe ; linear drawing into perspective and machine drawing, 
and the drawing from models of all kinds, and from objects in nature. &c. The 
theory and practice, not only of vocal, but of instrumental music, occupy much 
time. Every pupil must ]>lay on the violin ; most of them play on the organ, 
and some on other instruments. I recollect seeing a Normal class engaged in 
learning the principles of Harmony. The teacher first «xplained the principles 
on which they were to proceed. He then wrote a bar of music upon the black- 
board, and called upon a pupil to write such notes for another part or accompa- 
niment, as would make harmorn/ with the first. So he would write a bar with 
certain intervals, and then require a pupil to write another, with such intervals 
as, according to the priiicijiles of musical science, would correspond with the first. 
A thorough course of reading on the subject of education is undertaken, as well 
as a more general course. Bible history is almost committed to memory. Con- 
nected with all the seminaries for teachers are large Model or Experimental 
Schools. During the last part of the course much of the -students' time is spent 
in these scliools. At first they go in and look on in silence, while an accom- 
plished teacher is instructing a class. Tlien they themselves commence teaching 
under the eye of such a teaclier. At last they teach a class alone, being respon- 
sible for its proficiency, and for its condition as to order, Ac, at the end of a week 
or other period. During the wdiole course, there are lectures, discussions, com- 
positions, tfec, on the theory and practice of teaching. The essential qualifications 
of a candidate for the office. Lis attainments, and the spirit of devotion antl of 
religious fidelity in which he should enter upon his work; the modes of teaching 
the different branches ; the motive-powers to be applied to the minds of chil- 
dren ; dissertations upon the different natural dispositions of children, and, con- 
sequently, the different ways of addressing them, of securing their confidence and 
affection, and of winning them to a love of learning and a sense of duty ; and es- 
pecially the sacretlness of the teacher's profession, — the idea that he stands, for 
the time being, in the place of a parent, and therefore that a parent's responsi- 
bilities rest upon him, that the most precious hopes of society are committed to 
his charge, and that on him depends, to a great extent, the temporal and per- 
haps the future well-being of hundreds of his fellow-creature.s, — these are the 
conversations, the ideas, the feelings, amid which the candidate for teaching 
spends his probationary years. This is the daily atmosphere he breathes. Tliese 
are the sacred, elevating, invigorating influences constantly pouring in upon his 
soul. Hence, at the expiration of his course, he leaves the seminary to enter 
upon his profession, glowing with enthusiasm for the noble cause he has espoused, 
and strong in his resolves to jierform its manifold and momentous duties. 
J Here, then, is the cause of the worth and standing of the teachers, whom I 
/had the pleasure and the honor to see. As a body of men, their character is 

I * The above described is a very common method of examining in the gymnasia and higlier 
seminaries ol' Prussia. Certain sealed subjects for an exercise are given to the students ; they are 
then loclved up in a room, each by himself, and at the expiration of a given time, they are en- 
larged, and it is seen what each one lias been able to make out of his faculties. 



RESULTS or NORMA I. SCHOOL SYSTEM. 4.3 

more enviable than that of either of the tln^ee, so-called, ' professions; They 
have more benevolence and self-sacritice than the legal or medical, while they 
have less of sanctimoniousness and austerity, less of indisposition to enter into 
all the innocent amusements and joyous feelings of childhood, than the clerical. 
They are not unmindful of what belongs to men while they are serving God ; nor 
of the duties they owe to this world while preparing for another.^^ 

On reviewing a period of six weeks, the greater pai't of which I spent in 
visiting schools in tlie north and middle of Prussia and in Saxony (excepting, of 
course, the time occupied in going from jjlace to place), entering the schools to 
hear the first recitation in the morning, and remaining till the last was completed 
at nigiit, I call to mind three things about which I cannot be mistaken. In some 
of my opinions and inferences 1 may have erred, but of the following facts there 
can l)e no doubt : 

1. During all this time, I never saw a teacher hearing a les.son of any kind 
(excepting a reading or spelling lesson), iuUIl a book in liix //and 

2. I nevjr s;iw a teaclier sittiufi while hjiring a recitation. 

o. Though I saw hundreds of scliools, and thousands, — I think I may say, 
within bounds, tens of thousands of pupils, — ■/ never saw one child undergoing 
punishment, or arraigned for misconduct. I never mw one child in tears from 
haring been punished, or from fear of being punished. 

During the above period, 1 witnessed exercises in geography, ancient and 
modern ; in the German language, — from the explanation of the simplest words 
up to belles-lettres tlisquisitions, with rules for speaking and writing ; — in arith- 
metic, algebra, geometry, surveying, and trigonometry; in book-keeping; in civil 
history, ancient and modern ; in natural pliilosopliy ; in botany and zoology ; in 
mineralogy, where there were hundreds of specimens ; in the endless variety of 
tlie exercises in thinking, knowledge of nature, of the world, and of society ; in 
Bible history and in Bible knowledge ; — and, as I before said, in no one of these 
cases did I see a teacher with a book in his hand. His book, — his books, — his 
library, was in his head. Proni'itly, without pause, witliout hesitation, from the 
rich resources of his own mind, he brought forth whatever the occa.sion demand- 
ed. I remember calling one morning at a country school in Saxony, where every 
thing about the premises, and the appearance, both of teacher and children, 
indicated very narrow pecuniary circumstances. As I entered, the teacher was 
just ready to commence a lesson or lecture on French history. He gave not 
only the events of a particular period in the history of France, but mentioned, as 
he proceeded, all the contemporary sovereigns of neighboring nations. The or- 
dinary time for a lesson here, as elsewhere, was an hour. This was somewhat 
longer, for, toward the close, the teacher entered upon a train of thought from 
which it was difficult to break off, and rose to a strain of eloquence which it was 
delightful to hear. The scholars were all absorbed in attention. They had pa- 
per, pen, and ink before them, and took brief notes of what was said. When the 
lesson touched upon contemporary events in other nations, — which, as I suppose, 
had been the subject of previous lessons, — the pupils were questioned concern- 
ing them. A small text-book of history was used by the pupils, which they 
studied at home. 

I ought to say further, that I generally visited schools without guide, or let- 
ter of introduction, — presenting myself at the door, and asking the favor of ad- 
mission. Though I had a general order from the Minister of Public Instruction, 
commanding all schools, gymnasia, and universities in the kingdom to be opened 
for my inspection, yet I seldom exhibited it, or spoke of it, — at least not until I 
was about departing. I preferred to enter as a private individual, an uncom- 
mended visitor. 

I have said that I saw no teacher sitting in his school. Aged or young, all 
stood. Nor did they stand apart and aloof in sullen dignity. They mingled 
with their pupils, passing rapidly from one side of the class to the other, animat- 
ing, encouraging, sympathizing, breathing life into less active natures, assuring 
the timid, distributing encouragement and endearment to all. The looks of the 
Prussian teacher often have the expression and vivacity of an actor in a play. 
He gesticulates like an orator. His body assumes all the attitudes, and his face 
puts on all the variety of expression, which a pubhc speaker would do if ha- 
ranguing a large assembly on a. topic vital to their interests. 



44 RESULTS OF NORMAL SCHOOL SYSTEM. 

It may seem singular, and pnrhaps to some almost ludicrous, that a teacher 
in expounding the hrst rudiments of handwriting, in teaching tlie difference be- 
tween a hair-stroke and a ground-stroke, or how an I may be "turned into a 6, or 
a M. into a w, shouhl ba able to w >rk himself up into an oratorical fervor ; should 
attitudinize, and gesticulate, and stride from one end of the class to the other, 
and appear in every way to be as intensely engaged as an advocate when argu- 
ing an important cause to a Jury ; — but, strange as it may seem, it is neverthe- 
less true ; and before five minutes of such a lesson had elapsed, I have seen the 
children wrought up to an 6xciteinent proportionally intense, hanging upon the 
teacher's lips, catching every w(jid he says, and evincing great elation or depres- 
sion of spirits, as they had or had not succeeded in following his instructions. So 
I have seen the same rhetorical vehemence on the part of the teacher, and the 
same interest and animation on the part of the pupils, during a lesson on the 
original sounds of the letters, — that is, the difference between the long and the 
short sound of a vowel, or the different ways of opening the mouth in sounding 
the consonants b and p. TJie zeal of the teacher enkindles the scholars. He 
charges them with his own electricity to the point of explosion. Such a teacher 
has no idle, mischievous, whispering children around him, nor any occasion for the 
rod. He does not make desolation of all the active and playful impulses of 
childhood, and call it peace ; nor. to secure stillness among his scholars, does he 
find it necessary to ride them with the nightmare of fear. I rarely saw a teacher 
put questions with his lips alone. He seetns so much interested in his subject 
(though he might liave been teac'hing the same lesson for the hundredth or fiv« 
hundredth time), that his whole body is in motion; — eyes, arms, limbs, all con- 
tributing to the impression he desires to make ; and, at the end of an hour, both 
he and his pupils come from the work all glowing with excitement. 

Suppose a lawyer in one of our courts were to plead an important cause be- 
fore a jury, but instead of standing and extemporizing, and showing by his ges- 
tures, and by the. energy and ardor of his whole manner, that he felt an interest 
in his theme, instead of rising with his subject and coruscating with flashes of 
genius and wit, he should plant liiniself lazily down in a chair, read from some 
old book which scarcely a member of the panel could fully understand, and, after 
droning away for an hour, should leave them, without having distinctly impressed 
their minds with one fact, or led them to form one logical conclusion ; — would it 
be any wonder if he left half of them joking wi'h each other, or asleep ; — would 
it be any wonder, — provided he were followed on the other side by an advocate 
of brilliant parts, of elegant diction and attractive manner, — who ishouhl pour 
sunshine into the darkest recesses of the case, — if he lost not only his own repu- 
tation, but the cause of his chent also ? 

These incitements and endearments of the teacher, this personal ubiquity, as 
it were, among all the pupils in the class, prevailed much more, as the pupils 
were younger. Before the older classes, the teacher's manner became calm and 
didactic. The habit of attention being once formed, nothing was left for subse- 
quent years or teachers, but the easy task of maintaining it. M'as there ever 
such a comment as this on the practice of hiring cheap teachers because the school 
is young, or incompetent ones because it is backward ! 

In Prussia and in Saxony, as well as in Scotland, the power of commanding 
and retaining the attention of a class is held to be a sine qua non in a teacher's 
qualifications. If he has not talent, skill, vivacity, or resources of anecdote and 
wit, sufficient to arouse and retain the attention of liis pupils during the accus- 
tomed period of recitation, he is deemed to have mistaken his calling, and re- 
ceives a significant hint to change his vocation. 

Take a group of little children to a toy-shop, and witness their outbursting 
eagerness and delight. They need no stimulus of badges or prizes to arrest or 
sustain their attention ; they need no quickening of their faculties by rod or 
ferule. To the exclusion of food and sleep they will push their inquirie.s, until 
shape, color, quality, use, substance, both external and internal, of the objects 
around them, are exhausted ; and each child will want the show-man wholly to 
himself. But hi all the boundless variety and beauty of nature's works ; in that 
profusion and prodigality of charms with which the Creator has adorned and en- 
riclied every part of his creation ; in the delights of affection ; in the ecstatic joys 
of beDevolende ; in the absorbing interest which an un^phi^ic^t^ donfiteiende 



RESULTS OF NORMAL SCHOOL SYSTEM. 



45 



instinctively takes in all questions of right and wrung ; — in all these, is there not 
as much to challenge and command the attention of a little child, as in the curi- 
osities of a toy-shop ? When as much of human art and ingenuity shall have 
been expended upon teaching as upon toys, there will be less difference between 
the cases. 

The third circumstance I mentioned above was the beautiful relation of har- 
mony and affection which subsisted between teacher and pupils. I cannot say 
that the extraordinary fact I have mentioned was not the result of chance or ac- 
cident. Of the probability of that, others must judge. I can only say that, dur- 
ing all the time mentioned, I never saw a blow struck, I never heard a sharp 
rebuke given, 1 never saw a child in tears, nor arraigned at the teacher's bar for 
any alleged mi.sconduct. On the contrary, the relation seemed to be one of duty 
first, and then affection, on the part of the teacher, — of affection first, and then 
duty, on the part of the scholar. The teacher's manner was better than parent- 
al, for it had a parent's tenderness and vigilance, without the foolish dotings 
or indulgences to which parental affection is prone. I heard no child ridiculed, 
sneered at, or scolded, for making a mistake. On the contrary, whenever a mis- 
take was ma,de, or there was a want of promptness in giving a reply, the expres- 
sion of the teacher was that of grief and disappointment, as thdugh there had 
been a failure, not merely to answer the question of a master, but to comply 
with the expectations of a friend. No child was disconcerted, disabled, or be- 
reft of his senses, through fear. Nay, generally, at the ends of the answers, the 
teacher's practice is to encourage him with tlie exclamation, ' good,' ' right,' 
• wholly right,' tfec., or to check him, with his slowly and painfully, articulated 
' no ;' and this is done with a tone of voice tiiat marks every itegree of plus and 
minus in the scale of approbation and regret. When a difficult question has 
been put to a young child, which tasks all his energies, the teacher approaches 
him with a mingled look of concern and encouragement ; he stands before him, 
the light qjid shade of hope and fear alternately crossing his countenance ; he 
lifts his arms and turns his body, — as a bowler who has given a wrong direction 
to his bowl will writhe his person to bring the ball back upon its track ; — and 
finally, if the little wrestler with difficulty triumphs, the teacher felicitates him 
upon his success, perhaps seizes and shakes him by the hand, in token of con- 
gratulation ; and, when the difficulty has been really formidable, and the effort 
triumphant, I have seen the teacher catch up the child in his arms and embrace 
him, as though he were not able to contain his joy. At another time, I have 
seen a teacher actually clap his hands with deligjit at a bright reply ; and all 
this has been done so naturally and so unaffectedly as to excite no other feeling 
in the residue of the children than a desire, by the same means, to win the same 
caresses. What person worthy of being called by the name, or of sustaining the 
sacred relation of a parent, would not give any, thing, bear any thing, sacrifice 
any thing, to have his children, during eight or ten years of the period of their 
childhood, surrounded by circumstances, and breathed upon by sweet and hu- 
manizing influences, like these !" 

The Rev. Egerton Ryerson. D, D.. Chief Superintendent of Schools, in 
a " Report on a System of Public Elementary fnstruction for Upper 
Canada,''^ after quoting the above passages fVom Mr. Mann's report, re- 
marks : 

"In the above summary and important statements on this subject, by the 
able Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, I fully concur, with 
two slight exceptions. In one instance I did see a boy in tears (in Berlin) when 
removed to a lower class on account of negligence in his school preparations. 
I did see one or two old men silting ocrMsionally in school. With these excep- 
tions, my own similar inquiries and experience" of nearly three months in South- 
ern and Western, as well as Northern and Middle Germany, and I might add 
a longer period of like investigations in Switzerland, Holland, Belgium and 
France— enable me not only to subscribe to the statements of the Hon. Mr. 
Mann, but would enable me, were it necessary, to illustrate them by various 
details of visis to individual schools." 



46 RESULTS OF THE NORMAL SCHOOL SYSTEM. 

Professor Lemuel Stephens, now of Girard College of Orphans, Phila- 
delphia, in a " Letter addressed to Hon. F. R. Shunk, Superintendent of 
Common Schools in Pennsylvania,'''' from Berlin, in 1843, remarks : 

" To determine absolutely the influence which teachers' seminaries have had 
upon the state of popular education in Germany, would be a matter of great 
difiiculty, owing to the gradual growth of these institutions. One thing is cer- 
tain, that the improvement of the schools has followed, hand in hand, the mul- 
tiplication and improvement of the seminaries. Perhaps the value of these in- 
siilutions can be shown in no light so advantageously, as by comparing the 
class of common school teachers in Germany, at the present moment, with the 
same class in England and America. In this country one is struck with the 
zeal and common spirit which a common education has imparled to the whole 
body. They have been for three or four years under the instruction of men 
practically and scientifically acquainted with the best principles of teaching; 
and what is an indispensable part of their preparation, they have had the op- 
portunity of testing the value, and of becoming familiar with the application of 
these principles in practice. During the latter part of their course they have 
been accustomed, under the eye of their teachers, to instruct a school of child- 
ren by which means the art and the theory have kept pace with each other, 
t-'ome knowledge of the human mind, and some just conception of the great 
problem of education which they are engaged in solving, inspires them with 
self-iespect, with earnestness and love of their profession. Once raised above 
the idea that education consists alone in drilling children in a few useful ac- 
complishments, a sense of the dignity of the work of operating on, and forming 
other minds, causes them to overlook the humble outward conditions of a viU 
lage school, and fortifies them against the seductions of false ambition. 

Leaving out of the question the great immediate benefit of these seminaries 
in fitting teachers better to fill their ottice, I believe that the professional spirit, 
the esprit du corps, which they create, is productive of results which-are alone 
sufficient to recommend these institntion.s. It is this common spirit which se- 
cures the progress of the young teacher after he has entered into active service, 
and saves him from the besetting sin of rusting into a mechanical routine, by 
keeping up a lively interchange of opinions, and making him acquainted with 
the successes and improvements of other teachers. The means for this inter- 
course, are conferences and periodicals of education. In every German city, in 
which I have made the inquiry, I have learned that the teachers from the dif- 
ferent schools are accustomed to come together, at stated times, for the pur- 
pose of mutual improvement: even in the villages of Hes.se, and the mountain- 
ous part of Saxony, I found that the teacheis, from villages miles apart, held 
their monthly conferences for debate and lecture. 

In Geiarany there are no less than thirty periodicals devoted exclusively to 
education. In these all questions of interest to teachers are discussed; the best 
method of instructing explained, all new school books noticed and criticised : 
the arrangements and organizations of distinguished schools described, and ac- 
counts given from time to time of the progress of education in other states. 
The General School Gazette, which has particularly attracted my attention, 
has a list of more than one hundred regular contributors. The journals are 
open to all teachers to make known their experience, or to ask for informa- 
tion. The able director of the seminary in this city, who is at the same time 
the conductor of one of these periodicals, inlbrms me that one or more of them 
finds its way to every common school teacher. They are furnished so low that 
he can generally afford to take them, or if not, they are taken by the district for 
his benefit. By these means an active spirit of inquiry is kept up ; the improve- 
ments of individuals become the property of all; the obscure village teacher 
feels that he is a member of a large and respectable class, engaged in the great 
work of human improvement ; and love and zeal for his profession are enkindled. 
There is union, sympathy, generous emulation and mutual improvement. 
Among the members of a profession, there is a common principle of life. It is 
a type of organic lile, which contains within itself the principle of development 
and growth. 

A valuable ordinance passed in Prussia, in 1826, and renewed in 1846, re- 
quires a director of a seminary to travel about once a year, and visit a certain 
part of the schools within his circuit. He makes himself acquainted with the 



RESULTS OF THE NORMAL SCHOOL SYSTEM. 47 

State of the school, listens to the instruction given, takes part himself in the 
same, and gives to the teacher such hints for improvement as his observation 
may suggest. The results of his yearly visits he presents in the form of a re- 
port to the school authorities of the province. I'his occasional visitation is 
very useful in clearing up the dark corners of the land, correcting abuses, and 
giving an impulse, from time to time, to teachers, who might otherwise sink into 
apathy and neglect. To render the efficacy of the seminaries more complete, 
it is provided that at the end of three years after leaving the seminary, the 
young teachers shall return to pass a second examination. And further, by an 
ordinance in 1826, it is provided, ' To the end, that the beneficial influence of 
the seminary may extend itself to those teachers already established, who either 
require further instruction, or who in their own cultivation and skill in office 
do not advance, perhaps even recede; it is required that such teachers be re- 
called into the seminary for a shorter or longer time, as may be needful for 
them, ill order, either to pass through a whole methodical course, or to prac- 
tice themselves in particular departments of instruction.' By this organization 
it is very easy to see that the whole system of popular instruction is brought 
under the influence of the most able teachers; their skill is made to tell upon 
the character of the class; and the assurance is given that the work of educa- 
tion is advancing surely and consequently toward perfection. 

It is only by the distinct division of the objects of human industry and knowl- 
edge, into separate arts and sciences, that their advancement can be insured. 
The necessity for the division of labor in the mechanic arts is well enough un- 
derstood. A necessity for this division, in intellectual pursuits, exists in a by 
no means less degree. So long as the science of education depends for its de- 
velopment upon the casual contributions of men of all professions, without 
being made the business of any, it must grope its way hither and thither by the 
light of occasional flashes, instead of being guided on by a steady flame. 

The views of certain men on education are known among us, but so far is 
pedagogics from being cultivated as a science, we feel ourselves as yet hardly 
authorized to use the word. I am far from denying that we have many very 
good teachers ; but they stand separate and alone. Their influence rarely ex- 
tends beyond the sphere of their own schools. Their experience has furnished 
them with excellent practical rules for their own j rocedure, but these rules 
have perhaps never been expressed in words, much less their truth demon- 
strated by a reduction of the same to scientific principles. They are content to 
be known as possessing the mysterious talent of a skillful teacher, and their 
wisdom dies with them. It is owing to the i-solated position in which teachers 
by profession find themselves, that the didactic skill they may have acquired, 
even when it rises above the character of a blind faculty, and is founded on 
the enlightened conclusions of science, still remains almost without influence 
on the wrong ideas in education which may be in vogue around them. To 
quote a remark of Dr. Harnisch : ' we have had, now and then, capable teach- 
ers without possessing seminaries: we still find such sinsly in states which yet 
have no seminaries, but it can not be denied that seminaries are most eflfectual 
levers for elevating the condition of common schools, and such they have suffi- 
ciently proved themselves to be in latter years.'" 

************ 

" How far may we avail ourselves of the German plan of popular education 1 
It will be borne in mind, that the Prussian system is so far voluntary that it is 
left entirely to the parent where, and in what manner, his child shall be edu- 
cated, only requiring that the years, from six till fourteen, shall be devoted to 
instruction, and that a certain amount of knowledge shall be obtained. The 
Swiss republics have placed their public schools on the same basis that the 
German states have done, their laws are essentially the same, and teachers 
have therefore, there as well as in Germany, the character of public servants. 
The great feature of the Prussian system, which it is both suitable and highly 
desirable for us to imitate, is that which I have already described, namely : the 
provision therein made for the education of common school teachers. This 
appears to me the only radical reform, and the only means of putting public 
education in a steady and consequent train of improvement. 

To apply to ourselves the advantages which I have already stated as flowing 
from this measure— It will raise the employment of teaching among us to a 
regular profession, and introduce generally consistent and rational methods of 



48 RESULTS OF THE NORMAL SCHOOL SYSTEM. 

instructing. It will create among teachers, devotion to their office, and a de- 
sire for co-operation. This desire will manifest itself in the organization of 
unions for conference and m the establishment and support of many periodicals. 
The higher character of teachers, and the improved state of the schools will 
bring them respect, and a better remuneration for their services. The higher 
value set upon education, the immense contrast between the efficacy of a con- 
stant, and that of a half-yearly school, and I must add, the impossitnlity of gel- 
ting good teaxkersfor the lutter, will gradually do away with this great evil under 
which our school system suffers. The permanent settlement of teachers, ren- 
dering much less the annual accession to the profession necessary to keep the 
schools supplied, will, as 1 have shown, obviate all difficulty on the score of 
numbers. The science of the human mind and its cultivation, this vitally im- 
portant branch of a nation's literature, will be developed among us, and its 
blessings will be richly manifested in the better cultivation of all the sciences 
and arts of life. 

Such is a scanty outline of the benefits which the experience of other coun- 
tries, and reason, show us will follow the proper education of our teachers. I do 
not mean to say that Germany has already realized all these benetits. It is 
important to observe that the reform in education in this country, goes out from 
the government not from the people themselves, who rather passively submit 
to its operation, than actively co-operate in giving it efficacy. This, with other 
grounds belbre stated, necessarily make popular education in Germany produc- 
tive of less results than in our own country. * * 

In the establishment of teachers' seminaries their utility and success will de- 
pend entirely upon their appropriate and perfect organization. False economy 
has often attempted to provide for the education of primary teachers, by 
making the seminary an appendage to a high school, or an academy. Thirty 
years ago this arrangement was not uncommon in Germany ; and later the experi- 
ment has been tried in the State of New York. * * If it were needed, to 
strengthen the evidence of the inefficiency of this system, I might easily quote 
the testimony of the most able teachers of Germany to this effect. Perhaps no 
department of education requires a more peculiar treatment, and more calls for 
the undivided zeal and energy of those who have the conduct of it, than the 
preparation of teachers. 

Every thing depends on making the seminaries for teachers, separate and 
independent establishments, with a careful provision for a thorough, theoretical 
and practical preparation for all the duties of the common school. In the ex- 
periment of introducing teachers' seminaries into our country, there is a dan- 
ger that we shall be too sparing in the number of teachers employed in con- 
ducting them. Seminaries conducted by one or two teachers can not be other- 
wise than imperfect; and while but little good would come from them, there is 
great danger that their failure would .serve to bring the cause into disrepute." 



COURSE OF INSTRUCTION 

IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOLS 

OP GERMANY. 



Rev. Calvin E. Stowe, D. D., in 1839, while Professor of Biblical 
Literature in Lane Seminary, Cincinnati, Ohio, visited Europe, and on 
his return submitted to the General Assembly of Ohio, in December, 
1839, a " Report on Elementary Public Instruction in Europe," in which 
he thus describes the course of instruction pursued in the Primary 
Schools of Germany, particularly of Prussia and Wirtemburg. 

The whole course comprises eight years, and includes children from the ages 
of six to fourteen •, and It is divided into four parts, of two years each. It is a 
first principle, that the children be well accommodated as to liouse and furniture. 
The school-room must be well constructed, the seats convenient, and the scholars 
made comfortable, and kept interested. The younger pupils are kept at school 
but four hours in the day — two in the morning and two in the evening, with a 
recess at the close of each hour. The older, six hours, broken by recesses as 
often as is necessary. Most of the school-houses have a bathing-place, a garden, 
and a mechanic's shop attached to them, to promote the cleanliness and health of 
the children, and to aid in mechanical and agricultural instruction. It will be 
seen by the schedule which follows, that a vast amount of instruction is given 
during these eight years ; and lest it should seem that so many branches must 
confuse the young mind, and that they must necessarily be but partially taught, I 
will say, in the outset, that the industrj', skill, and energy of teachers regularly 
trained to their business, and depending entirely upon it ; the modes of teaching ; 
the habit of always finishing whatever is begun ; the perfect method which isprc' 
served ; the entire punctuality and regularity of attendance on the part of the 
scholars ; and other things of this kind, facilitate a rapidity and exactness of ac- 
quisition and discipline, which may well seem incredible to those who have never 
witnessed it. 

The greatest care is taken that acquisition do not go beyond discipline ; and 
that the taxation of mind be kept entirely and clearly within the constitutional 
capacity of mental and physical endurance. The studies must never weary, but 
always interest ; the appetite for knowledge must never be cloyed, but be kept 
always sharp and eager. These purposes are gradually aided by the frequent 
interchange of topics, and by lively conversational exercises. Before the child is 
even permitted to learn his letters, he is under conversational instruction, fre- 
quently for six months or a year ; and then a single week is sufficient to intro- 
duce him into intelligible and accurate plain reading. 

Every week is systematically divided, and every hour appropriated. The 
scheme for the week is written on a large sheet of paper, and fixed in a promi- 
nent part of the school-room, so that every scholar knows what his business will 
be for every hour in the week ; and the plan thus marked out is rigidly followed. 

Through all the parts of the course there are frequent reviews and repetitions, 
that the impressions left on the mind may be distinct, lively, and permanent. 
The exercises of the day are always commenced and closed with a short prayer ; 
and the Bible and hymn-book are the first volumes put into the pupils' hands ; 
and these books they always retain and keep in constant use during the whole 
progress of their education. 

The general outline of the eight years' course is nearly as follows ; 

I. First part, of two years, including children from six to eight years old; 
four principal branches, namely : 

1. Logical exercises, or oral teaching in the exercise of the powers of observa- 
tion and expression, including religious instruction and the singing of hymos. 

2. Elements of reading. 

3. Elements of writing. 

4. Elements of number, or arithmetic. 4 



5Q PRIMARY StilOOl.S OF GT.RMANY. 

II. Second fart, of two years, including children from eight to ten years 
old — sevien principal branches, namely : 

1. Exercises in reading. 

2. Exercises in writing. 

3. Religious and moral instruction, in select Bible narratives. 

4. Language, or grammar. 

5. Numbers, or arithmetiic. 

6. Doctrine of space and form, or geometry. 

7. Singing by note, or elements of music. 

III. Third part, of two years, including children from ten to ttoelve years 
old — eight principal branches, namely ; 

1. Exercises in reading and elocution. 

2. Exercises in ornamental writing, preparatory to drawing. 

3. Religious instruction in the connected Bible history. 

4. Language, or granimar, with parsing. 

5. Keal instruction, or knowledge of iSature and the external world, including 
the first elements of the sciences and the arts of life — of geography and history. 

6. Arithmetic continued through fractions and the rules of proportion. 

7. Geometry — doctrine of magnitudes and measures. 

8. Singing and science of vocal and instrumental music. 

IV. Fourth part, of two years, including children from ten to twelve years 
old — six principal branches, namely : 

1. Religious instruction in the religious observation of Nature ; the life and 
discourses of Jesus Christ; the history of the Christian religion, in connection 
with the contemporary civil history ; and the doctrines of Christianity. 

2. Knowledge of the world, and of mankind, including civil society, elements 
of law, agriculture, mechanic arts, manufactures, &c. 

3. Language, and exercises in composition. 

4. Application of arithmetic and the mathematics to the business of life, 
including surveying and civil engineering. 

5. Elements of drawing. 

6. Exercises in singing, and the science of music. 

We subjoin a few specimens of the mode of teaching under several of the above 
divisions. 

I. First part — children from six to eight years of age. 

1. Conversations between the teacher and pupils, intended to exercise the 
powers of observation and expression. 

The teacher brmgs the children around him, and engages them in a familiar 
conversation with himself. He generally addresses them all together, and tliey 
all reply simultaneously ; but, whenever necessary, he addresses an individual, 
and requires the individual to answer alone. He first directs their attention tp 
the dittir;rent objects in the school-room, their position, form, color, size, materials 
of which they are made. &c., and requires precise and accurate descriptions. He 
then requires them to notice the various objects that meet their eye in the way to 
tfteir respective homes ; and a description of these objects, and the circumstances 
under which they saw them, will form the subject of the next morning's lesson. 
Then the house in which they live, the shop in which their father works, the 
garden in which they walk, &c., will be the subject of the successive lessons; 
and in this way for six months or a year, the childi-en are taught to study things, 
to use their own powers of observation, and speak with readiness and accuracy, 
before books are put into their hands at all. A few speeunens will make the 
nature and utility of this mode of teaching perfectly obvious. 

In a school in Berlin, a boy has assigned him for a lesson, a description of the 
remarkable objects in certain directions from the school-house, which is situated in 
Little Cathedral street. He proceeds as follows : " "^Ahen I come out of the 
school-house into Little Cathedral street, and turn to the right, I soon pass on my 
left hand the Maria Place, the Gymnasium, and the Anklam Gate. When I 
come out of Little Cathedral street, I see on my left hand the White Parade 
Place, and within that, at a little distance, the beautiful statue of Frederick the 
Great, King of Prussia. It is made of white marble, and stands on a pedestal of 
vai'iegated marble, and is fenced in with an iron railing. From here, I have on 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. 5J 

my right a small place, which is a continuation of the Parade Place ; and at the 
end of this, near the wall, [ see St. Peter's Church, or the Wall-street Church, 
as it is sometimes called This church has a green yard before it, planted with 
trees, which is called the Wall Church Yard. St. Peter's Churteh is the oldest 
church in the city; it has a little round tower, which looks green, because it is 
mostly covered with copper, which is made green by exposure to the weather. 
When I go out of the school-house to the lower part of Little Cathedral street, 
by the Coal-market, through Shoe street and Carriage street, I come to the 
Castle. The Castle is a large building, with two small towers, and is built around a 
square yard, which is called the Castle-yard. In the Castle there are two churches, 
and the King and his Ministers of State, and the Judges of the Supreme 
Court, and the Cons story of the Church, hold their meetings there. From the 
Coal-market, I go through Shoe street to the Hay-market, and adjoining this is 
the New-market, which was formed after St. Nicholas's Church was burnt, which 
formerly stood in that place. Between the Hay-market and the New-market is 
the City Hall, where the officers and magistrates of the city hold theis meetings." 

If a garden is given to a class for a lesson, they are asked the size of the garden ; 
its shape, which they may draw on a slate with a pencil ; whether there are 
trees in it ; wliat the dift'erent parts of a tree are ; what parts grow in the spring, 
and what parts decay in autumn, and what parts remain the same throughout the 
winter ; whether any of the trees are fruit trees ; what fruits they bear ; when 
they ripen ; how they look and taste ; whether the fruit be wholesome or other- 
wise ; whether it is prudent to eat much of it ; what plants and roots there are in 
the garden, and whatlise is made of them ; what flowers there are, and how they 
look, i%c. The teacher may then read them the description of the garden of 
Eden in the second chapter of Genesis — sing a hymn with them, the imagery of 
which is taken from the fruits and blossoms of a garden, and explain to them how 
kind and bountiful God is, who gives us such wholesome plants and fruits, and 
such beautiful flowers for our nourishment and gratification. 

The external heavens also make an interesting lesson. The sky — its appear- 
ance and color at dilFerent times ; the clouds — their color, their varying form and 
movements ; the sun — its rising and setting, its concealment by clouds, its warm- 
ing the earth and giving it life and fertility, its great heat in summer, and the 
danger of being exposed to it unprotected ; the moon — its appearance by night, 
full, gibbous, horned ; its occasional absence from the heavens ; the stars — their 
shining, difference among them, their number, distance from us, &o. In this 
connection the teacher may read to them the eighteenth and nineteenth Psalms, 
and other passages of Scripture of that kind, sing with them a hymn celebrating 
the glory of God in the creation, and enforce the moral bearing of such contem- 
plations by appropriate remarks. A very common lesson is, the family and family 
duties, love to parents, love to brothers and sisters, concluding with appropriate 
passages from Scripture, and singing a family hymn. 

2. Elements of reading. 

After a suitable time spent in the exercises above described, the children pro- 
ceed to learn the elements of reading. The first step is to exercise the organs of 
sound till they have perfect command of their vocfel powers ; and this, after the 
previous discipline in conversation and singing, is a task soon accomplished. They 
are then taught to utter distinctly all the vowel sounds. The characters or letters 
representing these sounds are then shown and described to them, till the form 
and power of each are distinctly impressed upon their memories. The same 
process is then gone through in respect to dipthongs and consonants. Last of all, 
after having acquired a definite and distinct view of the diff"erent sounds, and of 
the forms of the letters which respectively represent these sounds, they are taught 
the names of these letters, with the distinct understanding that the name of a let- 
ter and the power of a letter are two very dift'erent things. 

They are now prepared to commence reading. The letters are printed in large 
form, on square cards ; the class stands up before a sort of rack ; the teacher 
holds the cards in his hand, places one upon the rack, and a conversation of this 
kind passes between him and his pupils : What letter is that ? H. He places 
another on the rack. What letter is that ? A. I now put these two letters to- 
gether, thus, (moving the cards close together,) HA. What sound do these two 
letters signify ? Ha. There is another letter. What letter is that ? (putting it on 



52 PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. 

the rack.) R. I now put this tliinl letter to the other two, thus, HAR. 'WTiat 
sound do the three letti rs niaki- .' liar. Tlicre !.•< anothor letter. What is; it ? 
I). I join this letter to the other three, thus, llAKl). What do they all make ? 
Hard. Then he proceeds in the same way with the letters b'-I-S-T ; joins these 
four letters to the preceding lour, 11ARI>-K1ST, and the pupils pronounce, Hard- 
fist. Then with the letters K and I), and joins these two to the proceeding eight, 
and the pupils ]>ronounce. Hard-fisted. In this way they are taught to read 
words of any length, (for you may easily add to the above, N-E-S-S^ and make 
Hard-fistedne.'is) — the longest as easily as the slKjrtest ; and in laet they learn 
their letters ; they leai'n to read words of one syllable and of sevei'al syllables, and 
to read in plain reading, by the same process, at the same moment, .\fter having 
completed a sentence, or several sentences, with the cards and rack, they then 
proceed to read the same words and sentences in their spelling-books. 

3. Elements of writing. 

The pupils are tirst taught the right position of the arms and body in writing, 
the proper methi)d of holding the pen. Arc. ; and are exercised on these points till 
their habits are formed correctly. The ditferent marks used in writing are then 
exhibited to them, from the simple point or straight line, to the most complex 
figure. The variations of t'orm and position which they are capable of assuming, 
and the ditterent parts of which the complex figures are composed, are carefully 
described, and the student is taught to imitate them, beginning with the most 
simple; then the separate parts of the complex, then the joining of tne several 
parts to a whole, with his pencil and slate. After having acquired facility in this 
exercise, he is prepared to write with his ink and paper. The copy is written 
upon the blackboard ; the [taper is laid before each member of the class, and 
each has his pen ready in his hand, awaiting the word of liis teacher. If the 
copy be the simple point, or line | , the teacher repeats the syllable one, one, slow- 
ly at first, and with gradually increasing speed, and at each repetition of the sound 
the pupils write, in this way they learn to make the mark both correctly and 
rapidly. If the figure to bo copied consists of two strokes, (thus, ;,) the teacher 
pronounces one, Inw — one, two, slowly at first, and then rapidly, as before ; and 
the ])upils make the (h-st n\ark, and then llie second, at the sound of each syllable, 
as before. If the figure consist of three strokes, (thus, t,) the teaelier pronounces 
one, two, three, and the pupils write as before. So when they come to make let- 
ters, the letter o has five strokes, thus, a. When that is the copy, the teacher 
says, deliberately, one, two, three, four, five, and at the sound of each syllable the 
different strokes composing the letter are made ; the speed of utterance is grad- 
ually accelerated, till finally the a is made very quickly, and at the same time 
neatly. By this method of teaching, a plain, neat, and quick hand, is easily 
acquired. 

4. Elements of number, or arithmetic. 

In this branch of instruction I saw no improvements in the mode of teaching 
not already substantially introduced into the best schools of our own country. I 
need not, therefore, enter into any details respecting them, excepting so far as to 
say that the student is taught ^^ demonstrate, and perfectly to understand, the 
reason and nature of every rule before he uses it. 

II. Second part — children from eight to ten years of age. 

1, ExercLses in reading. 

The object of these exercises, in this part of the course, is to acquire the habit 
of reading with accuracy and readiness, with due regard to punctuation, and with 
reference to orthogr;iphy. Sometimes the whole class read together, and some- 
times an individual by himself, in order to accustom them to both modes of read- 
ing, and to secure the advantages of both. The sentence is first gone through 
with in the class, by distinctly spelling each word as it occurs ; then by pronounc- 
ing each word distinctly without spelling it ; a third time by pronouncing the 
words and mentioning the punctuation points as they occur. ^V fourth time, the 
sentence is read with the jn-oper pauses indicated by the punctuation jtoints, with- 
out mentioning them. Finally, the same sentence is read with particular attention 
to the intonations of the voice. Thus one thing is taken at a time, and pujiils 
nuist become tluirough in eaeli as it occurs, before they proceed to the next. 
One great benefit of the class reading together is, that each individual has the 
same amount of exercise as if he were the only one under instruction, his attention 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. 53 

can never falter, and no part of the lesson escapes him. A skillful teacher, once 
accustomed to this mode of reading, can as easily detect any fault, mispronuncia- 
tion, or negligence, in any individual, as if that individual were reading alone. 

The process is sometiiues shortened, and the sentence read only three times, 
namely : " according to the words, according to the punctuation, according to the 
life." 

2. Exercises in writing. 

The pupils proceed to write copies in joining-hand, both large and small, the 
principles of teaching being essentially as described in the first part of the course. 
The great object here is, to obtain a neat, swift, business hand. ISometimes, with- 
out a copy, they write from the dictation of the teacher ; and in most cases in- 
struction in orthography and jjunctuation is combined with that in penmanship. 
They are also taught to make and mend their own pens, and in doing this to be 
economical of their quills. 

;{. Religious and moral instruction in select Bible narratives. 

In this branch of teaching the methods are various, and the teacher adopts the 
method best adapted, in his judgement, to the particular circumstances of his own 
school, or to the special objects which he may have in view with a particular class. 
Sometimes he calls the class around him, and relates to them in his own language, 
.some of the simple narratives of the Bible, or reads it to them in the words of 
the Bible itself, or directs one of the children to read it aloud ; and then follows a 
friendly, familiar conversation between him and the class respecting the narrative ; 
their little doubts are pniposcd and resolved, their questions put and answered, and 
the teacher unfolds the moral and religious instruction to be derived from the les- 
son, and illustrates it by appropriate quotations from the didactic and preceptive 
part.s of the Scripture. Sometimes he explains to the class a particular virtue or 
vice, a truth or a duty ; and after having clearly shown what it is, he takes some 
Bible narrative which strongly illustrates the point in discussion, reads it to them, 
and directs their attention to it, with special reference to the preceding narrative. 

A specimen or two of these different methods will best show what they are. 

(a) llead the narrative of the birth of Christ, as given by Luke, ii. l-'2(). Ob- 
serve, Christ was born for the salvation of men, so also for thi salvation of chil- 
dren. Christ is the children's friend. Heaven rejoices in the good of men. 
Jesus, though so great and glorious, makes his aiipearanco in a most humble con- 
dition. He is the teacher of the poor, as well as of the rich. 

With these remarks compare other texts of the Bible. 

Jno iii 16. " For God so lovpd the world that he pave his only begotten Son, that whoso- 
ever believelti in liim should not perish, but have everlasting life." 

1. Jan. iv. 9 "In this was manifested the love of God toward us; because that God sent 
his only befrotten Son into the world, that we mif;ht live througti him." 

Mark .V. 14, 1."). "But when .lesussawit he was much displeased, and said nnto them, 
Suffer little children to come unio me. for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto 
you. whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter 
therein." 

And the lesson is concluded with singing a Christmas hymn. 

Jesus feeds five thousand men : Jno. vi. 1-14. 

God can bless a little so that it will do great good. 

Economy suffers nothing to be lost — other texts: Ps. cxlv. 15, 16. 

'• The eyes of all wait upon thee ; and thou givest them their me.at in due season." 
"Thou openest thy hand, and satisfies! the desire of every living thing." 
Matt. vi. 31-33. '-Therefore fake no thought, saying, what shall we eat? or, What shall 
we drink 7 or. Wherewith il shall we be clothed? (for after all these things do the Gentiles 
seek :) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye 
first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness ; and all these things shall be added unto 
you." 

Story of Cain and Abel. Gen. iv. 1-16. 

Remarks. — Two men may do the same thing externally, and yet the merit of 
their acts be very different. God looks at the heart. Be careful not to cherish 
envy or ill will in the heart. You know not to what crimes they may lead you. 
Remorse and misery of the fratricide — other texts. Matt. xv. 10. Heb. xi. 4. 
1 Jno. iii. 12. ,Iob. xxxiv. 32. 

"For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts* false 
witness, blasphemies." 



54 PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. 

"By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained 
witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he, being dead, yet 
Ejieaketh." 

•• Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he 
him t Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous." 

Story of Jesus in the temple. Luke ii. 41-52. 

Jesus in his childhood was very fond of learning, (he heard and asked ques- 
tions.) God's word was his delight, he understood what he heard and read, 
(men were astonished at his understanding and answers.) He carefully obeyed 
his parents, (he went with them and was subject to them.) And as he grew up, 
his good conduct endeared him to God and man. Other texts. Eph. vi. 1-4. 
Prov. iii. 1-4. 

"Children! obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right. Honor thy father and 
mother, (which is the first commandment with promise.) that it may be well with thee, and 
thou mayest live long on Ihe earth. And ye fathers ! provoke not your children to wrath, 
but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord " 

'• My son, forget not my law ; but let thine heart keep my commandments: For length of 
days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee : 
bind them about thy neck ; write them upon the table of thine heart: So shall thou find 
favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man." 

On the other mode of teaching, the teacher, for example, states the general 
truth, that God protects and rewards the good, and punishes the bad. In illustra- 
tion of this he reads to them the narrative of Daniel in the lions' den, and the 
death which overtook his wicked accusers. Dan. vi. In illustration of the same 
truth, the escape of I'eter, and the miserable death of his persecutor, Herod, may 
be read. Acts xii. 

The teacher may impress upon the mind of his class, that diligence, scrupulous 
fidelity, and conscientious self-control, are the surest guarantees of success in life ; 
and, in illustration of the statement, read the narrative of Joseph's conduct in his 
master's house in Egypt, and in the prison, and the results of it. Gen. xxxix. 
So, also, various incidents in the life of Jesus may be used to great advantage in 
illustrating different virtues. 

It is reeommenied that the teacher employ, in his instructions, the translation 
of the Scriptures in general use among the people ; but that he occasionally take 
the original Scriptures and read to the children, in his own translation, and some- 
times use simple translations from different authors, that children may early learn 
to notice the diversities in different faithful translations, and see what they really 
amount to. 

It is scarcely necessary to observe, that a teacher who understands his business, 
and is faithful to his trust, will scrupulously abstain from sectarian peculiarities, or 
from casting odium on the tenets of any of the Christian denominations. A man 
who has not magnanimity or enlargement of mind enough for this, is not fit to be 
employed as a teacher, even in the humblest branches of knowledge. 

4. Language, or grammar. 

The knowledge of the native tongue, the ability to use it with correctness, facility, 
and power, is justly regarded as one of the most important branches of com- 
mon school instruction. It is the principal object of the logical exercises, or, as 
they may be justly termed, the exercises in thinking and speaking^ already des- 
cribed as the first subject of study in the first part of the course, before the child 
has begun to use his book at all. 

In this second part of the course, grammar is taught directly and scientifically, 
yet by no means in a dry and technical manner. On the contrary, technical 
terms are carefully avoided, till the child has become familiar with the nature and 
use of the things designated by them, and he is able to use them as the names of 
ideas which have a definite existence in his mind, and not as awful sounds, dimly 
shadowing forth some mysteries of science into which he has no power to 
penetrate. 

The first object is to illustrate the different parts of speech, such as the noun, 
the verb, the adjective, the adverb ; and this is done by engaging the pupil in 
conversation, and leading him to form sentences in which the particular parts of 
speech to be Varned shall be the most important word, and directing his attention 
to the nature and use of the word in the place where he uses it. For example, 
let us suppose the nature and use of the adverb are tn be taught. The teacLer 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. 



65 



writes upon the blackboard the words " here, there, near," &c. He then says, 
" Children, we are all together in this room ; by which of the words on the black- 
board can you express this ?'' Children. " We are all Aere." Teacher. ''Now 
look out of the window and see the church ; what can you say of the church 
with the second word on the blackbuard ?" Children. " The church is there.'''' 
Teacher. " The distance between us and the church is not great ; how will you 
express this by a word on the blackboard ?" Children. " The church is near,'' 
The fact that these diftereiit words express the same sort of relations is then ex-'' 
plained, and, accordingly, that they belong to the same class, or are the same part 
of speech. The variations of these words are next explained. " ( hildren, you 
say the church is near, but there is a shop between us and the church ; wliat will 
you say of the shop ?"' Children. " The shop is nearer.'' Teacher. " But there 
is a fence between us and the shop. Is'ow when you think of the distance 
between us, the shop and the fence, wliat will you say of the fence ?" Children. 
" The fence is nearest." So of other adverbs. '' The lark sings well. Compare 
the singing of the lark with that of the canary bird. Compare the singing of the 
nightingale with that of the canary bird." After all the different sorts of adverbs 
and their variations have in this way been illustrated, and the pupils understand 
that all words of this kind are called adverbs, the definition of the adverb is given 
as it stands in the granmiar, and the book is put into their hands to study the 
chapter on this topic. In this way the pupil understands what he is doing at 
every step of his progress, and his memory is never burdened with mere names, 
to which he can attach no definite meaning. 

The mode of teaching the i;ubsequent branches is founded on the same general 
principles, and it may not be necessary to give particular examples. 

5. Numbers, or arithmetic. 

6. Doctrine of space and form, or geometry. 

7. Singing by note, or elements of music. 

The method of teaching music has already been successfully introduced into our 
own State, and whoever visits the schools of Messrs. Mason or Solomon, in Cincin- 
nati, will have a much better idea of what it is than any description can give ; 
nor will any one who visits these schools entertain a doubt that all children from 
six to ten years of age, vvho are capable of learning to read, are capable of learn-> 
ing to sing, and that this branch of instruction can be introduced into all our 
common schools with the greatest advantage, not only to the comfort and disci- 
pline of the pupils, but also to their progress in their other studies. 

The students are taught from the blackboard. The different sounds are repre» 
sented by lines of different lengths, by letters, by figures, and by musical notes ; 
and the pupils are thoroughly drilled on each successive principle before proceed- 
ing to the next. 

III. Third part, of two years — children from ten to twelve. 

1. Exercises in reading and elocution. 

The objects of these exercises, in this part of the course, is to accustom the 
pupils to read in a natural and impressive manner, so as to bring the full force of 
the sentiment on those to whom they read. They are examined in modulation, 
emphasis, and the various intonations, and they often read sentences from the 
blackboard in which the various modulations are expressed by musical notes or 
curved lines. 

The evils of drawling and monotone are prevented in the outset by the method 
of teaching, particularly the practice of the whole class reading together and 
keeping time. Short and pithy sentences, particularly the Book of Proverbs, are 
recommended as admirably adapted to exercises of this kind. 

2. Ornamental writing, introductoiy to drawing. 

The various kinds of ornamental letters are here practiced upon, giving accuracy 
to the ej'e and steadiness to the hand, preparatory to skill in drawing, which comes 
into the next part of the course. The pupils also practice writing sentences and 
letters, with neatness, rapidity, and correctness. 

3. Religious instruction in the connected Bible history. 

The design here is to give to the student a full and connected view of the whole 
Bible history. For this purpose large tables are made out and hung before the 
students. These tables are generally arranged in four columns, the first contain- 
ing the names of the distinguiched men during a particular period of Bible history ; 



gg PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. 

the second, the dates ; the third, a chronological register of events ; and the 
fourth, the particular passages of the Bible where the history of these persons 
and events may be found. With these tables before the pupils, the teacher him- 
self, in his own words, gives a brief conversational outline of the principal char- 
acters and events within a certain period, and then gives directions that the scrip- 
tural passages referred to be carefully read. After this is done, the usual recita- 
tion and examination takes place. Some of the more striking narratives, such as 
• the finding of Moses on the banks of tlie Jsile ; Abraham offering his son ; the 
journey of the wise men to do homage to Christ ; the crucifixion ; the conversion 
of Paul, &c., are committed to memory in the words of the Bible, and the recita- 
tion accompanied with the singing of a hymn alluding to these events. The 
moral instruction to be derived from each historical event is carefully impressed 
by the teacher. The teacher also gives them a brief view of the history between 
the termination of the Old and the commencement of the New Testament, that 
nothing may be wanting to a complete and systematic view of the whole ground. 
Thus the whole of the historical part of the Bible is studied thoroughly, and sys- 
tematically, and practically, without the least sectarian bias, and without a moment 
being spent on a single idea that will not be of the highest use to the scholar 
during all his future life. 

4. Language and grammar. 

There is here a continuation of the exercises in the preceding parts of the 
course, in a more scientific form, together with parsing of connected sentences, 
and writing from the dictation of the teacher, w^ith reference to grammar, orthog- 
raphy, and punctuation. The same principal alluded to before, of avoiding tech- 
nical terms till the things represented by those terms are clearly perceived, is here 
carefully adhered to. A single specimen of the manner in which the modes and 
tenses of the verb are taught may be sufficient to illustrate my meaning. The 
teacher writes on the blackboard a simple sentence, as, •' Tlie scholars learn well ;" 
and asks the class what sort of a sentence it is. They reply that it is a direct 
statement of a fact. (Teach.) Put it in the form of a command. (Class.) Schol- 
ars, learn well ! (Teach.) Put it in a question form. (Class.) Do the scholars 
learn well ? (Teach.) Of a wish. (Cla.ss.) May the scholars learn well ! 
(Teach ) Of an exclamation. (Class.) How well the scholars learn ! (Teach.) 
The conditional form. (Class.) If the scholars learn well ; or, should the scholars 
learn well. (Teacl^) Of necessity. (Class.) The scholars must learn well. 
(Teach.) Of ability. (Class.) The scholars can learn well, &c., &c. They are 
then taught that the direct statement is called the indicative mode of the verb ; 
the command, the imperative mode ; the conditional, the subjunctive mode ; the 
wish, the potential mode, &c., &c. ; and after this, the book is put into their 
hands, and they study their lesson as it stands. After this the different tenses of 
the several modes are taught in the same way. 

5. Real instruction, or knowledge of Nature and the external world, including 
the first elements of the natural sciences, the arts of life, geography, and history, 
instruction on this head is directed to the answering of the following questions, 
namely : 

(a) What is man, as it respects his corporeal and intellectual nature ? 

Here come anatomy and physiology, so far as the structure of the human body 
is concerned, and the functions of its several parts. 

Also the simple elements of mental philosophy. In this connection appropriate 
texts of Scripture are quoted, as Gen. ii. 7. Ps. cxxxix. 14-16. An appropriate 
hymn is also sung. 

" And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils 
the breath of life ; and man became a living soul." 

" I will praise thee : for I am fearfully and wonderfully made : marvellous are thy works ; 
and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was 
made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see 
my substance, yet being imperfect ; and in thy book all my members were written, which in 
eontinuance were fashioned, when as yet there Was none of them." 

(b) What does man need for the preservation and cheerful enjoyment of life, 
as it respects his body and mind ? For his body he needs food ; the different 
kinds of foid, and the mode of preparing them, are here brought to view -, the 
unwholesomeness of some kinds of food ; injuriousness of improper food •, cooking; 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. g^ 

evils of gluttony. The different kinds of clothing and modes of preparing them ; 
what sort of dress is necessary to health ; folly and wickedness of vanity and 
extravagance. Dwellings^ materials of which houses are constructed ; mode of 
constructing them ; different trades employed in their construction. 

For the mind, man needs society, the family and its duties ; the neighborhood 
and its duties. Intellectual, moral, and religious cultivation ; the school and its 
duties ; the church and its duties. For the body and mind both, he needs security 
of person and property ; the government ; the legislature ; the courts, &c. 

(c) Where and how do men find the means to supply their wants, and make 
themselves comfortable and happy in this life ? 

The vegetable, the mineral, and the animal kingdoms are here brought to view, 
for materials ; together with agriculture and manufactures, as the means of con- 
verting these materials to our use. Geography, with special reference to the pro- 
ductions of countries, and their civil, literary, and religious institutions ; towns, 
their organization and employments. Geography is sometimes taught by blank 
charts, to which the students are required to affix the names of the several coun- 
tries, rivers, mountains, principal towns, &c., and then state the productions and 
institutions for which they are remarkable. Sometimes the names of countries, 
rivers, &c., are given, and the pupil is required to construct an outline chart of 
their localities. 

In respect to all the above points, the native country is particularly studied ; its 
capabilities, its productions, its laws, its institutions, its history, &c., are investigated, 
with especial reference to its ability of supplying the physical, social, and moral 
wants of its inhabitants. Under this head the pupils are taught to appreciate 
their native country, to venerate and love its institutions, to understand what is 
necessary to their perfection, and to imbibe a spirit of pure and generous patriot- 
ism. It is scarcely necessary to add, that all the instruction under this fifth head 
is confined to the fundamental and simplest principles of the several branches re- 
ferred to. 

6. Arithmetic, continued through fractions and the rules of proportion. 

7. Geometry, doctrine of magnitudes and measures. 

8. Singing, and science of vocal and instrumental music. 

IV. Fourth part, of two years — -children from twelve to fourteen. 

1. Religious instruction, in the religious observation of Nature, the life and dis- 
courses of Jesus Christ, the history of the Christian religion, in connection with 
the eotemporary civil history, and the principal doctrines of the Christian 
system. 

The first topic of instruction mentioned under this head is one of peculiar 
interest and utility. The pupils are taught to observe, with care and system, the 
various powers and operations of Nature, and to consider them as so many illus- 
trations of the wisdom, power, and goodness of the Creator ; and at each lesson 
they are directed to some appropriate passage of the Bible, which they read and 
commit to memory : and thus the idea is continually impressed on them, that the 
God of Nature and the God of the Bible are one and the same Being. 

For example, as introductory to the whole study, the first chapter of Genesis, 
together with some other appropriate passage of Scripture, as the 147th Psalm, or 
the 38th chapter of Job, may be read and committed to memory. The surface 
of the earth, as illustrating the power and wisdom of God, may be taken as a 
lesson. Then the varieties of surface, as mountains, valleys, oceans and rivers, 
continents and islands, the height of mountains, the breadth of oceans, the length 
of rivers, remarkable cataracts, extended caverns, volcanoes, tides, &c., may be 
taken into view, and the teacher may impress upon the class the greatness, 
power, and intelligence necessary for such a creation. The whole is fortified by 
the application of such a passage as Psalm civ. 1-13. * 

'' Bless the Lord, O my soul ! O Lord my God ! thou art very ?reat ; tnou art clothed with 
honor and majesty. Who coverest thy.self with light as with a garment : who stretchest out 
the heavens like a curtain : who layetli the beams of his chambers in the wafers : who mak- 
eth the clouds his chariot • who walkelh upon the wings of the wind : who maketh his 
angels spirits ; his ministers a Uaminr fire. Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it 
should not be removed forever. Thou coverest it with the deep as with a garment: the 
waters stood above the mountains. At thy rebnke they fled : at the voice of tliy thunder 
they halted away They go up by the mountains ; they go down by the valleys unto the 
place which thoii hast founded for them. Tiiuu hnst set a bound that they may not pass 
over ; that they turn not again to cover the earth. He eendeth the springs into the valleys, 



58 PRrMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. 

which run anionsr the hills. They pive drink to every beast of the field ; the wild asses 
quench their thirst. By them shall the (owls of the heaven have their hab.tatioii, which sing 
among the brandies. He watereth the hills from his chambers : the earth is satisfied with 
the truit of thy works." 

" O Lord, how manifold are thy works ! in wisdom hast thou made them all : the earth is 
full of thy riches. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things ci-eeping innumerable, 
both small and great beasts. There go the ships : there is that leviathan, whom thou hast 
made to play therein." 

The fruitfulness and beauty of the earth, as illustrating the wisdom and good- 
ness of God, may serve as another lesson. Here may be exhibited the beauty 
and variety of the plants and flowers with which the earth is adorned ; the man- 
ner of their growth and self-propagation, their iitility to man and beast, their 
immense number and variety, their relations to each other as genera and species ; 
trees and their varieties, their beauty and utility, their timber and their fruit ; and, 
in connection with this lesson. Psalm civ. 14-34 may be committed to memory. 

" He causeth the grass tn grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man : that he may 
bring forth lood out of the earth ; and wine that niaketh glad the heart ol man. and oil to 
make h.s face to shine, and bread wli.ch strengtheiieth man's heart. The trees of the Lord 
are full of sap ; the cedars of l,ebanoii. wli,ch he halh planted ; where the birds make their 
nests : as for the stork, the lir trees are her house. The high hills are a refuge fur the wild 
goats ; and the rocks for the conies. He appointeth the moon for seasons : the sun knowelh 
hsgoing down. • Thou maketh darkness, and it is night : wherein all the beasts of the forest 
do creep forth. The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meal from God. The 
sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens. Man goeth 
Ibrth unto h s work and to his lalior until the evening " 

'•These wait all upon thee ; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. That 
thou givest them they gather; thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good. Thou 
hidest thy f;ice. they' are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die. and return to 
their dust. Thou sendest forth thy .Spirit, they are created ; and thou renewest the face of 
the earth. The glory of the Lord shall endure forever • the Lord shall rejoice in his works. 
He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth : he toucheth tlie hills, and they smoke. I will 
sing unto the Lord as lung as I live : 1 will sing praise to my God while I haye my being. My 
meditation of him shall be sweet ; I will be glad in the Lord." 

In like manner, the creation and nourishment, the habits and instincts of vari- 
ous animals may be contemplated, in connection with Proverbs vi. 6-8 ; Psalm 
civ. ir-22 ; Proverbs x.xx. 24-31 ; Gen. i. 2U-24 ; Psalm cxlv. 15-16. 

" Go to the ant, thou sluggard ! consider her ways, and be wise : Wh'ch having no guide, 
over.-eer, or ruler, providelh her meat in the summer, and ^rathereth her food in the harvest." 

••There he four things which are liltleon the earth, but they are excee<hng wise : the ants 
are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer ; the conies are but a 
feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks; the locusts have no king, yet go they 
forth all of them by bands; the spider takelh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces. 
There be three things which go well, Vea, four are comely in going: a lion, wliich is strong- 
e.st among beasts, and turnelh not away for any : a grayhound ; a he-goat also ; and a king, 
against whom there is no rising up." 

"And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and 
creepiUL' thing, and beasts of the earth after his kind : and it was so. And God made the 
beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon 
the earth after his kind : and God saw that it was good " 

•'The eyes of all wait upon thee ; and thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou 
openest thine hind, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in 
all his ways, and holy in all his works." 

The phenomena of light and color, the nature of the rainbow, &c., may make 
another interesting lesson, illustrating the unknown forins of beauty and glory 
which exist in the Divine Mind, and which He may yet develope in other and 
still more glorious worlds ; in connection with Geu. i. 3, 5, 9, 13, 14, and other 
passages of like kind. 

So the properties of the air, wind, and storm. Job xxviii. 25 ; xxxviii. 33, 34, 35. 
Psalm cxlviii. 8. 

" Knowest thou the ordinance of heaven 7 canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth ■? 
Canst thoii lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee ? Canst 
thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee. Here we are 1 Who hath put wis- 
dom in the Inward parts ! or who hath given understanding to the heart 1 Who can num- 
ber the clouds in wisdom 7 or who can stay the bottles of heaven V 

Then the heavens, the sun, moon, planets, fixed stars, and comets, the whole 
science of astronoiny, so far as it can be introduced with advantage into common 
schools, can be conteniplated in llie same way. The enlightening, elevating, and 
purifying moral influence of isiKh a scheme of instruction, carried through the 



PRIMARY Sv:ilL/U;.S Or GCKMANV. gj) 

whole system of Nature, must be clearly obvious to every thinking mind ; and 
its utility, eonsidered merely with reference to worldly good, is no less iiianilest. 

The second topic of religious instruction is more exclusively scriptural. The 
life of Christ, and the liistory of the apostles, as given in the New Testament, are 
chronologically arranged, and tables formed as before. (111. 3.) The dis- 
courses of Cihrist are examined and explained in their chronological arrangement, 
and in the same way the discourses and epistles of the apostles. The li;stoiy ( f 
Christianity, in connection with the cotemporarji civil history, is taught in a series 
of conversational lectures. To conclude the whole course of religious insti uciioii, 
a summary of the Christian doctrine is given in the form of some approved 
catechism. 

2. Knowledge of the world and of mankind, including civil society, constitu- 
tional law, agriculture, mechanic arts, manufactures, &c. 

This is a continuation and completicm, in a more systematic form, of the instruc- 
tion commenced in ill. .5. The course begins with the family, and the first object 
is to construct a habitation, llie ]iupil tells what materials are necessary for this 
purpose, where they are to be found, how brought together and fitted into the 
sev(.'ral parts of the building. The house must now be furnished. The difFerent 
articles of furniture and their uses are named in systematic order, the materials of 
which they are made, and the various trades employed in making them are enu- 
merated. Then comes the garden, its tools and ])i'oducts, and whatever else is 
necessary for the subsistence and physical comfort of a family. Then the family 
duties and virtues ; parental and filial obligation and affection ; rights of property ; 
duties of neighborhoods ; the civil relations of society ; the religious relations of 
society ; the state, the father-land, &c. ; finally, geography, history, and travels. 
Books of travels aie compiled expressly for the use of schools, and are found to 
be of the highest interest and utility. 

3. Language, and exercises in composition. 

The object here is to give the pupils a perfect Command of their native tongue, 
and ability to use it on all occasions with readiness and power. The first exercises 
are on simple questions, suoh as — " Why ought children to love and obey their 
parents?'' or they are short descriptions of visible objects, such as a house, a 
room, a garden, &e. There are also exercises on the various forms of expressing 
the same idea, as, " The sun enlightens the earth.'' " The earth is enlightened 
by the sun.'' "The sun gives light to the earth." " The earth receives light 
from the sun." " The sun is the source of light to the earth." " 1'he sun sends 
out its rays to enlighten the earth." " The earth is enlightened by rays sent out 
from the sun," &c. There are exercises also of the same sort on metaphors and 
other figures of speech. Familiar letters are then written, and short essays on 
themes such as may be furnished by texts from the Book of Proverbs, and other 
sentences of the kind ; and thus gradual advancement is made to all tlie higher 
and graver modes of composition. 

4. Application of arithmetic and the mathematics to the business of life, 
including surveying, civil engineering, &c. 

The utility of this branch of instruction, and the mode of it, after what has 
already been said, are probably too obvious to need any further illu.stration. 

5. Elements of drawing. 

For this the pui)ils have already been prepared by the exercises in ornamental 
writing, in the previous part of the course. They have already acquired that ac- 
curacy of sight and .steadiness of hand which are among the most essential requi- 
sites to drawing well. The first exercises are in drawing lines, and the most 
simple mathematical figures, such as the square, the cube, the triangle, the paral- 
lelogram : generally from wooden models, placed at some little distance on a 
shelf, before the class. From this they proceed to architectural figures, such as 
doors, windows, columns, facades. Then the figures of animals, such as a horse. 
a cow, an elephant ; first from other pictures, and then from Nature. A plant, a 
rose, or some flower is placed upon a shelf, and the class inake a picture of it. 
From this they proceed to landscape painting, historical painting, and the higher 
branches of the art, according to their time and ca))acity. All learn enough of 
drawing to use it in the common business of life, such as plotting a field, laying 
out a canal, or drawing the plan of a building' ; and many attain to a high degree 
of excellence. 



QQ PRIMATvV SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. 

6. Exercises in singing, and the science of music. 

The instructions of the previous parts are extended as far as possible, and 
include singing and playing at sight, and the more abstruse and difficult branches 
of the science and art of music. 

The following extracts from Hon. Horace Mann's Seventh Annual 
Report to the Board of Education in Massachusetts, will supply some 
deficiences in the foregoing sketch, and, at the same time, present the 
impressions of another observer. 

CLASSIFICATION. 

The first element of superiority in a Prussian school, and one whose influence ex- 
tends throughout the whole subsequent course of instruction, consists in the proper 
classification of the scholars. In all places where the numbers are sufficiently 
large to allow it, the children are divided according to ages and attainments ; and 
a single teacher has the charge only of a single class, or of as small a number of 
classes as is practicable. I have before adverted to the construction of the school- 
houses, by which; as far as possible, a room is assigned to each class. Let us sup- 
pose a teacher to have the charge of but one class, and to have talent and 
re.sovirces sufficient properly to engage and occupy its attention, and we suppose a 
perfect school. But how greatly are the teacher's duties increased, and his diffi- 
culties multiplied, if he have four, five, or half a dozen classes, under his personal 
inspection. While attending to the recitation of one, his mind is constantly 
called oft', to attend to the studies and the conduct of all the others. For this, 
very few teachers amongst us have the requisite capacity ; and hence the idleness 
and the disorder that reign in so many of our schools, excepting in eases where 
the debasing motive of fear puts the children in irons. All these difficulties are at 
once avoided by a suitable classification ; by such a classification as enables the 
teacher to address his instructions at the same time to all the children who are 
before him, and to accom])any them to the play-ground, at recess or intermission, 
without leaving any behind who might be disposed to take advantage of his 
absence. All this will become more and more obvious as I proceed with a descrip- 
tion of exercises. There is no obstacle whatever, save prescription, and tliat vis 
inertia of mind which continues in the beaten track because it has not vigor 
enough to turn aside from it, to the introduction, at once, of this mode of dividing 
and classifying scholars, in all our large towns. 

METHOD OF TEACHING YOUNG CHILDREN ON THEIR FIRST ENTERING SCHOOL. 

In regard to this as well as other modes of teaching, I shall endeavor to 
describe some particular lessons that I heard. The Prussian and Saxon schools 
are all conducted substantially upon the same plan, and taught in the same man- • 
ner. Of course, there must be those differences to which different degrees of 
talent and experience give rise. 

About twenty years ago, teachers in Prussia made the important discovery that 
children have five senses, together with various muscles and mental faculties, all 
which, almost by a necessity of their nature, must be kept in a state of activity, 
and which, if not usefully, are liable to be mischievously employed. Subsequent 
improvements in the art of teaching have consisted in supplying interesting and 
useful, instead of mischievous occupation, for these senses, muscles, and faculties. 
Experience has now proved that it is much easier to furnish profitable and delight- 
ful employment for all these powers, than it is to stand over them with a rod and 
stifle their workings, or to assume a thousand shapes of fear to guard the thou- 
sand avenues through which the salient spirits of the young play outward. Nay, 
it is much easier to keep the eye, and hand, and mind at work together, than it is 
to employ any one of them separately from the others. A child is bound to the 
teacher by so many more cords, the more of his n.atural capacities the teacher can 
interest and employ. 

In the ease I am now to describe, I entered a class-room of sixty children, of 
about six years of age. The children were just taking their seats, all smiles and 
expectation. They had been at school but a few weeks, but long enough to have 
oontiaeted a love for it. The teacher took his station before them, and after 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMAiNY. gj 

making a playful remark which excited a light titter around the room, and effec- 
tually arrested attention, he gave a signal for silence. After wating a moment, 
during which every countenance was composed and every noise hushed, he made 
a prayer consisting of a single sentence, asking that as they had come together to 
learn, they might be good and diligent. He then spoke to thei7i of the beautiful 
day, asked what they knew about the seasons, referred to the different kinds of 
fruit-trees then in bearing, and questioned them upon the uses of trees in con- 
structing houses, furniture, «&c. Frequently he threw in sportive remarks which 
enlivened the whole school, but without ever producing the slightest symptom of 
disorder. During the familiar conversation, which lasted about twenty minutes, 
there was nothing frivolous or trifling in the manner of the teacher ; that manner 
was dignified though playful, and the little jets of laughter which he caused the 
children occasionally to throw out, were much m6re favorable to a receptive state 
of mind than jets of tears. 

Here I must make a prelimenary remark, in regard to the equipments of the 
scholars and the furniture of the school-room. Every child has a slate and pencil, 
and a little reading book of letters, words, and short sentences. Indeed, I never 
saw a Prussian or Sa.xon school, above an infant school, in which any child was 
unprovided with a slate and pencil. By the teacher's desk, and in front of the 
school, hung a blackboard. The teacher first drew a house upon the blackboard ; 
and here the value of the art of drawing, a power universally possessed by Prus- 
sian teachers, became manifest. By the side of the drawing and under it, he 
wrote the word house in the German script hand, and printed it in the German 
letter. With a long pointing rod, the end being painted white to make it more 
visible, he ran over the form of the letters, the children, with their slates before 
them and their pencils in their hands, looking at the pointing rod and tracing the 
forms of the letters in the air. In all our good schools, children are first taughf 
to imitate the forms of letters on the slate before they write them on paper ; here 
they were first imitated on the air, then on slates, and subsequently, in older 
classes, on paper. The next process was to copy the word " house,'" both in 
script and in print, on their slates. Then followed the formation of the sounds of 
the letters of which the word was composed, and the spelling of the word. Here 
the namefi of the letters were not given as with us, but only their powers, or the 
sounds vshich those letters have in combination. The letter h was first selected 
and set up in the reading-frame, (the same before described as part of the appa- 
ratus of Prussian schools for young children.) instead of articulating our alphabetic 
h, (aitch.) merely gave a hard breathing ; such a sound as the letter really has 
in the word '' house." Then the dipthong, au, ithe German word for ''house" 
is spelled " haus,") was taken and sounded by itself, in the same way. Then 
the blocks containing A, and au, wei-e brought together, and the two sounds were 
combined. Lastly,, the letter s was first sounded by itself, then added to the 
others, and then the whole word was spoken. Sometimes the last letter in a 
word was first taken and sounded ; after that the penultimate ; and so on imtil the 
word was completed. The responses of the children were sometimes individual, 
and sometimes simultaneous, according to a signal given by the master. 

In every such school, also, there are printed sheets or cards, containing the 
letters, dipthongs, and whole words. The children are taught to sound a dip- 
thong, and then asked in what words that sound occurs. On some of these 
cards there are words enough to make several short sentences, and when the 
pupils are a little advanced, the teacher points to several isolated words in succes- 
sion, which when taken together make a familiar sentence, and thus he gives 
them an agreeable surprise, and a pleasant initiation into reading. 

After the word " house" was thus completely impressed upon the minds of the 
children, the teacher drew his pointing rod over the lines which formed the 
house ; and the children imitated him, first in the air, while they were looking at 
his motions, then on their slates. In their drawings there was of cours(j a great 
variety as to taste and accuracy ; but each seemed pleased with his own, for their 
first attempts had never been so criticised as to produce discouragement. .Several 
children were then called to the blackboard to draw a house with chalk. After 
this, the teacher entered into a conversation about houses. The first question was, 
what kind of a house was th.-.i <i<\ the blaekboarJ ? Tlien the names of other 



Q2 PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. 

kinds of houses were given. The materials of which houses are built were men- 
tioned stone, brick, wood ; the different kinds of wood ; nails, and where they 
were made ; lime, and whence it came, &c. &c. \\ hen the teacher touched 
upon points with which tlie children were supposed to be acquainted, he asked 
questions; when he passed to subjects beyond their sphere, he gave information, 
intermingling the whole with lively remarks and pleasant anecdotes. 

And here one important particular should not be omitted. In this, as well as 
in all other schools, a complete answer was always required. For instance, if a 
teacher asks, " What are houses made of?" he does not accept the answer, "of 
wood "' or " of stone ;" but he requires a full, complete, (vollstandig) answer ; as, 
"a house may be made of wood." The answer nmst always contain an intelli- 
gible proposition without reference to the words of the question to complete it. 
And here also the greatest care is taken that the answer shall always be gram- 
matically correct, have the right terminations of all articles, adjectives and nouns, 
and the right grammatical transpositions according to the idioms and structure of 
tlie language. This secures from the beginning, precision in the expression of 
ideas ; and if, as many philosophers suppose, the intellect could never carry for- 
ward its processes of argument or investigation to any great extent, without using 
language as its instrument, then these children, in their primary lessons, are not 
only led to e.vercise the intellect, but the instrument is put into their hands by 
wh.ch its operations are facilitated. 

When the hour had expired, I do not believe there was a child in the room 
who knew or thought that his play-time had come, isu observing person can be 
at a loss to understand how such a teacher can arrest and retain the attention of 
his scholars. It must have happened to almost every one, at some time in his 
life, to be present as a member of a large assembly, when some speaker, in the 
midst of great uproar and confusion, has arisen to address it. If, in the veiy 
conuneneement of his exordium, he makes what is called a happy hit, which is 
answered by a response of laughter or applause from those who are near enough 
to hear it, the attention of the next circle will be aroused. If. then, the speaker 
makes another felicitous sally of wit or imagination, this circle too becomes the 
willing subject of his power ; until, by a succession of flashes whether of genius or 
of wit, he soons brings the whole audience under his command, and sways it as 
the sun and moon sway the tide. This is the result of talent, of attainment, and 
of the successful study both of men and of things ; and whoever has a suffi- 
ciency of these requisites will be able to command the attention of children, just 
as a powerful orator commands the attention of men. But the one no more than 
the other is the unbought gift of nature. They are the rewards of application 
and toil superadded to talent. 

Now it is obvious that in the single exercise above described, there were the 
elements of reading, spelling, writing, grammar, and di-awing, interspersed with 
anecdotes and not a little general information ; and yet there was no excessive 
variety, nor were any incongruous subjects forcibly brought together. There was 
nothing to violate the rule of •' one thing at a time.'' 

Compare the above method with that of calling up a class of abecedarians; or, 
what is more connnon, a single child, and while the teacher holds a book or a card 
before him, and, with a pointer in his hand, says a, he echoes a; then b, and he 
echoes h ; and so on until the vertical row of lifeless and ill-favored characters is 
completed, and then of remanding him to his seat, to sit still and look at vacancy. 
If the child is bright, the time which passes during this lesson is the only part of the 
day when he does not think. Not a single faculty of the mind is ooccupied 
except that of imitating sounds ; and even the number of these imitations amounts 
only to twenty-six. A parrot or an idiot could do the same thing. And so of 
the organs and members of tlie body. They are condemned to inactivity ; for 
the child who stands mo.st like a post is most approved ; nay, he is rebuked 
if he does not stand like a post. A head that does not turn to the right or 
left, an eye that lies moveless in its socket, hands hanging motionless at the side, 
and feet immovable as those of a statue, are the points of excellence, while the 
child is echoing the senseless table of a, b, c. Asa general rule, six months are 
spent before the twenty-six letters are mastered, though the same child would 
learn the i:amesof twenty-six playmates or twenty-six playthings in one or two days. 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. gg 

All children are pleased with the idea of a house, a hat, a top, a ball, a bird, an 
egg, a nest, a flower, <fec. ; and when their minds are led to see new relations or 
qualities in these objects, or when their former notions respecting them are 
brought out more vividly, or are more distinctly defined, their delight is even 
keener than that of an adult would be in obtaining a new fact in science, or in 
having the mist of some old doubt dispelled by a new discovery. Lessons on 
familiar objects, given by a competent teacher, never fail to command attention, 
and thus a habit of mind is induced of inestimable value in regard to all future 
study. 

Again, the method I have described necessarily leads to conversation, and con- 
versation with an intelligent teacher secures several important objects. It com- 
municates information. It brightens ideas befire only dimly apprehended. It 
addresses itself to the various faculties of the mind, so that no one of them ever 
tires or is cloyed. It teaches the child to use language, to frame sentences, to 
select Words which convey his whole meaning, Vi avoid those which convey either 
more or less than he intends to express ; in fine, it teaches him to seek for 
thoughts upon a subject, and then to find appropriate language in v^hich to 
clothe thein. A child trained in this way will never commit those absurd and 
ludicrous mistakes into which uneducated men of some sense not unfrequently 
fall, viz., that of mismatching their words and ideas ; of hanging as it were, the 
garments of a giant upon the body of a pigmy, or of forcing a pigmys's dress 
upon the huge limbs of a giant. Appropriate diction should clothe just ideas, as 
a tasteful and substantial garb fits a graceful and vigorous form. 

The abuve described exercise occupies the eye and the hand as well as the 
mind. The eye is employed in tracing visible difterences between different forms, 
and the hand in copying whatever is presented, with as little difterenee as pos- 
sible. And who ever saw a child that was not pleased with pictures, and an 
attempt to imitate them? Thus, the two grand objects so strenuously insisted 
upon by writers, in regard to the later periods of education and the maturer pro- 
cesses of thought, are attained, viz., the power of recognizing analogies and dis- 
similarities. 

Having given an account of the reading lesson of a primary class, just after 
they had commenced going to school, I will follow it with a brief account of a 
lesson given to a more advanced class. The subject was a short piece of poetry 
describing a hunter's life in Missouri. It was first read, the reading being accom- 
panied with appropriate criticisms as to pronunciation, tone, &c. It was then 
taken up verse by verse, and the pupils were required to give equivalent expres- 
sions in prose. The teacher then entered into an explanation of every part of it, 
in a sort of oral lecture, accompanied with occasional questions. This was done 
with the greatest minuteness. Where there was a geographical reference, he 
entered at large into geography ; where a reference to a foreign custom, he com- 
pared it with their customs at home ; and thus he explained every part, and illus- 
trated the illustrations themselves, until, after an entire hour spent upon six four 
line verses, he left them to write out the sentiment and the story in prose, to be 
produced in school the next morning. All this was done without the .slightest 
break or hesitation, and evidently proceeded from a mind full of the subject, and 
having a ready command of all its resources. 

An account of one more lesson will close what I have to say on the subject of 
reading. The class consisted of young lads, belonging to a burgher school, 
which they were just about leaving. They had been reading a poem of Schiller ; 
a sort of philosophical allegory ; and when it was completed, the teacher called 
upon one of them to give a popular exposition of the meaning of the piece. Tlie 
lad left his seat, stepped to the teacher's desk, and, standing in front of the school, 
occupied about fifteen or twenty minutes in an extemporaneous account of the 
poem, and what he supposed to be its meaning and moral. 

ARITH.METIO AND MATHEMATICS. 

Children are taught to cipher, or, if need be. to count, soon after entering 
school. I will attempt to describe a lesson wliich I saw given to a very young 
class. Blocks of one cube, two cubes, three cubes, &c., up to a block of ten 
cubes, lay upon the teacher's desk. The cubes on each block were distinotly 



64 



PRIMARY SCHOOI,S OF GERMANY. 



marked off, and differently colored, that is, if the first inch or cube was white, the 
next would be black. The teacher stood by his desk, and in front of the class. 
He set up a block of one cube, and the class simultaneously said one. A block of 
two cubes was then placed by the side of the first, and the class said two. This 
was done until the ten blocks stood by the side of each other in a row. They 
were then counted backward, the teacher placing his finger upon them, as a sig- 
nal that their respective numbers were to be called. The next exercise was, " two 
comes after one, three comes after two," and so on to ten ; and then backward, 
"nine comes before ten, eight comes before nine, and so of the rest. The teacher 
then asked. What is three composed of? A. Three is composed of one and two. 
Q. Of what else is three composed ? A. Three is composed of three ones. Q. 
What is four composed of? A. Four is composed of four ones, of two and two, 
of three and one. Q. What is five composed of ? A. Five is composed of five 
ones, of two and three, of two twos and one, of four and one. Q. What num- 
bers compose six ? seven? eight? nine? To the latter the pupil would answer, 
" Three threes make nine ; two, three, and four make nine ; two, two, and five 
make nine ; three, four, and two make nine ; three, five, and one make nine," 
&c., &c. The teacher then placed similar blocks side by side, while the children 
added their respective numbers together " two twos make four ;" " three twos 
make six," &c. The blocks were then turned down horizontally to show that 
three blocks of two cubes each were equal to one of six cubes. Such questions 
were then asked as, how many are six less than eight ? five less than seven ? &c. 
Then, how many are seven and eight? The answer was given thus : eight are 
one more than seven, seven and seven make fourteen, and one added makes fifteen ; 
therefore eight and seven make fifteen. Q. How many are six and eight ? A. 
Eight are two more than six, six and six make twelve, and two added make fourteen. 
Or it might be thus : six are two less than eight, eight and eight are sixteen, two 
taken from sixteen leave fourteen, therefore eight and six are fourteen. They 
then counted up to a hundred on the blocks. Toward the close of the lesson, 
such questions as these were put, and readily answered : Of what is thirty-eight 
composed? A. Thirty-eight is composed of thirty and eight ones; of seven fives 
and three ones ; or sometimes thus : of thirty-seven and one ; of thirty-six and 
two ones ; of thirty-five and three ones, &:c. Q. Of what is ninety composed? 
A. Ninety is composed of nine tens, of fifty and forty, &e., &c. 

Thus, with a frequent reference to the blocks, to keep up attention by present- 
ing an object to the eye, the simple numbers were handled and transposed in a 
great variety of ways. In this lesson, it is obvious that counting, numeration, 
addition, substraction, multiplication, and division were all included, yet there was 
no abstract rule, or unintelligible form of words given out to be committed to 
memory. Nay, these little children took the first steps in the mensuration of 
supei-ficies and solids, by comparing the length and contents of one block with 
those of others. 

WTien the pupils were a little further advanced, I usually heard lessons recited 
in this way : Suppose 4321 are to be multiplied by 25. The pupil says, five times 
one are five ones, and he sets down 5 in the unit's place ; five times two tens, or 
twenty ones, are a hundred, and sets down a cipher in the ten's place -, five times 
three hundred are one thousand and five hundred, and one hundred to be carried 
make one thousand six hundred, and sets down a 6 in the hundred's place ; five 
times four thousand are twenty thousand, and one thousand to be carried make 
twenty-one thousand. The next figure in the multiplier is then taken, twenty 
times one are twenty, and a 2 is set down in the ten's place ; twenty times two 
tens are four hundred, and a 4 is set down in the hundred's place ; twenty times 
three hundred are six thousand, and a 6 is set down in the thousand's place ; 
twenty times four thousand are eighty thousand, and an 8 is set down in the ten 
thousand's place. Then come the additions to get the product. Five ones are 
five, two tens are twenty, and these figures are respectively set down ; four 
hundred and .six hundred make a thousand, and a cipher is set down in the hun- 
dred's place; one thousand to be carried to six thousand makes seven thousand, 
and one thousand more makes eight thousand, and an 8 is set down in the thou- 
sand's place ; eighty thousand and twenty thousand make one hundred thousand, 
and a cipher is set down in the ten thousand's place, and a 1 in the hundred 



PRIMiVfiY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. g5 

thousand's place. It is easy to see that where the multiplier and multiplicand are 
large, this process soon passes beyond mere child's play. 

So in division. If 32r56 are to be divided by 75, the pupil says, how many 
hundred times are seventy-five, or seventy-five ones, contained in thirty-two 
thousand and seven hundred, or in thirty-two thousand and seven hundred ones ? 
four hundred times, and he sets down a 4 in the hundred's place in the quotient ; 
then the divisor seventy-five is multiplied (as before; by the four hundred, and 
the product is set down under the first three figures of the dividend, and there 
are two thousand and seven hundred remaining. This remainder is set down in 
the next line, because seventy-five is not contained in two thousand seven hundred 
any number of hundred times. And so of the residue of the process. 

When there is danger that an advanced class will forget the value of the de- 
nominations they are handling, they are, required to express the value of each 
figure in full, throughout the whole process, in the manner above described. 

I shall never forget the impression which a recitation by a higher class of girls 
produced upon my mind. It lasted an hour. Neither teacher nor pupil had book 
or slate. (.Questions and answers were extemporaneous. They consisted of prob- 
lems in Vulgar Fractions, simple and compound ; in the Rule of Three, Practice, 
Interest, Discount, &c., &c. A few of the first were simple, but they soon 
increase in complication and difficulty, and in the amount of the sums managed, 
until I could hardly credit the report of my own senses, so difficult were the ques- 
tions, and so prompt and accurate the replies. 

A great many of the exercises in arithmetic consisted in reducing the coins of 
one State to those of another. In Germany, there are almost as many diflferent 
currencies as there are States ; and the expression of the value of one coin in 
other denominations, is a very common exercise. 

It struck me that the main dift'erences between their mode of teaching arith- 
metic and ours, consists in their beginning earlier, continuing the practice in the 
elements much longer, requiring a more thorough analysis of all questions, and in 
not separating the processes, or rules, so much as we do from each other. The 
pupils proceed less by rule, more by an understanding of the subject. It often 
happens to our children that while engaged in one rule, they forget a preceding. 
Hence, many of our best teachers have frequent reviews. But there, as I stated 
above, the youngest classes of children were taught addition, substraction, multi- 
plication, and division, promiscuously, in the same lesson. And so it was in the 
later stages. The mind was constantly carried along, and the practice enlarged 
in more than one direction. It is a difference which results from teaching, in the 
one case, from a book ; and in the other from the head. In the latter case the 
teacher sees what each pupil most needs and, if he finds any one halting or fail- 
ing on a particular class of questions, plies him with questions of that kind until 
his deficiencies are supplied. 

In algebra, trigonometry, surveying, geometry, &c., I invariably saw the teacher 
standing before the blackboard, drawing the diagrams and explaining all the rela- 
tions between their several parts, while the pupils, in their seats, having a pen 
and a small manuscript book, copied the figures, and took down brief heads of the 
solution ; and at the next recitation they were required to go to the blackboard, 
draw the figures and solve the problems themselves. How different this mode of 
hearing a lesson from that of holding the text-book in the left hand, while the 
fore-finger of the right carefully follows the printed demonstration, under penalty, 
should the place be lost, of being obliged to recommence the solution. 

GRAMMAR AND COMPOSITION. 

Great attention is paid to Grammar, or, as it is usually called in the " Plan of 
Studies," the German language. But I heard very little of the ding-dong and 
recitative of gender, number and case, of government and agreement, which 
make up so great a portion of the grammatical exercises in our schools ; and 
which the pupils are often required to repeat until they really lose all sense of the 
original meaning of the terms they use. Of what service is it for children to re- 
iterate and reassert, fifty times in a single recitation, the gender and number of 
nouns, about which they never made a mistake even before a grammar book was 
put into their hands? If the object of gi-ammar is to teach children to speak and 

5 



gg PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF (JER^ANY. 

write their native language with propriety, then they should be practiced upon 
expressing their own ideas with elegance, distinctness, and force. For this pur- 
pose, their common every day phraseology is first to be attended to. As their 
speech becomes more copious, they should be led to recognize those slight shades 
of distinction which exist between words almost synonymous ; to descriminate 
between the literal and the figurative ; and to frame sentences in which the main 
idea shall be brought out conspicuously and prominently, while all subordinate 
ones, mere matters of circumstance or qualification, shall occupy humbler or more 
retired positions. The sentences of some public speakers are so arranged, that 
what is collateral or incidental stands out boldly in the foreground, while the prin- 
cipal thought is almost lost in the shade ; an arrangement as preposterous as if, in 
the senate chamber, the forum or the parade-ground, the president, the judge or 
the commanding officer, were thrust into the rear, while a nameless throng of 
non-officials and incognitos should occupy the places of dignity and authority. 
Grammar should be taught in such a way as to lead out into rhetoric as it regards 
the form of the expression, and into logic as it regards the sequence and coherency 
of the thoughts. If this is so, then no person is competent to teach grammar 
who is not familiar at least with all the leading principles of rhetoric and logic. 

The Prussian teachers, by their constant habit of conversing with the pupils ; 
by requiring a complete answer to be given to every question ; by never allowing 
a mistake in ternfination, or in the collocation of words or clauses, to pass uncor- 
rected, nor the sentence as corrected to pass unrepealed ; by requiring the poetry 
of the reading lesson to be changed into oral or written prose, and the prose to be 
paraphrased, or expressed in difttirent words ; and by exacting a general account 
or summary of the reading lessons, are, as we may almost literally say, constantly 
teaching grammar ; or, as they more coinprehensivelj' call it, the German lan- 
guage. It is easy to see that Composition is included under this head, the writing 
of regular " essays" or " themes" being only a later exercise. 

WRITING AND DRAWING. 

Such excellent handwriting as I saw in the Prussian schools, I never saw 
before. I can hardly express myself too strongly on this point. In Great Britian, 
France, or in our own country, I have never seen any schools worthy to be com- 
pared with theirs in this respect. I have before said that I found all children pro- 
vided with a slate and pen«il. They write or print letters, and begin with the 
elements of drawing, either immediately, or very soon after they enter school. 
This furnishes the greater part of the explanation of their excellent handwriting. 
A part of it, I think, should be referred to the peculiarity of the German script, 
which seems to me to be easier than our own. But after all due allowance is 
made for this advantage, a high degree of superiority over the schools of other 
countries remain to be accounted for. This superiority can not be attributed in 
any degree to a better manner of holding the pen, for I never saw so great a pro- 
portion of cases in any schools where the pen was so awkwardly held. This 
excellence must be referred in a great degree to the universal practice of learning 
to draw, contemporaneously with learning to write. I believe a child will learn 
both to draw and to write sooner and with more ease, than he will learn writing 
alone; and for this reason: the figures or objects contemplated and copied in 
learning to draw, are larger, more marked, more distinctive one from another, 
and more sharply defined with projection, angle or curve, than the letters copied 
in writing. In drawing there is more variety, in writing more sameness. Now 
the objects contemplated in drawing, from their nature, attract attention more 
readily, impress the mind more deeply, and of course will be more accurately 
copied than those in writing. And when the eye has been trained to observe, to 
distinguish, and to imitate, in the first exercise, it applies its habits with great 
advantage to the second. 

Another reason is, that the child is taught in draw things with which he is 
familiar, which have some significance and give him pleasing ideas. But a child 
who is made to fill page after page with rows of straight marks, that look so blank 
and cheerless though done ever so well, has and can have no pleasing associations 
with his work. The practice of beginning with making inexpressive marks, or 
with v/ritting unintelligible words, bears some resemblanee, in its lifelessness, to 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. 



67 



that of learning the alphabet. Each exhales torpor and stupidity to deaden the 
vivacity of the worker. 

Again, I have found it an almost universal opinion with teachers of the art of 
writing, that children should commence with large hand rather than with fine. 
The reason for this I suppose to be, that where the letters themselves are larger, 
their ditierences and peculiarities are proportionally large ; hence they can be 
more casijj' discriminated, and discrimination must necessarily precede exact copy- 
ing. So to speak, the child becomes acquainted with the physiognomy of the large 
letters more easily than with that of the small. Besides, the formation of the larger 
gives more freedom of motion to the hand. Now, in these respects, there is 
more difference between the objects u.sed in drawing and the letters of a large 
hand, than between the latter and fine hand ; and therefore the argument in favor 
of a large hand, applies with still more force in favor of drawing. 

In tlie course of my tour, I passed from countries where almost every pupil in 
every school could draw with ease, and most of them with no inconsiderable 
degree of beauty and e.\pression, to those where less and less attention was paid 
to the subject; and, at last, to schools where drawing was not practiced at all; 
and, after many trials, I came to the conclusion, that, with no other guide than a 
mere inspection of the copy bcjoks of tlie pupils, I could tell whether drawing 
were taught in the school or not ; so uniformly superior was the handwriting in 
those schools where drawing was taught in connection with it. On seeing this, I 
was reminded of that saying of Pestalozzi, somewhat too strong, that " without 
drawing there can be no writing." 

But suppose it were otherwise, and that learning to draw retarded the acquisi- 
tion of good penmanship, how richly would the learner be compensated for the 
sacrifice. Drawing, of itself, is an expressive and beautiful language. A few 
strokes of the pen or pencil will often represent to the eye what no amount of 
words, however well chosen, can communicate. For the master architect, for the 
engraver, the engineer, the pattern designer, the draughtsman, moulder, machine 
builder, or head mechanic of any kind, all acknowledge that this art is essential 
and indispensable. But there is no department of business or condition in life, 
where the accomplishment would not be of utility. Every man should be able to 
plot a field, to sketch a road or a river, to draw the outlines of a simple machine, 
a piece of household furniture, or a farming utensil, and to delineate the internal 
arrangement or construction of a house. 

But to be able to represent by lines and shadows what no words can depict, is only 
a minor part of the benefit of learning to draw. The study of this art develops the 
talent of observing, even more than that of delineating. Although a man may 
has but comparatively few occasions to picture forth what he has observed, yet 
the power of observation should be cultivated by every rational being. The skillful 
delineator is not only able to describe far better what he has seen, but he sees 
twice as many things in the world as he would otherwise do. To one whose eyes 
have never been accustomed to mark the form, color or peculiarities of objects, all 
external nature is enveloped in a haze, which no sunshine, however bright, will 
ever dissipate. The light which dispels this obscurity must come from within. 
Teaching a child to draw, then, is the development in him of a new talent the 
conferring upon him, as it were, of a new sense by means of which he is not only 
better enabled to attend to the common duties of life, and to be more serviceable 
to his fellow-men, but he is more likely to appreciate the beauties and magnificence 
of nature, which every where reflect the glories of the Creator into his soul. 
When accompanied by appropriate instruction of a moral and religious character, 
this accomplishment becomes a quickener to devotion. 

With the inventive genius of our people, the art of drawing would be eminently 
useful. They would turn it to better account than any other people in the world. 
We now perform far the greater part of our labor by machinery. With the high 
wages prevalent amongst us, if such were not the case, our whole community 
would be impoverished. Whatever will advance the mechanic and manufacturing 
arts, therefore, is especially important here ; and whatever is important for men to 
know, as men, should be learned by children in the schools. 

But whatever may be said of the importance of this art, as it regards the comi- 
raunity at large, its value to a school-teacher can hardly be estimated. 



68 



PRIMARV SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. 



If the first exercises in reading were taught as they should be ; if the 
squares of the multiplication table were first to be drawn on the blackboard, 
and then to be filled- up by the pupils, as they should see on what i-eason the pro- 
gressive increase of the numbers is founded ; if geography were taught from the 
beginning, as it should be, by constant delineations upon the blackboard : then 
every teacher, even of the humblest school, ought to be acquainted with the art of 
hnear drawing, and be able to form all the necessary figures and diagrams not only 
with correctness but with rapidity. Eut in teaching navigation, surveying., trigo- 
nometry, geometry, &c. ; in describing the mechanical powers, in optics, in as- 
tronomy, in the various branches of natural philosophy, and especially in physiol- 
ogy, the teacher who has a command of this art, will teach incomparably better, 
and incomparably faster than if he were ignorant of it. I never saw a teacher in 
a German school make use of a ruler or any other mechanical aid, in drawing the 
most nice or complicated figures. I recollect no instance in which he was obliged 
to efface a part of a line because it was too long, or to extend it because it was too 
short. If squares or triangles vi'ere to be formed, they came out squares or tri- 
angles without any overlapping or deficiency. Here was not only much time 
gained, or saved, but the pupils had constantly before their eyes these examples of 
celerity and perfectness, as models for imitation. No one can doubt how much 
more correctly, as well as more rapidly, a child's mind will grow in view of such 
models of ease and accuracy, than if only slow, awkward, and clumsy movements 
are the patterns constantly held before it. 

I saw handwi'iting taught in various ways. The most common mode for 
young children was that of writing on the blackboard for their imitation. In 
such cases, the copy was always beautifully written, and the lesson preceded by 
instructions and followed by corrections. 

Another method which has had some currency in Germany, is this: If the 
mark to be copied is a simple straight line, thus, / /, the teacher says one, one, as 
words of/command; and at each enunciation of the word, the pupils make a 
mark simultaneously. The teacher accelerates or retards his utterance according 
to the degree of facility the class has acquired. If the figure to be copied consists 
of an upward and downward stroke, thus, / /,the teacher says, one, two; one, 
two, (one for the upward, the other for the downward motion of the hand ;) at 
first slowly, afterwards more rapidly. When the figure consists of three strokes, 
thus 7, he pronounces one, two, three, as before. Letters are formed in the 
same way. 

A supposed advantage of this method consists in its retarding the motions of 
those who would otherwise write too fast, and hastening those who would write too 
slow. But for these purposes, the teacher must see that all keep time, otherwise 
the advantage is lost. And, on the whole, there is so much difference between 
the natural quickness of perception and of motion in different pupils, that there 
can be no such thing as a universal standard. Some scholars, whose thoughts 
and muscles are of electric speed, would be embarrassed by being obliged to 
write slowly ; and others could not keep step, though the music played only com- 
mon time. Neither in their physical nor in their spiritual natures, does the speed 
of children seem to have been graduated by any one clock. 

In the schools I saw, orthography, punctuation, and the use of capitals, wrere 
early connected with the exercise of writing. 

GEOGRAPHY. 

The practice seemed to be uniform, however, of beginning with objects per- 
fectly familiar to the child ; the school-house with the grounds around it, the home 
with its yards or gardens, and the street leading from the one to the other. 
First of all, the children were initiated into the idea of space, without which we 
can know no more of geography than we can of history without ideas of time. 
Mr. Carl Ritter, of Berlin, probably the greatest geographer now living, expressed 
a decided opinion to me, that this was the true mode of beginning. 

Children, too, commence this study very early ; soon after entering school ; but 
no notions are given them which they are not perfectly able to comprehend, repro- 
duce, and express. 

I found geography taught almost wholly from large maps suspended against the 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY 



6P 



walls, and by delineations on the blackboard. And here, the skill of teachers and 
pupils in drawing did admirable service. The teacher traced the outlines of a 
country on the suspended map, or drew one upon the blackboard, accompanying 
the exhibition by an oral lecture ; and, at the next recitation, the pupils were 
expected to repeat what they had seen and heard. And, in regard to the natural 
divisions of the earth, or the political boundaries of countries, a pupil was not 
considered as having giving any proof that he had a correct image in his mind, 
until he could go to the blackboard, and reproduce it from the ends of his fingers. 
I witnessed no lesson unaccompanied by these tests. 

I will describe, as exactly as I am able, a lesson which I heard given to a class 
a little advanced beyond the elements ; remarking that, though 1 heard many les- 
sons giving on the same plan, none of them were signalized by the rapidity and 
effect of the one 1 am about to describe. 

The teacher stood by the blackboard, with the chalk in his hand. After cast-- 
ing his eye over the class to see that all were ready, he struck at the middle of the 
board. With a rapidity ofliaiid which my eye could hardly follow, he made a 
series of those short, divergent lines, or shadings, employed by map-engravers to 
represent a chain of mountains, lie had scarcely turned an angle, or shot off a 
spur, when the scholars began to cry out, Carpathian mountains, Hungary; 
lilack Forest mountains, Wurtembcrg; Giant's mountains, (Riesen-Gebirge,) 
Silesia ; Metallic mountains, (Erz-Gebirge,) Pine mountains, (Fichtel-Gebirge,_' 
Central mountains, (Mittel-Gebirge,) Bohemia, &c., &c. 

In less than half a miimte, the ridge of that grand central elevation which sep- 
arates the waters that flow north-west into the German ocean, from those that 
flow north into the Baltic, and south-east into the Black Sea, was presented to 
view ; executed almost as beautifully as an engraving. A dozen crinkling strokes, 
made in the twinkling of an eye, represented the head-waters of the great rivers 
which flow in different directions from that mountainous range ; while the children, 
almost as eager and excited as though they had actually seen the torrents dashing 
down the mountain sides, cried out, Danube, Elbe, Vistula, Oder, &e. The ne.\t 
moment I heard a succession of small strokes or taps, so rapid as to be almost 
indistinguishable, and hardly had my eye time to discern a large number of dots 
made along the margins of the rivers, when the shout of Lintz, Vienna, Prague, 
Dresden, Berlin, &c , struck my ear. At this point in the exercise, the spot 
which had been occupied on the blackboard was nearly a circle, of which the 
starting point, or place where the teacher first began, was the center ; but now a 
few additional strokes around the circumference of the incipient continent, 
extended the mountain ranges outwards toward the plains; the children respond- 
ing the names of the countries in which they respectively lay. With a few more 
flourishes the rivers flowed onwards toward their several terminations, and by 
another succession of dots, new cities sprang up along their banks. By this time 
the children had become as much excited as though they had been present at a 
world-making. They rose in their seats, they flung out both hands, their eyes 
kindled, and their voices became almost vociferous as they cried out the names of 
the different places, which, under the magic of the teacher's crayon, rose into 
view. Within ten minutes from the commencement of the lesson, there stood 
upon the blackboard a beautiful map of Germany, with its mountains, principal 
rivers and cities, the coast of the German ocean, of the Baltic and the Black 
seas: and all so accurately proportioned, that I think only slight errors would 
have been found had it been subjected to the test of a scale of miles. A part of 
this time was taken up in correcting a few mistakes of the pupils ; for the 
teacher's mind seemed to be in his car as well as in his hand, and notwithstand- 
ing the astonishing celerity of his movements, he detected erroneous answers and 
turned round to correct them. The rest of the recitation consisted in questions 
and answers respecting productions, climate, soil, animals, &c., &c. 

Many of the eosmogonists suppose that after the creation of the world, and 
when its whole surface was as yet fluid, the solid continents rose gradually from 
beneath the sea: first the loftiest peak of the Andes, for instance, emerged from 
the deep, and as they reached a higher and a higher point of elevation, the rivers 
began to flow dLiwn their sides, until at last — the lofty mountains having attained 
their height, the mighty rivers their extent and volume, and the continent ite 



■ 70 PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. 

amplitude — cultivation began, and cities and towns were built. The lesson I have 
described was a beautiful illustration of that idea, with one advantage over the 
original scene itself, that the spectator had no need of waiting through all the 
geological epochs to see the work completed. 

Compare the eflfect of such a lesson as this, both as to the amount of the knowl- 
edge communicated, and the vividness and of course the permanence of the ideas 
obtained, with a lesson where the scholars look out a few names of places on a 
lifeless atlas, but never send their imaginations abroad over the earth ; and where 
the teacher sits listlessly down before them to interrogate them from a book, in 
which all the questions are printed at full length, to supersede on his part all 
necessity of knowledge. 

fiXERCISE8 IN THINKING. KNOWLEDGE OF NATURE. KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD. 
KNOWLEDGE OF SOCIETY. 

In the " Study-Plans" of all the schools in the north of Prussia, I found most, 
and in some of them all of the above subjects of lessons. To each was assigned 
its separate hour and place in the routine of exercises. For brevity's sake, 
however, and because the topics naturally run into each other, I shall attempt to 
describe them together. 

These lessons consisted of familiar conversations between teacher and pupils, on 
subjects adapted to the age, capacities, and proficiency of the latter. With the 
youngest classes, things immediately around them ; the school-room and the mate- 
rials of which it had been built ; its different parts, as foundation, floor, walls, 
ceiling, roof, windows, doors, fireplace ; its furniture and apparatus ; its books, 
slates, paper 5 the clothes of the pupils, and the materials from which they were 
made ; their food and play-things ; the duties of children to animals, to each 
other, to their parents, neighbors, to the old, to their Maker ; these are specimens 
of a vast variety of subjects embraced under one or another of the above heads. 
As the children advanced in age and attainments, and had acquired full and defi- 
nite notions of the visible and tangible existences around them, and also of time 
and space, so that they could understand descriptions of the unseen and the 
remote, the scope of these lessons was enlarged, so as to take in the different 
kingdoms of nature, the arts, trades and occupations of men, and the more com- 
plicated affairs of society. 

When visiting the schools in Leipsic, I remarked to the superintendent, that 
most accomplished educationist. Dr. Vogel, that I did not see on the " Study- 
Plan" of his schools, the title, " Exercises in Thinking." His reply was, " No ; 
for I consider it a sin in any teacher not to lead his pupil to think, in regard to 
all the subjects he teaches." He did not call it an omission or even a disqualifica- 
tion in a teacher, if he did not awaken thought in the minds of his pupils, but he 
peremptorily denounced it as a " sin." Alas ! thought I, what expiation will 
be sufficient for many of us who have had charge of the young ! 

It is obvious from the account I have given of these primary lessons, that there 
is no restriction as to the choice of subjects, and no limits to the extent of informa- 
tion that may be engrafted upon them. What more natural than that a kind 
teacher should attempt to gain the attention and win the good will of a brisk, 
eager-minded boy just entering his school, by speaking to him about the domestic 
animals which he plays with, or tends at home ; the dog, the cat, the sheep, the 
horse, the cow ? Yet, without any interruption or overleaping of natural bounda- 
ries, this simple lesson may be expanded into a knowledge of all quadrupeds, their 
characteristics and habits of life, the uses of their flesh, skins, fur, bones, horns, 
or ivory, the parts of the world where they live, &c., &c. So if a teacher begins 
to converse with a boy about domestic fowls, there is no limit, save in his own 
knowledge, until he has exausted the whole subject of ornithology ; the varieties 
of birds, their plumage, their uses, their migratory habits, &c., &c. What more 
natural than that a benevolent teacher should ask a blushing little girl about the 
flowers in her vases, or garden at home ? and yet, this having been done, the 
door is opened that leads to all botanical knowledge, to the flowers of all the 
seasons, and all the zones, to the trees cultivated by the hand of man, or the 
primeval forests that darken the face of continents. Few children go to school 
who have not seen a fish ; at least, a minnow in a pool. Begin with this, and 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. ^j 

nature opposes no barrier until the wonders of the deep are exhausted. Let the 
school-house, as I have said, be the first lesson, and to a mind replenished with 
knowledge, not only all the dift'erent kinds of edifices — the dwelling-house, the 
church, the court-house, the palace, the temple — are at once associated ; but all 
the different orders of architecture, Corinthian, Ionic, Doric, Egyptian, Gothic, 
&e., rise to the view. How many different materials have been brought together 
for the construction of tlie school-house ; stone, wood, nails, glass, bricks, mortar, 
paints, materials used in glazing, t^c, etc. Each one of these belongs to a dif- 
ferent department of nature ; and when an accomplished teacher has once set 
foot in any one of these provinces, he sees a thousand interesting objects around 
him, as it were soliciting his attention. Then each one of these materials has its 
artificer ; and thus all the mechanical trades may be brought under consideration ; 
the house builder's, the mason's, the plumber's, the glazier's, the locksmith's &c. 
A single article may be viewed under different aspects ; as, in speaking of a lock, 
one may consider the nature and properties of iron ; its cohesiveness, malleability, 
«fcc., its utility, or the variety of utensils into which it may be wrought ; or the 
conversation may be turned to the particular object and uses of the lock, and 
upon these a lesson on ihe rights of property, the duty of honesty, the guilt of 
theft and robbery, Arc., be engrafted. So in speaking of the beauties and riches 
and wonders of nature — of the revolution of the seasons, the glory of spring, the 
exuberance of autumn, the grandeur of the mountain, the magnificence of the 
firmament — the child's mind may be turned to a contemplation of the power and 
goodness of God. I found these religious aspects of nature to be most frequently 
adverted to : and was daily delighted with the reverent and loving manner in 
which the name of the Deity was always spoken, "Der liehe Goit,'^ the dear God, 
was the universal form of expression ; and the name of the Creator of heaven and 
earth was hardly ever spoken, without this epithet of endearment. 

It is easy also to see that a description of the grounds about the school-house or 
the paternal mansion, and of the road leading from one of these places to the 
other, is the true starting point of all geographical knowledge ; and, this once 
begun, there is no terminus, until all modern and ancient geography, and all travels 
and explorations by sea and land, are exhausted. So the boy's nest of marbles 
may be the nucleus of all mineralogy ; his top, his kite, his little wind-wheel or 
water-wheel, the salient point of all mechanics and technology ; and the stories he 
has heard about the last king or the aged king, the first chapter in universal 
history. 

I know full well that the extent and variety of subjects said to be taught to 
young children in the Prussian schools, have been often sneered at. 

In a late speech, made on a public occasion, by one of the distinguished politi- 
cians in our country, the idea of teaching the natural sciences in our common 
schools was made a theme for ridicule. Let it be understood in what manner an 
accomplished teacher may impart a great amount of useful knowledge on these 
subjects, and perhaps awaken minds whicli may hereafter adorn the age, and 
■benefit mankind by their discoveries, and it will be easily seen to which party 
the ridicule most justly attaches. " What," says the objectors, '' teach children 
botany, and the unintelligible and almost unspeakable names, Monandria, Dian- 
dria, Triandria, &c. ; or zoology, with such technical terms as Mollusca, Crusta- 
cea, Vertebrata, Mammalia, &c., the thing is impossible !" The Prussian children 
are not thus taught. For years, their lessons are free from all the technicalifies 
of science. The knowledge they already possess about common things is made 
the nucleus around which to collect more ; and the language with which they are 
already familiar becomes the medium through which to communicate new ideas, 
and by which, whenever necessary, to explain new terms. There is no difficulty 
in explaining to a child, seven years of age. the distinctive marks by which nature 
intimates to us, at first sight, whether a plant is healthful or poisonous; or those 
by which, on inspecting the skeleton of an animal that lived thousands of years 
ago, we know whether it lived upon grass, or grain, or flesh. It is in this way 
that the pupil's mind is carried forward by an actual knowledge of things, until the 
time arrives for giving him classifications and nomenclatures. When a child knows 
a great many particular or individual things, he begins to perceive resemblances 
between some of them ; and they then naturally assort themselves, as it were, in 



72 PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. 

bis mind, and arrange themselves into different groups. Then, by the aid of a 
teacher, he perfects a scientific classification among them, bringing into each group 
alt that belong to it. But soon the number of individuals in each group becomes 
so numerous, that he wants a cord to tie them together, or a vessel in which to 
hold them. Then, from the nomenclature of science, he receives a name which 
binds all the individuals of that group into one, ever afterwards. It is now that 
he perceives the truth and the beauty of classification and nomenclature. An 
infant that has more red and white beads than it can hold in its hands, and to pre- 
vent them from rolling about the door and being lost, collects them together, put- 
ting the white in one cup and the red in another, and sits and smiles at its work, 
has gone through with precisely the same description of mental process that Cul- 
ver and Linneus did, when they summoned the vast varieties of the animal and 
vegetable kingdoms into their spiritual presence, and commanded the countless 
hosts to arrange themselves into their respective genera, orders, and species. 

Our notions respecting the expediency or propriety of introducing the higher 
branches, as they are called, into our common schools, are formed from a knowl- 
edge of our own school teachers, and of the habits that prevail in most of the 
schools themselves. With us, it too often happens that if a higher branch, geom- 
etry, natural philosophy, zoology, botany, is to be taught, both teacher and class 
must have text-books. At the beginning of these text-books, all the technical 
names and de initions belonging to the subject are set down. These, before the 
pupil has ai practical idea of their meaning, must be committed to memory. 
The book is then studied chapter by chapter. At the bottom of each page, or at 
the ends of the sections, are questions printed at full length. At the recitations, 
the teachoi- holds on by these leading-strings. He introduces no collateral knowl- 
edge. He exhibits no relation between what is contained in the book, and other 
kindred subjects, or the actual business of men and the affairs of life. At length 
the day of examination comes. The pupils rehearse from memory with a suspi- 
cious fluency ; or, being asked for some useful application of their knowledge, 
some practical connection between that knowledge and the concerns of life, they 
are silent, or give some ridiculous answer, which at once disparages science and 
gratifies the ill-humor of some ignorant satirist. Of course, the teaching of the 
higher branches falls into disrepute in the minds of all sensible men, as, under 
such circumstances, it ought to do. But the Prussian teacher has no book. He 
needs none. He teaches from a full mind. He cumbers and darkens the sub- 
ject with no technical phraseology. He observes what proficiency the child has 
made, and then adapts his instructions, both in quality and amount, to the necessity 
of the case. He answers all questions. He solves all doubts. It is one of his 
objects, at every recitation, so to present ideas, that they shall start doubts and 
provoke questions. He connects the subject of each lesson with all kindred and 
collateral ones ; and shows its relations to the every-day duties and business of 
life ; and should the most ignorant man, or the most destitute vagrant in society, 
ask him " of what use such knowledge can be ?" he will prove to him, in a word, 
that some of his own pleasures or means of subsistence are dependent upon it, or 
have been created or improved by it. 

In the meantime, the children are delighted. Their preceptive powers are 
exercised. Their reflecting faculties are developed. Their moral sentiments are 
cultivated. All the attributes of the mind within, find answering qualities in the 
world without. Instead of any longer regarding the earth as a huge mass of dead 
matter, without variety and without life, its beautiful and boundless diversities of 
substance, its latent vitality and energies, gradually drawn forth, until, at length, 
they illuminate the whole soul, challenging its admiration for their utility, and its 
homage for the bounty of their Creator. 

There are other points pertaining to the qualification of teachers, which would 
perhaps strike a visitor or spectator more strongly than the power of giving the 
kind of lessons I have described ; but probably there is nothing which, at the dis- 
tance of four thousand miles, would give to a reader or hearer so adequate an 
idea of intelligence and capacity, as a full understanding of the scope and charac- 
ter of this class of exercises. Suppose, on the one hand, a teacher to be intro- 
duced into a school, who is competent to address children on this great range and 
variety of subjects, and to address them in such a manner as to arouse their curi- 



PRIMARY SCHOOI S OF GERMANY. Y3 

osity, command their attention, and su]>[)ly them not only with knowledge, but 
with an inexiinguit-hable love lor it ; suppose such a teacher to be able to fjivt.- one. 
and sometimes two such lessons a day, that is, trom two hundred to I'our hundred 
lessons in a year, to the same class, and to carry his classes, in this way, through 
their eight years schooling. On the other hand, suppose a young njan coming 
fresh from the plow, the workshop, or the anvil ; or, w hat is no better, from (Jreek 
and Latin classics, and suppose his knowledge on the above enumerated subjects to 
be divided into four hundred, or even intt) two hundred parts, and that only one 
two-hundredth portion of that stock of knowledge should be administered to the 
children in a day. Let us suppose all this, and we shall have some more adequate 
idea of the different advantages of children, at the present time, in ditierent |jarts 
of the world. In Prussia, the theory, and the practice under it, are, n(jt that three 
years' study under the best masters qualifies a talented and devoted man to become 
a teacher, but that three years' of such general preparation may qualify one for 
that particular and daily preparation which is to be made before meeting a class 
in school. And a good I'russian teacher no more thinks of meeting his classes 
without this daily preparation, than a distinguished lawyer or clergyman amongst 
ourselves would think of managing a cause before court and jury, or preaching a 
sermon, without special reading and forethought. 

It is easy to see, from the above account, how such a variety of subjects can be 
taught simuitaoeously in school, without any interfei^nce with each other ; nay, 
that the "common bond," which, as Cicero says, binds all sciences together, 
should only increase their unity as it enlarges their number. 

BIBLE HISTORY AND BIBLE KNOWLEDGE. 

Nothing receives more attenticm in the Prussian schools than the Bible. It is 
taken up early and studied systematically. The great events recorded in the 
Scriptures of the Old and New Testament; the character and lives of those 
wonderful men, who, from age to age, were brought upon the stage of action, 
and through whose agency the future history and destiny of the race were to be 
so much modified ; and especially, those sublime views of duty and of morality 
which are brought to light in the Gospel, these are topics of daily and earnest 
inculcation, in every school. To these, in some schools, is added the history of 
the Christian religion, 'in connection with cotemporary civil history. So far as the 
Bible lessons are concerned, I can ratify the strong statements made by Professor 
Stowe, in regard to the absence of sectarian instruction, or endeavors at proselyt- 
ism. The teacher being amply possessed of a knowledge of the whole chain of 
events, and of all biographical incidents ; and bringing to the exercise a heart 
glowing with love to man, and with devotion to his duty as a former of the char- 
acter of children, has no necessity or occasion to fall back upon the formulas of a 
creed. It is when a teacher has no knowledge of the wonderful works of God, 
and of the benevolence of the design in which they were created ; when he has 
no power of explaining and applying the beautiful incidents in the lives of prophets 
and apostles, and especially, the perfect example which is given to men in the 
life of Jesus Christ ; it is then, that, in attempting to give religious instruction, he 
is, as it were, constrained to recur again and again to the few words or sentences 
of his form of faith, whatever that faith may be ; and, therefore, when giving the 
second lesson, it will be little more than a repetition of the first, and the two-hun- 
dredth lesson, at the end of the year, will diif'er from that at the beginning only in 
accumulated wearisomeness and monotony. 

There are one or two facts, however, which Professor Stowe has omitted to 
mention, and without a knowledge of which, one would form very erroneous idea.s 
respecting the character of some of the religious instruction in the Prussian 
schools. In all the Protestant schools, Luther's Catechism is regularly taught ; 
and in all the Roman Catholic schools, the Catechism of that communion. When 
the schools are mixed, they have combined literary with seperate religious instruc- 
tion : and here all the doctrines of the respective denominations are taught early 
and most assiduously. I well remember hearing a Roman Catholic priest incul- 
cating upon a class of very voung children the doctrine of transubstantiation. He 
illustrated it with the miracle of the water changed to wine, at the marriage feast 
in Cana ; and said that ho who could turn water into wine, cbuld turn hiB own 



74 PRIiMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. 

blood into the same element, and also his body into bread to be eaten with it. 
Contrary, then, to the principles of our own law, sectarianism is taught in all 
Prussian schools ; but it is nevertheless true, as Professor Stowe says, that the 
Bible can be taught, and is taught, without it. 



All Prussian teachers are masters not only of vocal, but of instrumental music, 
One is as certain to see a violin as a blackboard, in every school-room. Generally 
speaking, the teachers whom I saw, played upon the organ also, and some of them 
upon the piano and other instruments. Music was not only taught in school as an 
accomplishment, but used as a recreation. It is a moral means of great efficacy. 
Its practice promotes health ; it disarms anger, softens rough and turbulent natures, 
socializes, and brings the whole mind, as it were, into a state of fusion, from which 
condition the teacher can mould it into what forms he will, as it codls and 
hardens. 

All these subjects I have enumerated, were taught in all the schools I visited, 
whether in city or country, for the rich or for the poor. In the lowest school in 
the smallest and obscurest village, or for the poorest class in over-crowded cities ; 
in the schools connected with pauper establishments, with houses of correction or 
with prisons, in all these, there was a teacher of mature age, of simple unaffected 
and decorous manners, benefolent in his expression, kind and genial in his inter- 
course with the young, and of such attainments and resources as qualified him 
not only to lay down the abstract principles of the above range of studies, but, by 
familiar illustration and apposite example, to commend them to the attention of 
the children. 

Although the foregoing acc6unt of primary instruction in Germany, 
was drawn from observations mainly in the schools of Prussia and Sax- 
ony, it is, in its main features, appUcable to primary schools in the other 
German States. On this point, Mr. Kay bears the following emphatic 
testimony in his valuable contribution to our knowledge of the social 
and educational condition of Europe* — a work, from which we shall 
have occasion to quote largely in giving an account of the school sys- 
tems of Switzerland and the several German States. 

In Bavaria, Wirtemburg, the Duchy of Baden, and Nassau, as much, and in 
Wirtemberg and Baden perhaps even more, has been done to promote the intel- 
ligence, morality, and civilization of the lower orders of society, than in Prussia. 
In each of these countries, every village has a good school-house, and at least one 
learned and practically efficient teacher, who has been educated for several years 
at a college ; every town has several well-organized schools, sufficiently large to 
receive all the children of the town, who are between the ages of six and fourteen ; 
each of these schools contains from four to ten class-rooms, and each class-room is 
under the direction of a highly educated teacher. 

In each of these countries, every parent is obliged to educate his children, 
either at home or at some school, the choice of means being left to himself. In 
none of these countries are children left to grow up in vicious ignorance or with 
debasing habits. 

In none of these countries, is there any class of children analogous to that, 
which swarms in the back streets, alleys, and gutters of our great cities and towns, 
and from which our paupers, our disaffected, and our criminals grow up, and 
from which our '• ragged schools" are filled. All the children are intelligent, 
polite, clean, and neatly dressed, and grow up from their sixth to their fourteenth 
year under the teaching and influence of educated men. 

The Social Condition and Education of the People in England and Europe ; showing 
the results of the primary schools nnd of the division of landed property in foreign countries, 
by Joseph Kay. Esq., M. A., of Trinity (.'ollese, Cambridge ; Barrister at-law ; and late Travel- 
ing Bacbelor of the University of Cambridge. London : Longman, Brown, Green, and Long- 
mans. 1S50. 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. 



15 



In each of these countries a suflicient number of normal colleges has been 
founded, to enable it to educate a sufficient supply of teachers for the parisiies and 
towns. 

In each of these countries, all the schools of every sect and party, private as well 
as public, are open to public inspection, and are visited several times every year by 
learned men, whose business it is to examine bolli teachers and scholai's, and to 
give the government, the chambers, and the country, a full and detailed account 
of the state, condition, character, and progress of every school, so that parents 
may know where to send their children with safety; tliat good teachers may be 
encouraged, rewarded, and promoted ; and that unworthy teachers may not be 
sutFered to continue long in their situations. 

In each of these countries, the laws prohibit any person being a teacher of any 
school, until he has proved his elticiency to the committee of professors, appointed 
by the state to e.\ai7iine candidates, and until he has laid before such committee 
testimonials of character from his religious minister, his neighbors, and the pro- 
fessors of the college at which he was educated. 

I can give a traveler, who is desirous of comprehending at one short view the 
workings of the German and Swiss systems of popular education, no better advice 
than to direct Jiim to notice the state of the str(^ets in any German or Swiss town, 
which he happens to visit ; no matter where it be, whether on the plains of Prus- 
sia or Bavaria, on the banks of the Rhine, in the small towns of the I3lack Forrest, 
or in the mountainous cantons of Alpine Switzerland, no matter where, let him 
only walk through the streets of such a town in the morning or the afternoon, and 
count the number of children to be found there above the age of four or five, or 
let him stand in the same streets, when the children are going to or returning from 
the schools, and let him examine their cleanly appearance, the good quality, the 
excellent condition, and the cleanliness of their clothing, the condition of the les- 
son books they are carrying, the happiness and cheerfulness, and, at the same 
time, the politeness and ease of their manners ; he will think he sees the children 
of the rich; but let him follow them home, and he will find that many of them 
are the oftspriiig of the poorest artizans and laborers of the town. If that one 
spectacle does not convince him of the magnitude of the educational efforts of Ger- 
many, and of the happy results which they are producing, let him go no further, 
for "nothing he can further see will teach him. Let him then come home, and 
rejoice in the condition of our poor; but, should he start at this extraordinary 
spectacle, as I have seen English travelers do, to whom 1 have pointed out this 
sign of advanced and advancing civilization, let him reflect, that this has been 
effected, spite of all the obstac'es which impede ourselves. Bigotry and ignorance 
have cried their loudest ; Romanists have refused co-operation with Protestants, 
Protestants with Romanists, and yet th ^y have co-operated. There has been the 
same strong jealousy of all government interference, the same undefined and ill- 
digested love of liberty, and there has been the same selfish fear of retarding the 
development of physical resources. In Bavaria, the war has been waged be- 
tween Romanists and Protestants ; in Argovie, opposition has been raised by the 
manufacturers; in Lucerne, by the religious parties, and by the political oppo- 
nents of the government ; and in Baden, the difficulties have been aggravated by 
the numbers of Jews, whom both Romanists and Protestants hated to receive into 
alliance, even more than they disliked to co-operate among themselves. But in 
all these countries the great principle has finally triumphed ; and all parties have 
yielded some little of their claims, in the full conviction, that a day is dawning 
upon Europe, fraught with the most overwhelming evils for that country which 
has not prepared for its approach. 

Whether the methods by which any of these different countries are carrying 
out their great design, are in any way applicable to this country or not, I shall not 
stop to consider, my desire being merely to show how different countries, with dif- 
ferent degrees of political freedom, with dlft'erent political constitutions, whose 
people profess different religious tenets, where Protestants of different sects, 
Roman Catholics, and Jews, are mingled up in every kind of proportion, have all 
managed to overcome difficulties precisely similar to those which stand in our 
way, and have all agreed to lalior together to educate their poor. For it is a 
great fact, however much we ni.iy be inclined t.) doubt it, that throughout Prussia. 



76 PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. 

Saxony, Bavaria, Bohemia, Wirtemburg, Baden, Ilesse Darmstadt, Hesse Cassel, 
Gotlia, Nassau, Hanover, Denmark, Switzerland, Norway, and the Austrian 
Empire, all the children are actually, at this present time, attending school, and 
are receiving a careful, religious, moral, and intellectual education, from highly 
educated and efficient teachers. Over the vast tract of country, which I have 
mentioned, as well as in Holland and the greater part of France, all the children 
above six years of age are daily acquiring useful knowledge and good habits under 
the injluence of moral, religious, and learned teachers. All the youth of the 
greater part of these countries, below the age of twenty-one years, can read, 
write, and cipher, and know the Bible history, and the history oi' their own coun- 
try. No chddren are left idle and dirty in the streets of the towns ; there is no 
class of children to be compared, in any respect, to the children who frequent our 
" ragged schools ;" all the children, even of the poorest parents, are, in a great 
part of these countries, in dress, appearance, cleanliness, and manners, as polished 
and civilized as the children of om' middle classes ; the children of the poor in 
Germany are so civilized tliat the rich often ^end their children to the schools 
intended for the poor ; and, lastly, in a great part of Germany and Switzerland, 
the children of the poor are receiving a better education than that given in Eng- 
land to the children of the greater part of our middle classes ! These facts de- 
serve to be well considered. 

And let it be remembered that these great results have been attained, notwith- 
standing obstacles at least as great as those which make it so difficult for us to act. 
Are they religious differences which hinder us? Look at Austria, Bavaria, and 
the Prussian Rhine provinces, and the Swiss cantons of Lucerne and Soleure. 
Will any one say, that the rehgious difficulties in those countries are less than 
those which exist in our own 1 Is the sectarianism of the Jesuits of Lucerne, or 
of the priests of Bavaria, of a more yielding character toward the Protestant 
" heretics," than that of one Protestant party in England toward another ? And 
yet, in each of these countries, the difficulties arising from religious differences 
have been overcome, and all their children are brought under the influence of a 
religious education, without any religious party having been oft'euded. But are 
they political causes, which prevent us proceeding in this great work, in which 
nearly all Europe has so long preceded us, notwithstanding that we need it more 
than all the European nations put together ? Are they political causes, I ask ? I 
answer by again referring my readers to the countries I have enumerated. Under 
the democratic governments of the Swiss cantons, where it is the people who rule 
and legislate ; under the constitutional governments of Saxony, Wirtemburg, and 
Baden, which were framed more or less upon the English model, and vvhere the 
people have long had a direct influence upon the government ; under the consti- 
tutional governments of France and Holland, and under all the difierent grades 
of absolute rule which existed but a few months since in Prussia, the German 
dukedoms, and the Austrian states, the difficulties of the question have long been 
overcome, and with such entire satisfaction to all parties, that among the present 
representatives of the people, no member has ever been heard to express a desire 
for the change of the laws which relate to primarj^ education. 

But once again ; perhaps there are some who say, but there is no country 
which is troubled, as we are, by the union of both religious and political difficul- 
ties. I again refer my readers to the cases of Hollancl and Switzerland. They 
will find in these countries the same strong love of independence of action, which 
we boast so proudly and so justly. They will find also, not only strong religious 
feuds existing among the Protestants themselves, and pushed to the most shame- 
ful extremities, as in the case of the canton of Vaud, from which one religious 
party has lately been driven as exiles, but they will find the still more formidable 
differences of the Protestants and Catholics arrayed against each other, and seem- 
ingly preventing all union on any subject whatsoever ; and yet, in all these vari- 
ous countries, differing as they do in the state of their religious parties, and of 
their political regulations, in all of them, I say, have all parties consented to join 
on this one great and important question, the educatioiN of the people. 

But there are some who say, that if our means of direct education are worse, 
yet that our means of indirect education are better than those of other countries, 
and that if our p-aople have not sbh^ls and gotid tea^^hers, they have long had a 



PRIMARY SUHUULfi Ul' oEK.MA.W. 77 

free press, the right of assembling together for political discussion, plenty of cheap 
and very liberal journals, good reports of all the debates of our Houses of Legis- 
lature, and a literature free in its spirit, suggestive in its writings, and any thing 
but one-sided in its views of political and social questions, and that all this serves 
to stimulate the intellectual energies of the people. As far as regards the middle 
classes, this is all very true ; but, as regards the poor, it is ridiculously false. 
Most of our poor are either wholly without education, or else possess so little as 
to be entirely out of the sphere of such influences, as those I have enumerated. 
What good can one of our boorish peasants gain from cheap literature, free par- 
liamentary debates, free discussion, and liberal journals? What advantage is it 
to a starving man that there is bread in the bakei-'s shop; if he has not wherewith 
to buy ? What good is cheap literature and free discussion to a poor peasant who 
can neither read nor think ? He starves in the mid.st of plenty, and starves too 
with a curse upon his lips. 

It is utterly false to argue that the peasants would provide themselves with 
schools and education, if education would improve their condition in society. We 
can never hope to see the peasants supply themselves with schools. They never 
have done so in any country, they never will do so in our own. Such a step im- 
plies in them a great prior development of the intellectual and moral faculties ; a 
development which can only be obtained by means of education. The peasants 
are neither wise enough, nor rich enough, to erect or support schools for them- 
selves, and should government refuse either to do it for them, or to oblige all 
classes to assist the poor to accomplish this great work, we may rest assured that 
another century will see no further advances than we have made at present ; our 
schools are for the most part totally unfitted for their purpose, and our teachers the 
most ignorant, ill-paid, and least respected set of men in the community. Other 
countries have long since recognized these truths, and acted upon them. 

Whilst iu England we have been devoting most of our energies to the increase 
of our national wealth, the Germans and Swiss have been engaged in the noble 
undertaking of attempting to raise the character and social position of their poorer 
classes. To effect this, they have not vainly imagined that schools alone were 
sufficient, but to the accomplishment of this great end, every social institution and 
every social regulation has been rendered subservient. They began, it is true, by 
raising schools, and educating teachers ; but they have continued this great work 
by reforming their prisons and criminal codes ; by facilitating the transfer and 
division of their lands ; by simplifying their legal processes ; by reforming their 
ecclesiastical establishments ; by entirely changing the mediaeval and illiberal con- 
stitutions of their universities and public schools ; by improving the facilities of 
internal communication ; and, lastly, by opening the highest and most honorable 
offices of the state to all worthy aspirants, no matter of how low an origin. 

Nor have their labors in the cause of social reform diminished, as there was 
seemingly less immediate need for them. On the contrary, to a traveler in these 
countries, who has not acquainted himself whh all that has been going on there 
for the last thirty years, they would seem to be only now commencing, so vigorous 
and universal are the efforts which are at this moment being made. 

It is doubtless true, that the social polity of a country should be so ordered, that 
the whole life of any of its members should be a progressive and continued I'elig- 
ious, moral, and intellectual education ; but it is no less certain that this great work, 
if it is ever to have a commencement, must begin at home, and be continued, in 
the case of the peasant, in the village school, under the superintendence of the 
religious minister and village teacher, or it can never be accomplished at all. True 
it is, that at first the evil influence of the home will be stronger than the good one 
of the teacher and the school. But still, if he understand the conduct of his im- 
portant work, he will know how to awaken those principles which, it may be, lie 
dormant, but which nevertheless exist in every child's mind, and which, if once 
aroused, would be certain in some degree to mitigate the evil influences of home. 
Thus might we hope, that the cottage firesides of the next generation would prove 
less injurious than those of the present to the children, who will cluster around 
them, and that the school would have an auxiliary, and not an antagonist, in the 
powerful, though now, alas! too often misdirected influences of home. It is only 
when we have attained this happy result, that we can hope to realize the full bene- 



^J^ PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. 

fits which education is capable of conferring, and which, in other lands, it is at this 
day conferring upon the people. 

!So long as the early domestic training is in direct opposition to the education 
of the schools, so long must the improvement in education be very slow ; but, 
however slow, it is the only sure means we have of counteracting the effects of 
a vicious domestic training, and of cleansing the very fount of immorality. The 
laborer is occupied from twilight on to twilight, and the religious ministers have 
but few opportunities of bringing higher iutluences to bear upon him. Those, 
too, who most need improvement, are generally the most unwilling to receive it; 
and those whose liomes act most injuriously on the younger inmates, are precisely 
those, who oppose most strenuously the entry of the religious minister, and who 
are most rarely brought under any ennobling influence whatever. Thus it often 
happens, that the only way by which we can introduce reform into a home, is 
through the children ; for. most happily, there is among the poor such a great idea 
of the benefits to be derived from education, that it very rarely happens that the 
parent can not be persuaded to send his child to school, when he is enabled lo 
do so. 

It is delightful to see how thoroughly this truth has been recognized in ^^'estern 
Europe, i^'roin the shores of the Baltic and the North Sea to the foot of the 
great Alpine range, and from the Rhine to the Danube, all the children of both 
rich and poor are receiving daily instruction, under the surveillance of their relig- 
ious ministers, from long and most carefully educated teachers. Throughout the 
plains of Prussia, Bohemia, and Bavaria, among the hills and woods of Saxony 
and central Germany, in the forests and rich undulating lands of Wirtemburg and 
Baden, in the deep and secluded Alpine valleys of Switzerland and the Tyrol, in 
most of the provinces of the iVustrian empire, throughout Holland, Denmai'k, and 
almost the whole of France, and even in the plains of Italian Lombardy, there is 
scarcely a single parish, which does not possess its school-house and its one or 
two teachers. The school buildings are often built in really an extravagant man- 
ner ; and in Switzerland and South Germany, the village school is generally the 
finest erection of the neighborhood. In the towns the expenditure on these mon- 
uments of a nation's progress is still more remarkable. Here the municipal author- 
ities generally prefer to unite several schools for the sake of forming one complete 
one. This is generally erected on the following plan : A large house is built of 
three or four stories in height, with commodious play yai'ds behind. The one or 
two upper stories are used as apartments for the teachers ; the lower rooms ai'e 
set apart for the different classes. A town school has generally from eight to ten, 
and sometimes twelve or fourteen, of these cliiss-rooins, each of which is capably 
of containing from 80 to 100 children. An educated teacher is appointed to man- 
age each class, so that there is generally a staff' of at least eight teachers connected 
with each town school of Germany, and I have seen schools with as many as 
twelve and fourteen teachers. The rooms are filled with desks, maps, and all tlie 
apparatus which the teachers can require for the purposes of instruction. I gener- 
ally noticed, on entering a small German or Swiss town, that next to the church, 
the finest building was the one set apart for the education of the children. 

It is impossible to estimate the enormous outlay which Germany has devoted to 
the erection and improvement of school-houses alone, during the last fifteen 
years. In the towns, hardly any of the old and inefficient buildings now remain, 
except where they have been improved and enlarged. In Munich, I directed my 
conductor to lead me to the worst school buildings in the city, and I found all the 
class-rooms measViring fourteen feet high by about twenty-five square, and ten of 
such class-rooms in each school-house, each of wliich rooms was under the con- 
stant direction of an educated teacher. In whatever town I happened to be stay- 
ing, I always sought out the worst, in preference to the best schools. In Berlin, 
the worst I could find contained four class-rooms, each eight feet in height, and 
about fifteen feet square ; and in the Grand Duchy of Baden I found that the 
Chambers had passed a law prohibiting any school-house being built, the rooms of 
which were not fourteen feet high. 

Throughout Germany no expense seems to have been spared to improve the 
materials of popular instruction. 

This could never have been efft-cted had not the expenses of such an immense 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. tjg 

undertaking been equally distributed over all the parishes of the different states. 
The burden being thus divided amongst all, is not ftlt by any ; but had the gov- 
ernment started in the vain hope of being able to bear even a third of the expense, 
popular education would have been no further advanced in Germany than in Eng- 
land. But wiser, or more interested in the real success of the undertaking than 
ourselves, the governments of the different states have obliged each province to 
provide for the expenses necessary for its own primary education. 

The systems, so far from having been systems of uxeessive centralization, leav- 
ing no freedom of action to the parishes, have been alfrays and still are essentially 
parochial systems, merely under the surveillance, and subject to the check of the 
central authority. It is the parishes and towns, which tfix themselves for educa- 
tional purposes ; it is the parishioners and citizens, who elect their own teachers ; 
it is the parishioners and citizens, who pay their own teachers, and provide all the 
materials for the education of their own poor ; it is the parishioners and citizens, 
who determine whether they will have separate schools for their different religious 
sects, or common schools for them all ; it is the parishioners, who choose the sites 
of their school-houses, and the outlay they will make on their erection ; and 
although they have not the power of dismissing a teacher after they have once 
elected him, without first showing to government a sufficient ground for such a 
step, yet they are afforded every tiieility of forwarding any complaints they may 
have to make of any teacher they have elected, to the educational authorities ap- 
pointed to judge such matters, and to protect the teachers from the effects of mere 
personal animosities or ignorance. 

Germany will one day be lauded by all Europe, as the inventor of a system 
securing, in the best possible manner, guidance by the greatest intelligence of the 
country, the cheapest manner of working, the fostering of local activity and of 
local sympathies, and the cordial assistance of the religious ministers. 

Disputes about separate or mixed schools are unheard of in Prussia, because 
every parish is left to please itself which kind it will adopt. One of the leading 
Roman Catholic Counsellors of the Educational Bureau in Berlin assured me, that 
they never experienced any difficulty on this point. " We always," he said, ''en- 
courage separate schools when possible, as we think religious instruction can be 
promoted better in separate than in mixed schools; but, of course, we all think it 
better to have mixed schools, than to have no schools at all •, and when we can not 
have separate schools we are rejoiced to see the religious sects uniting in the sup- 
port of a mixed one. Wlien mixed schools are decided on by the parochial com- 
mittees, the teacher is elected by the most numerous of the two sects ; or, if two 
teachers are required, one is elected by one sect, and the other by the other ; and 
in this case each conducts the religious education of the children of his own sect. 
But when only one teacher is elected, the children of those parents, who differ 
from him in religious belief, are permitted to be taken from the school during the 
religious lessons, on condition that their parents make arrangements for their relig- 
ious instruction by their own ministers." 

I went to Prussia with the firm expectation, that I should hear nothing but 
complaints from the peasants, and that I should find the school nothing but a wor- 
thy offshoot of an absolute government. To test whether this really was the case 
or not, as well as to see something of the actual working of the system in the 
country districts, I traveled alone through different parts of the Rhine provinces 
for four weeks before proceeding to the capital. During the whole of my solitary 
rambles, I put myself as much as possible into communioatitm with the peasants 
and with the teachers, for the purpose of testing the actual state of feeling on this 
question. Judge, then, of my surprise, when I assure my readers that, although 
I conversed with many of the very poorest of the people, and with both Romanists 
and Protestants, and although I always endeavored to elicit expressions of discon- 
tent, I never once heard, in any part of Prussia, one word spoken by any of the 
peasants against the educational regulations. But on the contrary, I every where 
received daily and hourly proofs, of the most unequivocal character, of the satisfac- 
tion and real pride with which a Prussian, however poor he may be, looks upon 
the schools of his locality. 

Often and often have [ been ansv\'ered by the poor laborers, when asking them 
whether they did not dislike being obliged to educate their children, " Why should 



80 PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF GERMANY. 

I ? The schools are excellent ; the teachers are very learned and good men ; and 
then think how much good our children are gaining; tlu-y behave better at home, 
they make our families all the happier, and they are much better able in after-life 
to earn their own livelihood. No, no; we do not dislike the schools. We know 
too well how much good our children are gaining from them." I have heard this 
said over aud over again in different parts of Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, Wirtem- 
burg, and Kaden ; aud, indeed, I may add, that throughout Germany, I never 
heard one single wo-d of discontent uttered against these truly liberal and Chris- 
tian establishments. 

Evei-y one of the richer classes, with whom I conversed, corroborated the truth 
of all that the peasants had told me. I particularly remember a very intelligent 
teacher at Etberfeld saying to me, " 1 am quite convinced that, if we had a politi- 
cal revolution to-morrow, none of the peasants would think of wishing to have 
any great alteration made in the laws which relate to the schools." Recent facts 
have proved the truth of the assertion.* 

Several travelers have fallen into the strangest errors in their investigations on 
this subject, from having confined their attention to the schools of the capitals, or 
of one or two other large towns. Very few have seen the working of the system 
in the villages and remote provinces. But it is there only that a fair idea can be 
formed of the effects it is producing, and of the manner in which it is regarded by 
the people themselves. 

* A remarkable proof of the truth of these remarks is, that since the commencement of 
the German revolutions of 1848, tlie only change in the educational regulations, which has 
been flemandtd by the people, is, thai Itiey shonid be allowed to send their children to the 
parochial schools free of all expense, and that the present small weekly pence required from 
the parents for the education ol each child should be paid out of the regular parochial school 
rates. This has been conceded, and the peasant.? themselves will now as rigorously en- 
force the compulsory educational regulations, as the Swiss peasants enforce lawsai least as 
stringent. 



PRUSSIA. 



The system of Public Instruction in Prussia embraces three degrees, 
provided for in three classes of institutions. 1. Primary or Elementary 
Instruction, conveyed in schools correspondino: to our common schools. 
2. Secondary Instruction, provided for in Gymnasia, Real Schools and 
Trade Schools. 3. Superior instruction, communicated in the Universi- 
ties. We shall confine oui- attention to Primary Instruction, and shall 
present a general idea of the system from various authorities.* 

As early as the reign of the Elector Joachim the Second, before the 
kingdom of Prussia existed, except as the Mark of Brandenburg, (1540,) 
visitors were appointed to inspect the town schools of the Electorate with 
express directions to report in relation to the measures deemed necessary 
for their improvement. In 1545, the same elector appointed a permanent 
council or board, on church and school matters. In a decree of some 
length, by the elector John George, (1573,) special sections are devoted 
to the schools, to teachers and their assistants, and to pupils. It is re- 
markable as containing a provision for committees of superintendence, 
consisting of the parish clergyman, the magistrates and two notables, 
exactly similar in constitution to the present school committees. 

In 1777, a decree of Frederick William the First, king of Prussia en- 
joins upon parents to send their children to school, provides for the pay- 
ment of teachers, for the education of poor children, and for catechetical 
instruction by the parochial clergymen. In 1735, the first regular semi- 
nary for teachers in Prussia was established at Stettin, in Pomerania. 
To induce a better attendance at school, a decree of 1736 requires that 
the parent of every child between five and twelve years of age, shall pay 
a certain fee, whether his child goes to school or not; this rule beino', as 
it were, preliminary to the present one of forced attendance. The same 
decree refers to school-houses erected by associated parishes, showing, 
that such associations existed previously to the decree for providing pub- 
lic schools ; similar associations may even now exist, but they are not 
numerous, forming exceptions to the general rule requiring each parish 
to have its public school. The decree provides further for the amount of 
fees to be paid to the teacher by the pupils, the church, or the state, and 
for aid to peasants who have more than two children above five years of 
age, by the payment of the fees of all over this number from a school fund. 
A rescript of 1738, constitutes the clergy the inspectors of schools. 

Bache's " Report on Education in Europe." Cousin's "Report on Primary Instruction in 
some of the Sales of Germany, and particularly in Prussia. " Prof. Stephens's " Letter to the 
Superintendent of Common Schools in Pennsylvania in 1843." Recent School Docu- 
ments from Germany, by Harnisch, Calinich, Jacobi and others. 

6 



g2 PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 

An attempt to provide more precisely, by law, for the regulation of the 
schools in Berlin, was made by a decree of 1738. This decree requires 
that teachers shall be regularly examined by the inspectors of schools 
before being allowed to teach, and prescribes their acquirements in detail. 
It directs the opening and closing of the schools with prayers ; fixes the 
hours of daily attendance at from eight to eleven, or seven to ten in the 
morning, and one to three in the afternoon ; prescribes instruction in 
spelling, reading, writing, arithmetic, and singing, and regulates the 
emoluments and perquisites of the master. 

A new impulse was given to public instruction under the reign of 
Frederick the Great. The regulations drawn up by Hecker, and approved 
by the king, (1763,) are very precise, and though they have been in part 
superseded by later decrees, many of their provisions ai-e still in force. 
They provide for the selection of school books by the consistory ; that 
children shall be sent to school at five years of age, and be kept there un- 
til thirteen or fourteen, or until they have made satislactory attainments 
in reading and writing, in the knowledge of Christian doctrine, and of 
such matters as are to be found in their text-books ; fix the school-hours, 
requiring six liours a day for instruction in winter, and three in summer, 
and one hour of catechetical instruction, besides the Sunday teacliing ; 
require that all unmarried persons of the parish shall attend the hour of 
instruction in the catechism, and besides, receive lessons in reading and 
writing ti-om the Bible. The regulations provide anew for the school- 
masters' fees, and for the instruction of poor children ; require that the 
schoolmaster shall be furnished from the church-register with a list of all 
the children of the age to attend school, and that he shall prepare a list of 
those who are actually in attendance, and submit boih to the clergyman, 
in his periodical visits; direct anew the examination of candidates for the 
situation of schoolmaJler, and refer particularly to the advantages of the 
seminary opened at Berlhi for preparing teachers for the Mark of Bran- 
denburg; lay down minutely the scheme of elementary instruction, and 
actually specify the time to be devoted to the different branches, with 
each of the two classes composing the school ; require the parochial 
clergy to visit the schools twice a week, and inspectors of circles to per- 
form the same service at least once a year. 

The decree of Frederick regulating the Catholic schools of Silesia, 
(1765,) is even more particular than the foregoing, It shows the settled 
policy in regard to educating teachers in special seminaries, now so im- 
portant a part of the Prussian system, by setting apart certain schools by 
name for this purpose, requiring the appointment of a director to each, 
and assigning his duties. 

In 1787, Frederick William the Second created a council of instruction, 
under the title of an '-Upper School Board," fOber-Schul Collegium.) of 
which the minister of state was president. 1 he council was directed to 
examine text-books, and to pass upon the licenses of masters, on the re- 
ports of the provincial school-boards. They were authorized to erect 
seminaries for teachers at the government expense, and to frame their 
regulations; to send out an inspector from their body to examine any part 
of'public instruction, and to rectify all wrongs by a direct order, or through 
the school-boards of the provinces, the school committees or patrons. 
This organization remained substantially in force until the separation of 
the departments of state and instruction in 1817. with the creation of a 
ministry of public instruction. The attributes of tliis upper school board, 
it will be seen, now belong to that council. 

The school plan of 1763 was modified by an ordinance of 1794, which in- 
troduces geography and natural history in the elementary schools, and 
refers to vocal music as one of their most important exercises ; it also at- 
tempts, by minute prescriptions, to introduce uniformity in the methods of 



PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 



83 



instruction and discipline. The regulation for the catholic schools of 
Silesia was also revised in 1801. 

But the most important era in the history of public instruction in Prus- 
sia, as well as in other parts of Germany, opens with the etforts put forth 
by the king and people, to rescue the kingdom from the yoke of Napo^ 
leon in 1809. In that year the army was remodeled and every citizen 
converted into a soldier; landed property was declared free of feudal 
service ; restrictions on fVeedom of trade were abolished, and the whole 
state was reorganized. Great reliance was placed on infusing a German 
spirit into the people by giving them freer access to improved institutions 
of education, from the common school to the university. Under the 
councils of Hardenberg. Humbolt, Stein, AUenstein, these reforms and 
improvements were projected, carried on, and perfected in less than a 
single generation. ' 

The movement in behalf of popular schools commenced by inviting C, 
A. Zeller, of Wirtemberg, to Prussia. Zeller was a young theologian, 
who had Btudied under Pestalozzi in Switzerland, and was thoroughly 
imbued with the method and spirit of his master. On his return he had 
convened the school teachers of Wirtemberg in barns, for want of better 
accommodations being allowed him, and inspired them with a zeal for 
Pestalozzi's methods, and for a better education of the whole people. On 
removing to Prussia, he first took charge of the seminary at Koenigsberg, 
soon after founded the seminary at Karalene. and went about into differ- 
ent provinces meeting with teachers, holding conferences, visiting 
schools, and inspiring school officers with the right spirit. 

The next step taken was to send a number of yoijng men, mostly theo^ 
logians, to Pestalozzi's institution at Itferten, to acquire his method, and 
on their return to place them in new, or reorganized teachers' seminaries. 
To these new agents in school improvement were joined a large body ot 
zealous teachers, and patriotic and enlightened citizens, who, in ways 
and methods of their own, labored incessantly to confirm the Prussian 
state, by forming new organs for its internal life, and new means of pro^ 
tection from tbreign foes. They proved themselves truly educators of the 
people. Although the government thus not only encouraged, but directly 
aided in the introduction of the methods of Pestalozzi into the public 
schools of Prussia, still the school board in the different provinces sus- 
Uiined and encouraged those who approved and taught on different sys- 
tems, such as Dinter, Zerrenner, Salzman. and Niemeyer— all, in fine, 
who labored with a patriotic purpose, thus allowing intellectual freedom, 
and appropriating whatever was good from all quarters toward the accom- 
plishment of the great purpose. 

To infuse a German spirit into teachers and scholars, particular attenr 
tion was paid to the German language, as the treasury house of Ger- 
man ideas, and to the geography and history of the father land. Music, 
which was one of Pestalozzi's great instruments of culture, was made the 
vehicle of patriotic songs, and through them the heart of all Germany 



o . PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 

84 

was moved to bitter hatred of the conqueror who had desolated her fields 
and homes, and humbled tiie pride of her monarchy. All these efforts 
for the improvement of elementary education, accompanied by expensive 
modifications in the establishments of secondary and superior education, 
were made when the treasury was impoverished, an«l taxes, the most 
exorbitant in amount, were levied on every province and commune of 
the kingdom. Prof Stephens, now of Girard College, in a letter to the 
Superintendent of Common Schools of Pennsylvania, written from Berlin, 
at a time when there was at least a talk of the repudiation of state debts, 
and especially when a distinguished citizen of that state had proposed to 
divert the money appropriated for the support of common schools to the 
payment of interest on the state debts, makes the following remarks on 
this period of the educational history of Prussia. 

" Prussia, who furnishes us with a pattern of excellence in the present 
stale of her public schools, atfords us a still more brilliant example in the 
noble policy by which she su.stained them in times of great public distress. 
Of all the nations of Europe, Prussia was reduced to the greatest extrem- 
ity by the wars of Napoleon. In 1806, at the battle of Jena, her whole 
military force was annihilated. Within a week after the main overthrow, 
every scattered division of the army fell into the hands of the enemy. 
Napoleon took up his quarters in Berlin, emptied the arsenal, and stripped 
the capital of all the works of art which he thought worthy to be trans- 
ported to Paris. By the treaty of Tilsit, in 1SU7, the king of Prussia was 
deprived of one-half of his dominions. A French army of 200,000 men 
were q^uartered upon the Prussians till the end of the year 1808. Prussia 
must pay to France the sum of 120,000,000 francs, after her principal 
sources of income had been appropriated by Napoleon, either to himself 
or his allies. The system of confiscation went so far that even the revenue 
from the endowments of schools, of poor houses, and the fund for widows, 
was diverted into the treasury of France. These last were given back 
in 1811. Foreign loans were made, to meet the exorbitant claims of the 
conqueror An army must be created, bridges rebuilt, ruined fortifications 
in every quarter repaired, and so great was the public extremity that the 
Prussian ladies, with noble generosity, sent their ornaments and jewels to 
supply the royal treasury. Rings, crosses, and other ornaments of cast- 
iron were given in return to all tTiose who had made this sacrifice. They 
bore the inscription, '■ Ich gab gold vm eisen,^'' (1 gave gold for iron.) and 
such Spartan jewels are much treasured at this day by the possessors 
and their families. This state of things lasted till after the "War of 
Liberation," in 1812. But it is the pride of Prussia, that at the time of 
her greatest humiliation and distress, she never for a moment lost sight of 
the work she had begun in the improvement of her sciiools. 

In 1809, the minister at the head of the section of instruction, writes as 
follows, to some teachers who had been sent to the in^itution of Pesta- 
lozzi to learn his method and principles of instructing:—" The section of 
public instruction begs you to believe, and to assure Mr. Pestalozzi, that 
the cause is the interest of the government, and of his majesty^ the king, 
•personally, who are convinced that liberation from extraordinary calami- 
ties is fruitless, and only to be effected by a thorough improvement of the 
people's education." In 1809, was established the teachers' seminary in 
Koenigsberg. In 1810. the seminary at Braunsburff. In 1811, the semi- 
nary at Karalene. In 1812, was established at Breslau. the first seminary, 
completely organized according to the new ideas, in 1809, the most am- 
ply endowed and completely organized of all the German universities 



Primary instruction in prdssia gg 

was founded in Berlin. Professors were called from all parts, and in ISIO 
the university was in full operation. In ISll, the old university of Bres- 
lau was reorcranized, and large grants were received from the government 
for new buildings and new professorships. Is not this noble policy, on the 
part of an absolute government, at a time when the nation was struggling 
for existence, a severe rebuke upon the narrow and short-sighted expedi- 
ents of those republican politicians, who can invent no better way to pay 
a public debt than by converting into money that institution on which the 
virtue and intelligence of the people, and the special safety of a republican 
state, mainly depend 1" 

The school system of Prussia, is not the growth of any one period, and is 
rot found in one law, but is made up of an aggregation of laws and general 
regulaiions. enacted at different times for different provinces, differing in 
the condition, habits, and religion of the people, and to meet particular 
wants, as these have been developed in the progress of the system. An 
attempt was made in 1819 to prepare a general school law for Prussia, 
but without success. This is considered by Harnisch and other German 
educators, a great defect, as it leads to great inequalities of education, 
and great irregularities of administration in different provinces. The or- 
dinance of 1819, however, embraces much of the regulations which are 
applicable to the whole kingdom, while the peculiarities and details of 
the system must be looked for in the provincial ordinances and special 
regulations. 

The authorities which administer public instruction in Prussia are the 
following: — The chief authority is the minister, who joins to this super- 
vision that of ecclesiastical and medical affairs. He is assisted by a coun- 
cil, consisting of a variable number of members, and divided into three 
sections corresponding to the three charges of the minister. The section 
for public instruction has its president and secretary, and meets usually 
twice a week ibr the transaction of business. One of this body is crene- 
raily deputed as extraordinary inspector in cases requiring examination, 
and reports to the minister. The kingdom of Prussia is divided into ten 
provinces, each of which has its governor, styled Superior President, 
(Ober-Presiderit.) who is assisted by a council called a Copsistory, (Con- 
sistoriura.) This council has functions in the province similar to those in 
the ministerial council in the kingdom at large, and has direct control of 
secondary public instruction, and of the schools lor the education oi' pri- 
mary teachers. It is subdivided into two sections of which one has charge 
of the primary instruction in the province, under the title of the School 
Board, (Provincial Schul Collegium.) The school board, in addition to 
exercising the general supervision oi' education in the province, examines 
the statutes and regulations of the schools, insures the execution of exist- 
ing laws and regulations, examines text-books, and gives permission for 
their introduction, after having obtained the approbation of the ministry. 
This board communicates with the higher authorities, through their pre- 
sident, to whom the reports from the next lower authority, to be presently 
spoken of, are addressed, and by whom, when these relate to school 
matters, they are referred to the board tor examination. 

The next smaller political division to a province, is called a Regency, 
(Regierungs-Bezirk.) which is again subdivided into Circles, (^Kreisin,) 
and those into parishes, (Gemeinden.) The chief civil authority in the 
Regency, is a president, who is assisted by a council called also a regency. 

This Do'dy is divided into three sfections, having charge respectively of 



gg PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 

the internal afi'airs, of direct taxes, and of church and school matters. 
The last named committee examines and appoints all the teachers ot 
elementary and burgher schools within the regency, superintends the 
schools, ascertains that the school-houses and churches are duly kept in 
order, administers the funds of schools and churches, or superintends the 
administration, when vested in corporations, and collects the church and 
school fees. This committee is presided over by a member of the re- 
gency called the School Councilor, (Schul-rath.) As councilor, he has 
a seat and voice in the provincial consistory, where he is required to ap- 
pear at least once a year, and to report upon their aiTairs in his regency, 
of which the provincial consistory has the superintendence. It is also his 
duty to visit the schools, and to satisfy himself that they are in good con- 
dition. 

The next school authority is the in.spector of a circle, who has charge 
oC several parishes. These insTpedtors are generally clergymen, while 
the councilors are laymen. Ne.\t below the special superintendents is the 
immediate authority, namely, the school committee, (Schul-Vorstand.) 
Each parish (Gemeinde) must, by law, have its school, except in special 
cases, and each school its committee of superintendence, (Schul-Vorstand,) 
Consisting of the curate, the local magistrate, and from two to four nota- 
bles ; the constitution of the committee varying somewhat with the char- 
acter of the school, whetiier endowed, entirely supported by the parish, in 
part by the province or state, or by subscription. The committee ap- 
points a school inspector, who is usually the clergyman of the parish. In 
cities, the magistrates form the school committee, or school deputation, as 
it is there called, the curates still acting as local inspectors. 

Thus, there is a regular series of authorities, from the master of the 
school up to the minister, and every part of primary instruction is entirely 
within the control of an impulse from the central government, and takes 
its direction according to the will of the highest authorities. With such a 
system, under a despotic government, it is obvious that the provisions of 
any law may be successfully enforced. 

The cardinal provisions of the school system of Prussia, are : 

First, That all children between the ages of seven and fourteen years 
shall ga regularly to school. This is enforced by the school committee, 
who are furnished with lists of the children who should attend, and of 
those actually in the schools under their charge, and who are required to 
enforce the penalties of the law. 

Second, That each parish shall, in general, have an elementary school. 
When the inhabitants are of ditierent religious persuasions, each denom- 
ination has its school, and if not, provision is made for the religious in- 
struction of the children by their own pastors. The erection of the school- 
house, its furniture, the income of the master, and aid to poor scholars, are 
all provided for. The requisite sum comes, in part, from parochial funds, 
and in part from a tax upon householders. When the parish is poor, it is 
assisted by the circle, by the province, and even by the state. Besides 
these elementary schools, most of the towns in Prussia have one or more 
upper primary or burgher schools. 

Third, The education of teachers in seminaries, adapted to the grade 
of instruction to which they intend devoting themselves. Their exemp- 
tion during their term of study from active military service required of 
other citizens. A provision for their support during their term of study. 
A preference given to them over schoolmasters not similarly educated. 
Their examination previous to receiving a certificate of capacity, which 
entitles them to become candidates for any vacant post in the province 
where they have been examined. Their subsequent exemption from ac- 
tive military service, and even from the annual drill of the militia, if they 



PRLMARV INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. §7 

can not, in the opinion of the school inspector, be spared from their duties. 
Provision for the removal of the incompetent or immoral. A provision 
for the support of decayed teachers. 

Fourth, The authorities which regulate the schools, and render them 
a branch of the general government, and the teachers in fact, its officers. 
In a country likePrussia. this connection secures to the teacher the respect 
due to his station, and thus facihtates the discharge of his important 
duties. 

Under this system of organization and administration, and especially 
with these arrangements to secure the employment of only properly quali- 
fied teachers, the public schools of Prussia have been multiplied to an ex- 
tent, and have attained within the last quarter of a century a degree of 
excellence, wliich has attracted the attention of statesmen, and commanded 
the admiration of intelligent educators in every part of Christendom. In 
the provinces, where the improved system has gone into operation with 
the habits of the people in its favor, it has already reached every human 
being; and in even the outer provinces, it is. as fast as time sweeps along 
new generations, replacing the adult population with a race of men and 
women who have been subjected to a course of school instruction far more 
thorough and comprehensive than has ever been attempted in any other 
country. As an evidence of the universality of the system it may be 
mentioned, that out of 122,897 men of the standing army, in 1846, only 
two soldiers were found who could not both read and write. But the 
system aims at much higher results — with nothing short of developing 
every faculty both of mind and body, of converting creatures of impulse, 
prejudice, and passion, into thinking and reasoning beings, and of giving 
them objects of pursuit, and habits of conduct, favorable to their own hap- 
piness and that of the community in which they live. The result which 
may be reasonably anticipated from this system — when the entire adult 
population have been subjected to its operation, and when the influencea 
of the home and street, of the business and the recreations of society, all 
unite with those of the school — have not as yet been realized in any sec- 
tion of the kingdom. Every where the lessons of the school-room are 
weakened, and in a measure destroyed, by degrading national customs, 
and the inevitable results of a government which represses liberty of 
thought, speech, occupation, and political action. But the school, if left 
as good and thorough as it now is, must inevitably change the govern- 
ment, or the government must change the school. And even if the school 
should be made less thorough than it now is, no governmental interfer- 
ence can turn back the intelligence which has already gone out among 
the people. It would be easier to return the rain to tlie clouds, from 
which it has parted, and which has already mingled with the waters of 
every rising spring, or reached the roots of every growing plant. 

The following Table exhibits the state of the Public Schools of Prussia, 
according to the latest official returns published by the government. 



88 



PKIMARY EDUCATION IN PRUSSIA. 



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STATISTICS OF EDUCATION IN PRUSSIA. 89 

In 1848. the population of Prussia was about 16,000,000. According 
to the foregoing table, there were 24.030 elementary schools, with 
2.433.333 children, between the ages of 6 and 14, in average daily- 
attendance ; 1,202 middle or burgher schools with 91.888 pupils, and lUO 
higher, or town schools, with 15.624 pupils, making an aggregate of 
25,332 public primary schools, and 2,540.775 pupils. To these schools 
should be added 117 gymnasia for classical education, with 29,474 
pupils, and 1,664 professors; 7 universities with 4,000 students and 471 
professors, an4 libraries with over 1.000.000 volumes ; 382 institutions, 
in the nature of infant schools, with 25.000 children, and a large number 
of schools for special instruction, as for the blind, deaf mutes, commerce, 
trades, arts, &c.; and Prussia can present an array of institutions, teach- 
ers, professors, and educational facilities, for all classes of her population, 
not surpassed by any other country. 

If to the number of children at school, public or private, we add those 
who are receiving instruction at home, or who have left school after 
obtaining the certificate of school attendance up to the age of twelve 
years, and of their being able to read, write, and cipher, and those who 
are detained from school temporarily by sickness, we can easily acquiesce 
in the claim of the director of the Statistical Bureau, by whom the 
annual, school returns are collected, and published every three years, 
that every child under fourteen years of age has already attended school 
public or private, or has acquired that degree of instruction which 
makes self-education in almost any direction practicable. From an 
investigation made by the government in 1845, there were, in the whole 
of Prussia, only two young men in every one hundred between the ages 
of twenty and twenty-two, who could not read, write, and cipher, and 
had not a knowledge of Scripture history. 

According to the foregoing table, there were 34.030 primary school 
teachers employed in, viz. : 

Elementary schools. Head teachers, .... 25,914 

« '■ Assistants, 2,749 

" '•' Schoolmistresses, . ' . . . 1,856 

Middle or Burgher schools for boys. Head teachers, . . 898 

" " " >' Assistants, . . 197 

« « « girls. Head teachers, . . 1,094 

" " '• •' Schoolmistresses, . 640 

Higher Burgher. Head teachers, 505 

" " Assistants, 197 



Total, . . . 34,030 

These thirty-four thousand teachers had all been thoroughly edu- 
cated in the studies they were called on to teach, and the best methods 
of teaching the same in seminaries established for thispurpose, of which 
there were forty-six, supported by th^ government, in 1848. By means 
of educational periodicals, and frequent meetings for professional im- 



90 STATISTICS OF EDUCATION IN PRUSSIA. 

proveinent, these teachers are bound together into a great association, 
stimulating each other to higher attainments, and marching forward a 
noble army ibr the improvement, and not the destruction of the people. 
The following statistics will show how steadily the primary schools 
have advanced in numbers, attendance, and teachers, since 1819: 

1. In 1819, the number of schools in Prussia was . . 20,085 
In 1825, " " " " , . 21,625 
In 1831, " '•' u u ^ ^ 22^612 
In 1843, « « " " . . 23,646 
In 1846, " « « u ^ ^ 25,332 

2. In 1819, the number of teachers in Prussia was < . 21,895 
In 1825, « " u a ^ _ 22,965 
In 1831, " " " « . . 27,749 
In 1843, " . " « « ^ _ 29^631 
In 1846, " " (( « . . 32^313 

3. In 1825, the number of children between seven and four- 

teen years of age, was 1,923,200 

And the number of these who were attending the 

schools, was .....,,. 1,664,218 

In 1831, the number of children between seven and four- 
teen years of age, was 2,043,030 

And the number of these who were attending the 

schools, was 2,021,421 

In 1843, the number of children between seven and four- 
teen years of age, was 2,992,124 

And the number of these who were attending the 

schools, was 2,328,146 

In 1846, the number of children in public schools, . 2,540,775 

These great results have been obtained by the united efforts of the 
government and the people; but eveij these statistics can not show the 
improvement which has been made in school-houses, school instruction, 
and the whole internal economy of the school-room. 



SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION 



The primary schools of Prussia. 



Before presenting an outline of the coilrse of instruction pursued In 
the common schools of Prussia, gathered from the observations ot distin- 
guished educators in their visits to a large number of schools of different 
grades, as well as from published accounts of the organization and 
studies of particular schools, we will introduce a brief view* of the gen^ 
eral objects and different degrees of primary education, and of the man- 
ner in which the schools are established and conducted. 

Two degrees of primary instruction are disiinguished by the law; the 
elementary schools and the burgher schools. The elementary schools 
propose the development of the human facilities, through ah instruction 
in those common branches of knowledge which are indispensable to 
every person, both of town and country. The burgher schools ( Beur- 
gerschulen StadtsChulen]) carry on the child until he is capable of man- 
ifesting his inclination for a classical education, or for this or that par- 
ticular profession. The gymnasia continue this education tintil the 
youth is prepared, either to commence his practical studies in common 
life, or his higher and special scientific studies in the university. 

These different gradations coincide in forming, so to speak, a great 
establishment of national education, one in system, and of which the 
parts, though each accoriiplishing a special end, are all mutually cor- 
relative. The primary education of which we speak, though divided 
into two degrees, has its peculiar unity and general laws ; it admits of 
accommodation, however, to the sex, language, religion, and future des- 
tination of the pupils. 1. Separate establishments for girls should be 
formed, wherever possible, corresponding to the elementary and larger 
schools for boys. 2. In those provinces of the monarchy (as the Poli.sh) 
where a foreign language is spoken, besides lessons in the native idiom, 
the children shall receive complete instruction in German, which is also 
to be employed as the ordinary language of the school. 3. Difference 
of religion in Christian schools necessarily determines differences in 
religious instruction. This instruction shall always be accommodated 
to the spirit and doctrines of the persuasion to which the school belongs. 
But, as in every school of a christian state, the dominant spirit (common 
to all creeds) should be piety, and a profound reverence of the Deity, 
every Christian school may receive the children of every sect. The 
T 

* Mainly in the language of the laW and ordinance, as transljited and condensed by Sir 
William Hamilton, in an article \n the Edinburgh Review 

t Called likewise A/'V/p/sc/ii'?f 'I, middle srhnols. and Ifr'ahchu/fn, renl schools: the last, 
because they are less occupied With I he study ol lau^-uage C Vcrbalia) than v?ith the knowledge 
of things, (Realia > 



92 SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. ' 

masters and superintendents ought to avoid, with scrupulous care, every 
shadow of religious constraint or annoyance. No schools should be 
abused to any purposes of proselytism; and the children of a worship 
different from that of the school, shall not be obliged, contrary to the 
wish of their parents or their own, to attend iis religious instruction and 
exercises. Special masters of their own persuasion shall have the care 
of their religious education ; and should it be impossible to have as 
many masters as confessions, the parents should endeavor, with so much 
the greater solicitude, to discharge this duty themselves, if disinclined 
to allow their children to attend the religious lessons of the school. The 
primitive destination of every school, says the law, is so to train youth 
that, with a knowledge of the relations of man to God. it may foster in 
them the desire of ruling their life by the spirit and principles of Chris- 
tianity. The school shall, therefore, betimes second and complete the 
first domestic training of the child to piety. Prayer and edifying reflec- 
tions shall commence and terminate the day ; and the master must be- 
ware that this moral exercise do never degenerate into a matter of 
routine. Obedience to the laws, loj^alty, and patriotism, to be inculca- 
ted. No humiliating or indecent castigation allowed; and corporal pun- 
ishment, in general, to be applied only in cases of necessity. Scholars 
found wholly incorrigible, in order to obviate bad example, to be at 
length dismissed. The pupils, as they advance in age, to be employed 
in the maintenance of good order in the school, and thus betimes habit- 
uated to regard themselves as active and useful members of society. 

The primary education has for its scope the development of the dif- 
ferent faculties, intellectual and moral, mental and bodily. Every com- 
plete elementary school necessarily embraces the nine following branches: 

1. Religion — morality established on the positive truths of Christianity ; 

2. The German tongue, and in the Polish provinces, the vernacular 
language; 3. The elements of geometry and general principles of draw- 
ing; 4. Calculation and applied arithmetic; 5. The elements of physics, 
of general history, and of the history of Prussia; 6. Singing; 7. Writing; 
8. Gymnastic exercises ; 9. The more simple manual labors, and some 
instruction in the relative country occupations. 

Every burgher school must teach the ten following branches: 1. 
Religion and morals. 2. The German language, and the vernacular 
idiom of the province, reading, composition, exercises of style, exercises 
of talent, and the study of the national classics In the countries of the 
German tongue, the modern foreign languages are the objects of an ac- 
cessory study. 3. Latin to a certain extent. (This, we believe, is not 
universally enforced.) 4. The elements of mathematics, and in partic- 
ular a thorough knowledge of practical arithmetic. 5. Physics, and 
natural history to explain the more important phenomena of nature. 6. 
Geography, and general history combined ; Prussia, its history, laws, 
and constitution, form the object of a particular study. 7. The princi- 
ples of design; to be taught with the instruction given in physics, nat- 
ural history, and geometry. 8. The penmanship should be watched, 



SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN PKUSSIA. 93 

and the hand exercised to write with neatness and ease. 9. Singing, 
in order to develop the voice, to afford a knowledge of the an, and to 
enable the scholars to assist in the solemnities of the church. 10. Gym- 
nastic exercises accommodated to the age and strength of the scholar. 
Such is the minimum of education 1o be afforded by a burgher school. 
If its means enable it to attempt a higher instruction, so as to prepare 
the scholar, destined to a learned profession, for an immediate entrance 
into the gymnasia, the school then takes the name of Higher Town 
School. 

Every pupil, on leaving school, should receive from his masters and 
the committee of superintendence, a certificate of his capacity, and of his 
moral and religious dispositions. These certificates to be always pro- 
duced on approaching the communion, and on entering into apprentice- 
ship or service. They are given only at the period of departure ; and 
in the burgher schools, as in the gymnasia, they form the occasion of a 
great solemnity. 

Every half year pupils are admitted ; promoted from class to class; 
and absolved at the conclusion of their studies. 

Books of study to be carefully chosen by the committees, with con- 
currence of the superior authorities, the ecclesiastical being specially 
consulted in regard to those of a religious nature. For the Catholic 
schools, the bishops, in concert with the provincial consistories, to select 
the devotional books ; and, in case of any difference of opinion, the Min- 
ister of Public Instruction shall decide. 

Schoolmasters are to adopt the methods best accommodated to the 
natural development of the human mind ; methods which keep the intel- 
lectual powers in constant, general, and spontaneous exercise, and are 
not limited to the infusion of a mechanical knowledge. The committees 
are to watch over the methods of the master, and to aid him by their 
council ; never to tolerate a vicious method, and to report to the higher 
authorities should their admonition be neglected. Parents and guardians 
have a right to scrutinize the system of education by which their chil- 
dren are taught ; and to address their complaints to the higher author- 
ities, who are bound to have them carefully investigated. On the other 
hand, they are bound to cooperate with their private influence in aid of 
the public discipline ; nor is it permitted them to witlidraw a scholar 
from any branch of education taught in the school as necessary. 

As a national establishment, every school should court the greatest 
publicity. . In those for boys, besides the special half yearly examina- 
tions, for the promotion from one class to another, there shall annually 
take place public examinations, in order to exhibit the spirit of the in- 
struction, and the proficiency of the scholars. On this solemnity, the 
director, or one of the masters, in an official programme, is to render an 
account of the condition and progress of the school. In fine, from time 
to time, there shall be published a general report of the state of educa- 
tion in each province. In schools for females, the examinations take 



94 SUBJECTS AM) METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN PUUSSIA. 

place in presence of the parents and masters, without any general 
invitation. 

Bui if the public instructors are bound to a Hiithfnl performance of 
their duties, they have a right, in return, to the gratitude and respect 
due to the zealous laborer in the sacred work of education. The school 
is entitled to claim universal countenance and aid, even from those who 
do not confide to it their children. All public authorities, each in its 
sphere, are enjoined to promote the public schools and to lend support 
to the masters in the exercise of their office, as to any other functiona- 
ries of the state. In all the communes of the monarchy, the clergy of 
all Christians persuasions, whether in the church, in their school visita- 
tion, or in their sermons on the opening of the classes, shall omit no 
opportunity of recalling to the schools their high mission, and to the 
people their duties to these establishments. The civil authorities, the 
clergy, and the masters, shall every where cooperate in tightening the 
bonds of respect and attachment between the people and the school; so 
that the nation may be more habituated to consider education as a 
primary condition of civil existence, and daily take a deeper interest in 
Its advancement. 

The following extracts from Kay's " Social Condition arid Educa- 
tion of the People,^'' will show how these provisions of the law, and 
governmental instructions are carried into practice. 

The three great results, which the Prussian government has labored to ensure 
by this system of education are — 

1. To interest the dilYerent parishes and towns in the progress of the education 
of the people, by committing the management of the parochial schools to them, 
under certain very simple restrictions. 

2. To assist the parochial school committees in each county witli the advice of 
the most able inhabitants of the county ; and-^ 

3. To gain the cordial cooperation of the mini.sters of religion. 

These results the government has gained, to the entire and perfect satisfaction of 
all parties. The provincial and county councils act as advisers of the parochial 
committees. These latter are the actual directors of parochial education ; and the 
clergy not only occupy places in these parochial committees, but are also the ex- 
officio inspectors of all the schools. 

The system is liberally devised ; and I am persuaded that it is solely owing to 
its impartial, popular, and religious oharacier, that it has enlisted so strongly on its 
side the feelings of the Prussian people. 

I know there are many in our land who say, " But why have any system at all ? 
Is it not better to leave the education of the people to the exertions of public 
charity and private benevolence ?'' Let the contrast between the state of the edu- 
cation and social condition of the poor in England and Germany be the answer. 
In England it is well known that not ove half of the country is properly supplied 
with good schools, and that many of those, which do exist, arc under the di- 
rection of very inefficient and sometimes of actually immoral teachers. la 
Germany and Switzerland, every parish is supplied with its school buildings, and 
each school is directed by a teacher of high principles, and superior education and 
intelligence. Such a splendid social institution has not existed without effecting 
magnificent results, and the Germans and Swiss may now proudly point to the 
character and condition of their peasantry. 

So great have been the results of this system, that it is now a well known fact, 
that, except in cases of sickness, every child between the ages of six and ten in 
the whole of Prussia, is receiving instruction from highly educated teachers, under 



SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 95 

the surveillance of the parochial ministers. And, if I except the manufacturing 
districts, I may go still farther, and say, that every child in I'rus-sia, between 
the ages of six and fourteen, is receiving daily instruction in its parochial 
school. But even this assertion does not give any adequate idea of the vastness 
of the educational machinery, which is at work ; for the Prussian government is 
encouraging all the towns throughout the countiy to establish infant schools for the 
children of parents who are forced, from the peculiar nature of their labor, to 
absent themselves from home during the greater part of the day, and who would 
be otherwise obliged to leave their infants without proper superintendence; and, 
as all the children in the manufacturing districts, who are engaged in the weaving- 
rooms, are also obliged to attend evening classes to the age of fourteen years. I 
may say. with great truth, that nearly ail the Prussian children between the ages 
of four and fourteen are under the influence of a religious education. And 
let it not be supposed that an arbitrary government has forced this result from an 
unwilling people. On the contrary, as 1 have said before, the peasants themselves 
have always been at least as anxious to obtain this education for their children, as 
the government has been desirous of granting it. 

A proof of the satisfaction, with which the Prussian people regard the educa- 
tional regulations, is the undeniable fact, that all the materials and machinery for 
instruction are being so constantly and so rapidly improved over the whole coun- 
try, and by the people themselves. Wherever I traveled, I was astonished to see 
the great improvement in all these several matters that was going on. Every 
where I found new and handsome school-houses springing up, old ones being re- 
paired, a most liberal supply of teachers and of apparatus for the schools provided 
by the municipal authorities, the greatest cleanliness, lofty and spacious school- 
rooms, and excellent houses for the teachers ; all showing, that the importance of 
the work is fully appreciated by the people^ and that there is every desire on their 
part to aid the government in carrying out this vast undertaking. 

The children generally remain in school, until the completiun of their fourteenth 
year ; and a law has been issued, for one or two of the provinces, appointing this 
as the time, after which the parents may remove their children. But if the pa- 
rents are very poor, and their children have learnt the doctrines of their religion, 
as well as to read, write, and cipher, their religious minister can, in conjunction 
with the teacher, permit them to discontinue their attendance at the completion of 
their twelfth year. 

" No child, without the permission both of the civil magistrate of the town or 
village of which its parents are inhabitants, and also of their religious minister, can 
be kept from school beyond the completion of its fifth year, or afterward discon- 
tinue its attendance on the school classes for any length of time." 

If a parent neither provides at home for the education of his children, nor sends 
them to the school, the teacher is bound to inform the religious minister of the 
parent ; the minister then remon.strates with him ; and if he still neglects to send 
his children, the minister is bound by law to report him to the village committee, 
which has power to punish him by a fine, of from one halfpenny to sixpence a 
day, for neglecting the first and greatest duty of every parent. If the village 
committee can not induce him to educate his children, he is reported to the union 
magistrates, who are empowered to punish him with imprisonment. But it is 
hardly ever necessary to resort to such harsh measures, for the parents are even 
more anxious to send their children to these admirably conducted .schools, than 
the civil magistrate to obtain their attendance. In order, however, to ensure 
such a regular attendance, and as an assistance to the parents themselves, each 
teacher is furnished by the local magistrate, every year, with a list of all the chil- 
dren of his district, who have attained the age, at which they ought to attend his 
classes. This list is called over every morning and every afternoon, and all absen- 
tees are marked down, so that the school committees, magistrates, and inspectors 
may instantly discover if the attendance of any child has been irregular. If a child 
requires leave of absence for more than a week, the parent must apply to the civil 
magistrate for it ; but the clergj-man can grant it, if it be only for six or seven 
days, and the teacher alone can allow it, if for only one or two days. 

At the German revolutions of 1848, one of the great popular cries was for 
gratuitous education. The governments of Germany were obliged to yield to this 



96 SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 

cry, and to make it the law of nearly the whole of Germany, that all parents 
should be able to get their children educated at the primary schools without hav- 
ing to pay any thing for this education. 

There are now, therefore, no school fees in the greatest part of Germany. Edu- 
cation is perfectly gratuitous. The poorest man can send his child free of all ex- 
pense to the best of the public schools of his district. And, besides this, the au- 
thorities of the parish or town, in which a parent lives, who is too poor to clothe 
his children decently enough for school attendance, are obliged to clothe them for 
him, and to provide them with books, pencils, pens, and every thing necessary for 
school attendance, so that a poor man, instead of being obliged to pay something 
out of his small earnings for the education of his children, is, on the contrary, ac- 
tually paid for sending them to school. This latter is an old regulation, and is one 
which has aided very greatly to make the educational regulations very popular 
among the poor of Germany. 

I made very careful inquiries about the education of children in the principal 
manufacturing district of Prussia. I remained several days in Elberfeld, their 
largest manuiiicturing town, on purpose to visit the factory schools. I put myself 
there, as elsewhere, in direct communication with the teachers, from whom I ob- 
tained a great deal of information ; and I also had several interviews on the sub- 
ject with the educational councillors at Berlin, who put into my hand the latest 
regulations on this subject issued by the government. 

The laws relating to the factory children date only from 1839. They are as 
follows : — 

" No child may be employed in any manufactory, or in any mining or building 
operations, before it has attained ihe age of nine years. 

" No child, which has not received three years' regular instruction in a school, 
and has not obtained the certificate of a school committee, that it can read its 
mother tongue fluently, and also write it tolerably well, may be employed in any 
of the above-mentioned ways, before it has completed its sixteenth year. 

" An exception to this latter rule is only allowed in those cases, where the man- 
ufacturers provide for the education of the factory children, by erecting and main- 
taining factory schools." 

If a manufacturer will establish a school in connection with his manufactory, and 
engage a properly educated teacher, he is then allowed to employ any children of 
nine years of age, whether they have obtained a certificate or not, on condition, 
however, that tliese children attend the school four evenings in every week, as well 
as two hours every Sunday morning, until they have obtained a certificate of pro- 
ficiency in their studies. 

The " schulrath," or educational minister in the county court, decides whether 
the factory school is so satisfactorily managed, as to entitle the manufacturer to this 
privilege. This minister also regulates the hours which must be devoted weekly 
to the instruction of the factory children. 

" Young people, under sixteen years of age, may not be employed in manufac- 
turing establishments more than ten hours a day." 

The civil magistrates are, however, empowered, in some cases, to allow young 
people to work eleven hours a day, when an accident has happened, which obliges 
the manufacturer to make up for lost time, in order to accomplish a certain quan- 
tity of work before a given day. But these licenses can not be granted for more, 
at the most, than four weeks at a time. 

After the hours of labor have been regulated by the " schulrath" and the man- 
ufacturer, the latter is obliged by law to take care that the factory children have, 
both in the mornings and in the afternoons, a quarter of an hour's exercise in the 
open air, and that at noon, they always have a good hour's relaxation from labor. 

" No young person, under sixteen years of age, may, in any case, or in 
any emergency, work more than eleven hours a day." The children of Chris- 
tian parents, who have not been confirmed, may not work in the mills during the 
hours set apart by the religious minister, for the religious instruction, which he 
wishes to give them preparatory to their confirmation. 

The manufacturers, who employ children in the mills, are obliged to lay /before 
the magistrate a list, containing the names of all the children they employ, their 
respective ages, their places of abode, and the names of their parents. If any in- 



SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. ^>j 

spector or teacher reports to the civi] magistrate, that any child under the legal 
age is being employed in the mills instead of being sent to school, or if the police 
report the infringement of any other of the above-mentioned regulations, the 
mag strate is empowered and obliged to punish the manufacturer by fines, which 
are increased in amount on every repetition of the offense. 

I examined the actual state of things in Elberfeld, one of the most important of 
the manufacturing districts of Prussia, and I found these regulations most satisfac- 
torily .put in force. No children w^ere allowed to work in the mills, before they 
had attained the age of nine years, and after this time, they were required to 
attend classes four evenings every week, conducted by the teachers of the day- 
schools ; or, if their work was of such a nature as to prevent such attendance, then 
they were obliged to attend classes every Sunday morning for two hours ; and this 
attendance was required to be continued, until the children could obtain a certifi- 
cate from their teacher and religious minister, that they could read and write well, 
that they were well versed in Scripture history, and that they knew arithmetic 
sufficiently well to perform all the ordinary calculations, which would be required 
of them. As a cheek upon the parents and manufacturers, no child was allowed to 
labor in the mills, without having obtained a certificate, signed by its religious minister 
and its teacher, that it was attending one of these classes regularly. If the attend- 
ance was irregular, this certificate was immediately withdrawn, and the child was 
no longer allowed to continue working in the mills. But, from all I saw of these 
schools, and from what the teachers told me, I should say, they had no difficulty 
in enforcing attendance ; and, so far from it being evident, that the parents were 
anxious to send their children into the mills, as soon as possible, I was astonished 
to find even the daily schools filled to overflowing, and that with children, many 
of whom were thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen years of age. 

It is very easy for the traveler, who is merely passing through the manvfactur- 
ing towns of the Rhine Provinces, to prove to himself, how anxious both the peo- 
ple and the government are to carry all these regulations into effect. Let him 
only take the trouble of wandering into the streets of such a town, at a quarter to 
eight in the morning, or at a quarter to one in the afternoon, and he will find 
them alive with children of remarkably courteous and gentle appearance, all very 
neatly and cleanly dressed, each carrying a little bag containing a slate and school 
books, and all hurrying along to school. Let him visit the same streets at any 
time during the school hours, and he will find an absence of young children, which, 
accustomed as he is to the alleys of our towns, swarming with poor little creatures 
growing up in filth, and coarseness, and immorality, will be even more astonisliing 
and delightful. 

Before Prussia began in good earnest to promote the education of the people, it 
was thought there, as it is in England at the present day, that private charity and 
voluntary exertions would suffice, to supply the country with all the materials of 
education. In the early part of the eighteenth century the government enunciated, 
in formal edicts, that it was the first duty of a parish to educate its young. For 
nearly one hundred years, it trusted to the voluntary principle, and left the work 
in the hands of generous individuals ; the result was what might have been ex- 
pected, and what may be observed in England : the supply of the materials of 
education did not keep pace with the growth of the population. Prussia was little 
or no better provided with schools in 1815, than it had been in 1715 ; as to the 
teachers, they were poor, neglected, ignorant persons. Educated persons would 
not become teachers of the poor ; and the poor were neither able nor willing to 
pay for the education of teachers for their children. A sufficient number of 
benevolent individuals could not be found to bear the whole expense of educating 
the nation ; and even in those parishes, in which the benevolent part of the 
richer classes had managed to collect funds, sufficient for carrying on such a work 
for a year or two, it was found, that they were unable or unwilling, for any 
length of time, to bear alone such a great and ever-increasing burden. 

After a long trial of this unfair voluntary system, which taxed charitable indi- 
viduals in order to make up for the default of "th(j selfish or careless, it was found, 
in 1815, as in England at the present day, that great numbers of parishes had no 
schools at all ; that of the schools which were built, scarcely any were properly 
supplied with the necessary bookstand apparatus •, that there were no good teachr 

7 



98 SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 

ers in the country, and no means of educating any ; and that the science of peda- 
gogy had been totally neglected, and was universally misunderstood. 

If then, the people were to be educated, — and the French revolution of 1789 
had taught the Prussian government the necessity of enlightening the poor and 
of improving their social condition, it became but too evident, that the govern- 
ment must act as well as preach. In a word, the experience of one hundred years 
taught the Prussians, that it was necessary to compel the ignorant, slothful, and 
selfish members of the political body to assist the benevolent and patriotic, or that 
sufficient funds would never be found foi- educating the whole of the laboring 
classes. The following regulations, therefore, were put into and are still in force 
throughout Prussia. 

The inhabitants of each parish are obliged, either alone, or in company with 
one or more neighboring parishes, to provide sufficient school-room, a sufficient 
number of teachers, and all the necessary school apparatus for the instruction of 
all their children, who are between the ages of six and fourteen. I shall show by 
what parochial organization this is effected. 

I. Where all the mhahitants of a village are members of the same religious 
denomination. 

In these cases, whenever more school-room, or a greater number of teachers, or 
more apparatus, or any repairs of the existing school-buildings is required, the 
village magistrate, having been informed of these deficiencies by the district school- 
inspector, immediately summons a committee of the villagers, called the " Schul- 
vorstand," 

This Schulvorstand consists — 

1. Of the religious minister of the parish. He is the president of the commit- 
tee or Schulvorstand. In some parts of Prussia, however, there are still some few 
remnants of the old aristocracy, who possess great estates ; and where the village 
is situated on one of these estates, there the landlord is the president of the school 
committee. This, however, is so rare an exception, that it is notnecessary further 
to notice it. 

2. Of the village magistrate, who is selected by the county magistrates, from the 
most intelligent men in the parish. 

3. Of from two to four of the heads of families in the parish. These members 
of the committee are elected by the parishioners, and their election is confirmed or 
annulled by the union magistrates. If the union magistrate annuls the election, 
because of the unfitness of the persons chosen, the parish can proceed to a second 
election ; but, if they again select men, who are not fit to be entrusted with the 
duties of the school committee, the election is again annulled, and the union mag- 
istrate himself selects two or four of the parishioners, to act as members of the 
committee. When the village is situate on the estate of a great landed proprietor, 
he also can annul the choice of the parishioners ; but these cases, as I have before 
said, are very rare, and are confined almost entirely to the eastern provinces of 
Prussia, where the Polish nobles still retain some of their former possessions ; for 
in the other provinces of Prussia, the land is now almost as much subdivided as in 
France, and is generally the property of the peasants. 

The members of these committees are chosen for six years, at the end of which 
time a new election takes place. 

If several parishes join in supporting one school, each of them must be repre- 
sented in the school committee, by at least one head of a family. The county 
court, however, has the power of preventing this union of parishes, for the sup- 
port of one joint school, — 

1. When the number of children is so great, as to make it difficult to instruct 
them all in two classes. 

2. When the parishes are separated too far apart, or when the roads between 
them are bad, dangerous, or at times impassable. 

In such cases tliere must be separate schools ; or else the great law of the land, 
that " all the children must be educated.^'''' would often be infringed. 

II. Where the inhabitants of a village are members of different religious 
denominations. 

Sometimes it happens, that a parish contains persons of different religious opin- 
ions ; and then arises the question, which has been a stumbling-block to the 



SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 99 

progress of primary education In England, " how shall the rival claims of these 
parties be satisfied, so that the great law of Germany, that ' all the children must 
be educated,'' may be carried into effect ?" 

In these cases, the governments of Germany leave the parishes at perfect liberty 
to select their own course of proceeding, and to establish separate or mixed schools, 
according as they judge best for themselves. The only thing the government 
requires is, that schools of one kind or another shall be established. 

if the inhabitants of such a parish in Prussia determine on having separate 
schools, then separate school committees are elected by the different sects. The 
committee of each sect consist of, the village magistrate, the minister, and two 
or three heads of families, of the religious party for which the committee is con- 
stituted. 

If the inhabitants, however, decide on having one mixed school for all the re- 
ligious parties, the committee consists of, the village magistrate, the religious min- 
isters of" the different parties, and several of the parishioners, elected from among 
the members of the different sects, for which the school is intended. 

In tliese cases, the teacher is chosen from the most numerous religious party ; 
or, if the school is large enough to require two teachers, the head one is elected 
from the members of the most numerous party, and the second from those of the 
next largest party. If there is only one teacher, children of those parents who do 
not belong to the same religious sect as the teacher, are always allowed to absent 
themselves during the hour in which the teacher gives the religious lessons, on 
condition that the children receive religious instruction from their own religious 
ministers. 

One of the educational councillors at Berlin informed me, that the government 
did not edcourage the establishment of mixed schools, as they think, that in such 
cases, the religious education of both parties, or at least of one of them, often suf^ 
fers ; but, he continued, " of course we think a mixed school infinitely better than 
none at all ; and, when a district is too poor to support separate schools, we gladly 
see mixed ones established." The gentleman who said this was a Roman 
Catholic. In the towns, there are not often mixed schools containing Romanists 
and Protestants, as there generally are sufficient numbers of each of these sects 
in every town, to enable the citizens to establish separate schools. The children 
of Jews, however, are often to be found, even in the towns, in the schools of the 
other sects ; but, owing to the entire and uncontrolled liberty of decision that the 
people themselves possess on this point, there seems to be little difficulty in ar- 
ranging matters, and no jealousy whatever exists between the different parties. 
If a mixed school is established in any parish, and the teacher is chosen from the 
most numerous sect, and if the minor party becomes discontented or suspicious of 
the education given in the school, it is always at liberty to establish another school 
for itself; and it is this liberty of action, which preserves the parishes, where the 
mixed schools exist, from all intestine troubles and religious quarrels, which are 
ever the most ungodly of disputes. In leaving the settlement of this matter to 
the parishes, the government appears to have acted most wisely; for, in these 
religious questions, any interference from without is sure to create alarm, sus- 
picion, and jealousy, and cause the different parties to fly asunder, instead of co- 
alescing. All that the government does, is to say, " You must provide sufficient 
school-room, and a sufficient number of good teachers, but decide yourselves how 
you will do this." The consequence is, that the people say, " We can try a mixed 
school first ; and, if we see reason to fear its effects, we will then amicably decide 
on erecting another separate one." So that the great difficulty arising from re-^ 
ligious difference has been easily overcome. 

The duties of the school committees, when once formed, are :— 

1st. To take care that the parish is supplied with sufficient school-room for all 
the children, who are between the ages of five and fourteen. 

2d. To supply the school-room with all the books, writing materials, slates, 
blackboards, maps, and apparatus necessary for instruction. 

3d. To provide the teachers with comfortable houses for themselves and 
families. 

4th. To keep all the school-buildings, and the houses of the teachers, in goo4 
repair, often whitewashed, and well warmed. 



100 



SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 



5th. To take care that the salary of the teachers is paid to them regularly. 

6th. To assist those parents who are too poor to provide their children with 
clothes sufficiently decent for their school attendance. 

7th. To assist, protect, and encourage the teachers. 

8th. To be present at all the public exarninations of the school, at the induc- 
tion of the teachers, which is a public ceremony performed in church before all the 
parishioners, and at all the school fete days. 

If the school is not endowed, the committee is empowered to impose a tax on 
the householders for its support, and for the payment of the schoolmaster ; and it 
is held responsible by the higher authorities for his regular payment, according to 
the agreement, which was made with him on his introduction. The school com- 
mittee, however, can not discharge the teacher, it can only report him to the higher 
authorities ; for in Prussia none of the local authorities, who are in immediate 
contact with the teacher, and who might, consequently, imbibe personal prejudices 
against him, are allowed to exercise the power of dismissing him. This is re- 
served for those, who are never brought into personal connection with him. and 
who are not, therefore, so likely to imbibe such prejudices. Neither can the 
committee interfere with the interior discipline of the school ; it can only inspect 
the condition of the school, and report to the county authorities. ^A'hen the com- 
mittee has once elected the teacher, he is entirely free to follow his own plans of 
instruction, unfettered by the interference of local authorities, as he is presumed 
to understand his own business, better than any of those about him. If the 
school-committee neglects its duties, or refuses to furnish the teacher with the 
necessary apparatus, or to keep the schocil-house in proper repair, or to pay the 
teacher regularly, he has always the power of appealing to the inspectors, or 
to the county courts, who instantly compel the local authorities to perform their 
appointed duties. 

When a new school is required, the school committee selects the site and plan 
of the buildings, and sends them for confirmation to the county magistrate. If 
this magistrate sees any objection to the plans, he returns them to the committee, 
with his suggestions ; the plans are then reconsidered by the committee, and re- 
turned with the necessary emendations to the magistrate, who then gives his 
sanction to them. Before this sanction has been obtained, the plans can not be 
finally adopted by the committee. 

It is already very evident, by what I have said, how very much liberty of action 
is left to the people themselves. True it is, that in the election of members of the 
committees, as well as in the choice of plans and sites for school-houses, and in the 
determination of the amount of the school-rate, the county magistrates have a 
negative ; but this is only a necessary precaution against the possibility of a really 
vicious selection of members, or of unhealthy or otherwise unsuitable sites for the 
school-houses, or of a niggardly and insufficient provision for the support of the 
school. Such a limited interference is always necessarj', where the interests of 
the acting parties might otherwise tempt them to disregard the spirit of the law, 
and to sacrifice some great public good to the selfishness or ignorance of private 
individuals. 

Every landed proprietor is obliged by law, to provide for the education of the 
children of all laborers living on his estates, who are too poor themselves to do so. 
Every such proprietor is also obliged by law, to keep the schools situated upon his 
estates in perfect repair, and in a perfect state of cleanliness ; to conform to all 
the regulations, of which I shall speak hereafter, and vv'hich relate to the election 
and support of the teachers ; and to furnish all the wood necessary for the re- 
pairs and warming of the school-buildings, and aU the apparatus, books, &c., 
necessary for instruction. 

This is what ought to be done in England. If it is right, that the law should 
grant to the proprietors such full powei's over then* property even after death, and 
should enable them to tie up their land in their own family for so long a time, and 
thus prevent the land dividing and getting into the hands of the poor, as it does 
abroad, it is but just, that the landlords should be Compelled by law to do, at 
least, as much for their tenants in this country, as they are compelled to do in 
countries where the poor are much more favored than they are here, and where 
the interests of landlords are much less protected by law, than they are with us. 



SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. JQl 

It sometimes happens, that a parish is so poor, as not to be able to build the new 
school-house, of which it stands in need. In these cases, in order that the great 
law of the land " that every child must he educated''' should be carried into exe- 
cution, it is necessary that the poor parish should receive assistance from without. 
This is provided for by a law, which requires that each county court shall assist, 
within its district, every parish, which is not able to provide alone for the expenses 
of the education of its children. If a county court should, from the number of 
calls upon its treasury, find itself unable to supply enough to assist all the parishes 
of the county which need assistance, the government at Berlin grants assistance 
to the county court ; for, whatever else is neglected for want of funds, great care 
is taken that all necessary means for the education of the people shall be every 
where provided. 

The school organization of the Prussian towns differs somewhat from that of the 
Prussian villages. I have already mentioned, that the superior village magistrates 
are appointed by the sUite, and that in each village there is one of these civil 
magistrates, who is a member of the village school committee, and is held respons- 
ible, if sufficient means are not provided for the education of the people of his dis- 
trict. But, in the towns, the magistrates are elected by the citizens ; and, strange 
as it may seem, the municipal corporations have long been, on the whole, liberally 
constituted. The privilege of citizenship in any town is acquired, by good character 
and honest repute. The magistrates, who have been themselves elected by the 
citizens, can admit such inhabitants of the town, as they think worthy of the 
position, to the rank of citizens. But all citizens, who possess any ground of the 
value, in small towns, of 50Z., or in large towns, of about 250Z. in Prussian money, 
and all citizens who, without possessing any ground, have incomes of at least 35Z. 
per annum, in Prussian money, are by law entitled to a yote in the election of the 
town magistrates. The citizens, who are entitled to a vote, elect, every three 
years, a number of representatives, or, as they are called, town councillors. No 
person can be elected to the office of town councillpr, unless he possess land of the 
value, in small towns, of at least 150Z., and in large towns of at least 20i>/., or 
whose income does not amount to at least 35Z'. per annum. The number of these 
councillors depends on the size of the towns ; no town can elect fewer than nine, 
or more than sixty. The manner in which they are elected, differs in different 
towns, but I believe the ordinary custom is, for each division of a town to elect 
one or more to represent it in the general council. These councillors, when 
elected, proceed to the election of a certain number of magistrates, whose offices 
last from six to twelve years, and these magistrates appoint from among themselves 
a mayor, who is chosen also for twelve years. The county court, under which 
the town finds itself ranged, has the power of annulling the election of the mayor, 
and of any of the magistrates, whom it may judge unfit for their office ; and, in 
such a case, the magistrates or the town councillors, as the case may be, are 
obliged to proceed to another election. Such is a bare outline of the Prussian 
municipal system. With the various civic and political duties of the different 
authorities, I have no concern -here, further than they relate to the education of 
the people. 

In each town a committee is chosen, which is called the " schuldeputation,^' 
or, as I shall translate it, the school committee. It consists of from one to three, 
but of never more than three, of the town magistrates, of an equal number of 
deputies from the town councillors, an equal number of citizens, having the repu- 
tation of being interested and skilled in school matters, (these are commonly se- 
lected from among the religious ministers,) and also of the several representatives 
of those privately endowed schools in the town, which are not supported by the 
town, but yet fall under the surveillance and direction of its municipal authorities. 
The number of these representatives varies, according to the size of the tovi'n. 
"With the exception of the representatives of the private schools, the members of 
this committee are chosen by the magistrates, who are themselves, as I have be- 
fore said, elected by the citizens ; but the representatives of the private schools, 
which are not supported by the town funds, are nominated by the county courts. 
To these members, thus elected, is joined one member from each of the com- 
mittees, which are elected from the magistrates and town councillors for tlie differ- 
ent uiuflicipal affaire, if the former election should not have admitted any such 



102 SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 

members into the school committee. The first ecclesiastical authority of the town 
is also, ex-officio, a member of the committee ; and if the town contains both 
Romanists and Protestants, the committee must be composed of equal proportions 
of members of the different parties. The county courts have the power of annul- 
ling the election of any member, if they see reason to deem him unfit for the exer- 
cise of the duties of his office, and in such a case, the town authorities are obliged 
to proceed to make a new election. 

The duties of the town school committees are to provide sufficient school-room 
for all the children in the town ; to elect a sufficient number of teachers ; to pay 
them their salaries regularly ; to provide all needful apparatus for the schools ; to 
keep the class-rooms and the teachers' houses in good repair, well whitewashed, 
and well warmed ; to take care that all the children of the town attend school 
regularly ; to inspect the schools at stated intervals ; to provide each school with 
a play-ground ; and to take care that the teachers exercise the children there 
every morning and afternoon. The funds required for the maintenance of the 
town schools, are provided from the treasury of the corporation. 

The town councillors are responsible to the county magistrate and to the central 
government for the due performance of these several duties. If they neglect any 
of them, the teachers and inspectors complain to the higher authorities, who oblige 
them to conform immediately to the general law of the land. 

Besides these nmnicipal authorities, for the superintendence of the education of 
the whole town, it often happens, that each school in the town has its peculiar 
schulvorstand, corresponding to the village committees, which I have already 
described. These committees, where they do exist in the towns, elect their own 
teachers, and collect, in their several districts, the necessary school funds from the 
heads of families dwelling there ; but if any one of the district school committees 
is not able to provide for the expenditure required to supply the wants of its dis- 
trict, the town school committee is obliged to come forward and assist it, from the 
general town funds. The latter committee is the general superintendent and 
assistant, but the former little district societies, where they exist, are the actual 
laborers. Difference of religion creates no greater difficulty in the towns than in 
the country parishes, since the Romanists, Protestants, and Jews can, if they 
prefer, manage their own schools separately, by means of the little school socie- 
ties, and are never forced into any sort of connection, unless, where it is agree- 
able to themselves. 

The Prussian government seems to have considered the education of the chil- 
dren of the towns, of even higher importance, than that of the children of the vil- 
lages ; and to have required the formation of these superior committees in the 
towns, as a sort of additional security, that all the districts of a town should be 
amply provided with every thing necessary for the careful education of their 
children. ' 

These committees assemble every fortnight, and oftener when necessary, at the 
town halls ; they have the power of inviting any number of the clergy and 
teachers of the towns to assist at their conferences, and to aid them with their 
experience and counsels. 

In many parts of Prussia these central town committees are superseding the 
smaller district school societies, so that the funds of all the town schools, and the 
choice and induction of all the teachers rest entirely with the one central town 
school committee ; and in the case of towns containing different religious sects, as 
far as I could gather from what I heard in Berlin — for on this point I could find 
no express regulation — the Protestant members of the town committee appoint 
the teachers of the Protestant schools, and the Romanist members the teachers of 
the Romanist scrhools. 

But in every town every religious party is at liberty, if it pleases, to separate 
itself from the central town committee, and to form its own separate school com- 
mittee, for the management of its own educational affairs. And where ever the 
union of the diflTerent religious parties occasions any strife and disputes, the small 
district committees are sure to be formed. Where these smaller committees do 
exist, they elect the teachers for the schools under their management. 

Great advantages are, however, insured, when the management of all the 
schools in any tdwn can be put under the direction of one cdmmittefe, instead of 



SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 103 

each being placed under the direction of its separate committee ; or when all the 
Romanist schools can be put under the direction of one committee, and all the 
Protestant schools under the diix'ction of another. For, in these cases, instead of 
creating a great number of small schools in different parts of the town, each con- 
taining only one or two classes, in which children of very different ages and very 
difi'erent degrees of proficiency must be necessarily mingled and taught together, 
to the manifest retarding of the progress of the more forward as well as of the 
more backward, several schools are generally combined, so as to form one large 
one, containing five boys' classes and five girls' classes. In these classes, the 
teachers are able to classify the children in such a manner, that one teacher may 
take the youngest and most deficient, anotlier the more advanced, and so on. In 
this manner, as each teacher has a class of children, who have made about the 
same progress in their studies, he is enabled to concentrate his whole enei-gies 
upon the instruction and education of all his scholars at the same time, and for 
the whole time they are in school, instead of being obliged to neglect one part of 
his class whilst he attends to another, which is necessarily the case, where children 
of different degrees of proficiency are assembled in one class-room, and which is 
always necessarily the cause of considerable noise and confusion, tending to dis- 
tract the attention of both teachers and children. 

But, besides the good classification, a further advantage, which results from this 
combination of schools, is the greater economy of the plan. AVhen each school 
contains only two class-rooms, four times as many schools are required, as when 
each school contains eight rooms. And it is by no means true, that a school- 
building containing eight class-rooms costs as much as four school-buildings, each 
of which contains two class-rooms. Not only is a great expenditure saved, in 
the mere erection of the exterior walls and roofs of the buildings themselves, but 
a still greater saving is effected, in the pui'chase of land, as, instead of increasing 
the area on which the school is erected, it is always possible to increase its height. 

Nothing can be more liberal, than the manner in which the Prussian towns 
have provided for their educational wants. The buildings are excellent, and are 
kept in most admirable order. 

The town authorities are held responsible for all this ; and, wherever I went, 
I found large, commodious, and beautifully clean school-rooms, furnished with all 
that the teachers could possibly require. Along the length of the rooms, parallel 
desks are ranged, facing the teacher's desk, which is raised on a small platform, 
so that he may see all his scholars. On either side of him are large blackboards, 
on which he illustrates the subjects of his lessons. On his right hand, there is 
generally a cabinet, for the reception of all the books and objects of instruction 
which belongs to the school ; and all around, on the walls of the room, hang 
maps of different countries, and, generally, several of Germany, delineating, in a 
strong and clear manner, all the physical features of the different provinces and 
kingdoms which compose the " Fatherland." 

Tlie school-rooms are continually whitewashed ; and should there be any 
neglect on the part of the town or village authorities to keep the school -buildings 
in proper order, or to provide all the necessary apparatus, the teachers have 
always the power of complaining to the inspectors, or to the country magistrates, 
who immediately compel the authorities to attend to these important duties. 

Besides the schools, which are managed by school committees in the villages 
and towns, and which might be denominated public schools, there is another class, 
which would fall more properly under the designation of private schools. 

If a private individual is desirous of establishing a school, as a means of earn- 
ing his livelihood, or from a desire to offer to the poor of his neighborhood a better 
education, than they could obtain in the public schools, he is at liberty to do so, on 
the following conditions : — 

1st, That the school be opened to public inspection, on the ground, that as the 
nation is dii'ectly interested in the moral education of its citizens, so it ought to 
be assured, that none of the children are subjected to immoral and corrupting 
influences, during the time when their minds are most susceptible of impressions 
of any kind, and moet tenacious of them when received. 

2dly, That no p/^n^f I^k^ employed as teacher in such school, who has not ob» 



104 SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 

tained a teacher's diploma, certifying his character and attainments to be such, aa 
to fit him for the office of teacher. 

3dly, That the school be supplied with a play-ground, and that the children be 
allowed to lake exercise there in the middle of the morning and afternoon school 
hours. 

4thly, That at least a certain fixed amount of instruction in reading, writing, 
arithmetic, geography, history, singing, and science be given in the school. 

5thly, That a sufticient number of teachers be provided for the children ; and, 

6thly, That the rooms are kept clean, well warmed, lighted and ventilated. 

The profuse expenditure on all the material of education in the Prussian towns 
astonished me greatly, accustomed as I had been to the dame schools of Eng- 
land, and to the empty and repulsive interiors of many of our national school- 
rooms, with their bare floors and uncovered walls. 

I took the greatest pains not to be deceived on this point ; and hearing that, 
owing to some municipal disputes, education had made less progress in Berlin 
than elsewhere, I requested Professor Hintze of Berlin, to direct me to the worst 
school in the city, and, having visited several of the more perfect ones, I started 
one morning to see what was considered a poor school in Prussia. 

It was managed by a teacher, who had established a school for the poor at 
his own expense, as a private speculation, and unconnected with the town 
committees. 

I found a good house contain ing/owr class-rooms, each of which was fitted up 
with parallel desks, and was under the direction of a teacher, who had been care- 
fully educated, and had obtained his diploma. 

1 found a good, dry, and roomy play-ground attached to the school, a very 
agreeable and seemingly intelligent head master, who was owner of the school, 
and manager of one of the classes ; and the only cause of complaint 1 could dis- 
cover, were, that the rooms were lower than the generality of school-rooms in 
Prussia, not measuring more than nine feet in height ; that there was a paucity of 
maps, blackboards, &c. ; that the desks were placed too closely together ; and that 
the walls were not so white and clean as in the town schools. But I could not 
help thinking, while walking through the rooms of this building, if these people 
could only see some of our dame, and some of our dirty and unfurnished national 
schools, what a palace would they not consider this to be I 

The regulations which I have been describing, by means of which the enormous 
expenses of such a vast educational scheme are divided betvs'een all the different 
districts of the kingdom, and by means of which each parish is held responsible 
for the education of its children, have been followed by this splendid result — that, 
notwithstanding that most of their town schools contain five or six times as many 
class-rooms as those of our counti-y, the Prussian people have established 23,646 
schools, which, in 1844. were attended daily by 2,328,146 children, and were 
directed by 29,639 highly educated teachers, of whom nearly 28,000 were young 
professors, who had obtained diplomas and certificates of character at the normal 
colleges ! Now, could this magnificent result have been attained if the people, 
the clergy, and the government had not been at unity on this great question ? 
Could it have been attained, if there had been no organization of the parishes and 
towns, by which the duties of the different educational authorities were clearly 
and distinctly defined ? Could the government alone have borne the enormous 
expenses of establishing such a system ? Could the government have even afforded 
to carry it on ? And, above all, could private charity alone have effected so vast 
and splendid a result ? These are questions for my readers to answer for them- 
selves.- 

The central committees of each town are required by law to establish, in addi- 
tion to the primary institutions, which I have described, one or more superior pri- 
mary schools, the number of which varies according to the population of the town. 
The education given in them is superior to that given m the primary schools 
themselves, but is inferior to that given in the gymnasia . It is of a more prac- 
tical character than the latter, and is quite as good as the education of the chil- 
dren of our middle classes. These superior primary institutions are intended for 
all those children, who have passed through the primary schools, and whose 
parents wish them to receive a better education than that given in the latter 



SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. jqS 

establishments, without their having to go through the classical course of the 
gymnasia. 

The education given in these superior schocils, as in all the public schools of 
Prussia, is gratuitous, and open to all classes of society. All the children of the 
small shopkeepers and artizans, many of the boys, who afterward enter the 
teachers' colleges, as well as many others, whose parents are to be fuund in the 
very humblest walks of life, and even children of the nobles, and of the richest 
classes of society, are to be found pursuing their studies there together, in 
the same class-rooms, and on the same benches. I have inyself seen sons of 
counts, physicians, clergymen, merchant*, shopkeepers, and poor laborers work- 
ing together in one of these classes in Berlin. 

Above these SM/Jerioj- schools are the real schools and gymnasia, ov coWe^es, 
where a classical and very superior course of education is pursued, and wheie 
the children of the more wealthy classes are instructed. They are under an 
entirely different direction; and all I have to do with them here, is to mention, 
that even these institutions are open gratuitously to all, who wish to avail them- 
selves of the education which they offer. Even in these classical colleges chil- 
dren of poor laborers are sometimes to be found studying on the same benches on 
which sit the sons of the rich. It is very instructive to observe, that in Prussia, 
where one would imagine, according to the doctrines preached in England, that 
the government should, until the late revolution, have feared to advance the 
intelligence of the people, no one has seemed to have an idea, that too much 
instruction could be imparted to the children of the poor. On the contrary, every 
one has acted as if the public order and public morality depended entirely upon 
the people being able to think. A theoretically arbitrary government h;us been 
doing every thing in its power to stimulate and enable the people to educate their 
children as highly as possible, and has been for years telling them, that the pros- 
perity and happiness of the country depend greatly on the training of the chil- 
dren ; while here, in our free country, we still find people speaking and acting, as 
if they feared, that education was the inevitable harbinger of immoralitj' and 
disaffection . 

There are also in Prussia a great number of endowed schools, which derive 
their incomes from the rents of lands, or from the mtere.st of money bequeathed 
to them by charitable individuals, or which have been founded and endowed at 
different times by the government. For each of these cases, there is an excep- 
tion made in the operation of the municipal regulations, which I have described : 
neither of these clcusses of schools are directed by Schulvorstande, or by the town 
committees. The teachers for the former class are chosen by the trustees, 
appointed by the will of the devisor ; the county courts being enabled to annul 
the elections, if a bad selection is made. The trustees, however, are unable to 
appoint any person, as teacher, who has not obtained a diploma* of competency 
from the provmcial committee, appointed to examine all candidates for the teachers' 
profession. In fact, no person can officiate as teacher, in any Prussian school, 
unless he has obtained such a diploma. This is the parents' guarantee, that he is 
a person, to whom they may safely intrust their children. The teachers of the 
class of schools, which have been founded and endowed by government, are 
appointed by the county courts. The town committees have, however, the sur- 
veillance and inspection of all these schools, and are obliged by law to assi-st them 
from the town funds, if their own do not suffice for their efficient maintainance. 
The municipal authorities are also obliged to assist all the parents, who are too 
poor to do it themselves, to purchase the books, slates, pencils. &c., required for 
the class instruction ; and they are also obliged to provide decent clothing for 
such children, as are too poor, to obtain a dress sufficiently respectable for school 
attendance. And here, I can not help remarking, on the general appearance of 
the children throughout the provinces of Prussia, which I have visited. They 
were generally very clean, well dressed, polite, and easy in their manners, and 
very healthy and active in their appearance. In whatever town of Prussia the 
traveler finds himself, he may always satisfy himself on this point, if he will take 
the trouble to walk out into the streets, between twelve and two o'clock in the morn- 



* For aa account of diploma;, see page 1S8. 



log SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 

ing, i. e., between tlie houi's of the morning and afternoon classes. In some 
towns, a stranger would imagine, either that the poor had no children, or that 
they never let them go out of doors. All the children he would see in the streets 
would appear to him to be those of respectable shopkeepers. This is a very sat- 
isfactory proof of the good effects of the school system, as cleanliness and neat- 
ness among the poor are invariable symptoms of a satisfactory moral and physical 
condition. 

The law requires that every school, both in town and country, shall have an 
open space of ground adjacent to it, where the children may take a little exercise 
in the mornings and afternoons. This is a very important I'egulation, and is well 
worthy our imitation. The children, in Germany, are never detained more than 
an hour and a half in the school-room at one time, except when the weather is 
too bad, to allow of their taking exercise in the open air. Every hour and a half, 
throughout the day, they are taken into the play-ground for ten minutes' exercise 
by one of the teachers ; the a'r of the school-room is then changed, and the chil' 
dren return refreshed to their work. In the towns this regulation insures other 
and greater advantages, as it kee])s the children out of the filth and immorality of 
the streets. In most cases, our town-schools have no yard attached to them, so 
that, if the children do change the bad and noxious air of the school-room, it is 
only for the dirt and depravity of the streets, where they are brought under evil 
influences, much more powerful for injury, than those of the schools are for good. 

In some provinces of Pruss'a, there are still some few of the old class of great 
landowners, between who:n, in former days, the whole of Prussia was divided, 
until Stein and Ilardenburg put the laws in force, which destroyed the old feudal 
system, and gave the peairants an interest in the soil. It is, therefore, an interest- 
ing question to examine, what the law requires these landlords to do for the edu- 
cation of the people on their estates. I have already mentioned, that the selection 
of the teacher is left to them, but that the government reserves the right of a 
veto upon their choice, in all cases where an injudicious election is made. Tlie 
landlords are required to keep in good repair the schools upon their estates, and 
to pay the school-fees for the children of all the poor laborers living upon them, 
and not able to pay it themselves. They are also obliged to furnish the materials, 
required for the erection or repair of all necessary school-buildings ; the fuel 
required for the school-rooms and teachers' houses through the winter : and, 
where the school is not endowed, the sum which is necessary for the teachers' 
salaries. The children of the landed proprietors themselves, often attend the vil- 
lage schools, and work at the same desks, with the sons and daughters of the 
poorest peasants — a proof of the excellent character of the education given in the 
primary schools, and of the high estimation, m which the teachers are generally 
held by all classes of society. 

About eight or ten years since all the German schools were conducted on the 
Bell and Lancasterian methods, the children being left almost entirely in the hands 
of young and half-educated nmnitors, as in our own parochial schools nt the 
present day. The results t>f this system Vi'ere so unsatisfactory that they soon 
occasioned a powerful reaction in the contrary direction. The German govern- 
ments, perceiving how grievously the mental education and mental development 
of the children were retarded by subjecting them to the imperfect care of half- 
educated monitors, prohibited all employment of monitors in the parochial schools. 
Hence, it became necessary to considerably increase the staff of teachers, as well 
as the expenditure required for their support. In the towns this has been produc- 
tive of beneficial results, as the towns can always raise sufficient funds for the 
support of a sufficient number of teachers. I generally found that each of these 
schools throughout Germany had a staff of from six to twelve teachers attached 
to it. each of whom had attained the age of twenty years, liad been specially edu- 
cated in the classes of the primary, secondary, and normal schools, from his sixth 
to his twentieth year, and had obtained a diploma certifying his fitness for the pro- 
fession to which he had devoted himself 

But in the village schools the results of this rejection of all monitorial assist- 
ane has been less satisfactory. The villages are not generally rich enough to 
support more than two teachers, and often not more than one, and this, too, in 
many caeee, where there are 150 children who attfend the sfchool. In thee© cases, 



SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 107 

therefore, monitors are greatly needed to assist in maintaining order among one 
part of the children, while the teacher is instructing another part, and to relieve 
the teacher fro.ii the mure mechanical part of class instruction, so that he may 
apply h.s undiv.ded attention to those branches of instructions, in wh.ch h.s supe- 
rior skill, knowledge, and experience are most needed. 

But the prejudices which the Germans have imbibed against the monotorial 
system, are, as yet, too strong to allow them to perce've the necessity of employ- 
inc monitors in the village schools. Whenever 1 addressed a German teacher on 
th s subject, he immediately answered, " Oh ! we have had enough of your Lan- 
casterian methods ; depend upon it, we .shall never try them again.'' It was very 
surprising to me to see, how Universal and how strong this antipathy to monitors WA-i 
throughout Germany ; but it served to show me, how deep an interest all classes 
took in the prosperity of the schools, as it was evident that they only rejected this 
means of lessening the parochial outlay in the support of teachers, because they 
believed it to be essentially injurious to the sound mental progress of the children. 

No doubt that the old monitorial system was deserving of all their mah'd C 
tions ; but it would well become the Prussian educational authorities to consider, 
whether the means between the old system and the present, such, viz., as the 
monotorial system pursued in Holland and France, is not the true state of things 
to which they ought to aspire. In these countries, the teachers train the most 
promising of their oldest and most advanced scholars as monitors. They give 
them instruction in the evenings when the day's work in the school-room is over. 
These monitors are paid by the parochial authorities just enough, to make it worih 
their whle to remain at their posts as assistants to the schonlmasters until about 
seventeen years of age, after which time they are removed to the normal colleges 
to be trained as teachers, whilst other children take their places in the village 
schools. To these trained and paid monitors nothing is intrusted, but the mere 
mechanical parts of school teaching, such as the elements of readings writing, 
and arithmetic. All the higher and more intellectual parts of school education, 
such as religious instruction, history, geography, and mental arithmetic, are con- 
ducted by the schoolmaster himself. But the principal service which the moni- 
tors render to the teachers is, in preserving order and silence in the school, and in 
watching over those classes, which are not for the time being receiving instruc- 
tion from the schoolmaster. By this means, one able master, with the aid of two 
intelligent monitors, may conduct a school of 100 children ; whenevei' the number, 
however, exceeds 10(1, there should in all cases be, at the least, twfi superior teachers. 

As I have already said, the want of monitors is felt most in the village schools ; 
for the town schools are conducted in a totally different manner. Tn a town a greater 
number of children are found assembled together, and greater funds are always 
found at the disposal of the school authorities, who, it will be remembered, are 
elected by the people. In each of the Prussian towns, several great school-houses 
ai'e generally built, each containing from four to sixteen class-rooms. The num- 
ber does not, I believe, generally exceed eight in one school-house, and some have 
not more, but hardly any fewer than four. In Germany, except in the pooi-est 
villages, different classes are never instructed in the same room. Even in the 
villages, there are generally two or three class-rooms in the village sclvwl-house, 
for each of which a separate teacher is maintained. This plan of teaching 
the different classes in different rooms, adds incalculably to the efficiency of the 
education given. In each room, only one voice is heard at a time — the voice of 
the teacher or one of the children. The attention of the children is not disturbed 
or diverted from the teacher by what is going on in another class. Each roi>m is 
perfectly quiet. The teacher can be heard distinctly, and can hear every noise in 
his class. Besides all this, for equal numbers of children four or five times as 
many teachers are employed in Germany as in England. Each child receives, 
therefore, four or five times as much assistance and attention from a learned man 
as a child does in England. The individual progress, therefore, of the children in 
the German schools (and the same may be said of the Swiss schools.) is very 
much greater than that of the English children. Over each school-house one head 
teacher is appointed, who is an elderly and experienced man, and who himself 
takes the management of the highest class. Under him are appointed a number 
of younger teachers, coVresponding to the number of class-rooms in the school* 



1 08 SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 

house. These younger masters board with the head teacher in his house, which 
is generally constructed large enough to afford loggings for the staff of masters 
required for all the classes. If the class-rooms do not e.\ceed four, the boys and 
girls are mi.xed together in the different rooms, and are divided into four classes, 
according to their proficiency. If. however, the school contains more than four 
class-rooms, then the girls and boys are separated into two distinct divisions, each 
of which is divided into three or four classes according to the proficiency of the 
children. In the town schools, therefore, it is much easier to dispense with moni- 
tors, as no teacher is perplexed with having to direct different classes in the same 
room. Each teacher has only to instruct a small number of children of about 
the same proficiency in the same subject, at onetime and in a separate room. He 
can, therefore, at all moments engage all his children in the same occupations, keep 
them all under his constant inspection, and direct their operations much better 
than where these operations themselves are necessarily of three or four different 
kinds at the same time. But even in such case, the teachers require the assist- 
ance of monitors, in the writing, drawing, and ciphering exercises ; or else, as I 
have often observed, when the teacher's attention is withdrawn from the class, or 
when he is attending to some individual pupil in one part of the school, the 
juvenile spirit is sure to begin to effervesce in another, and to produce noise, dis- 
order, and interruption. This want of assistance for the principal teachers was 
almost the only fault I could find with the Prussian schools. 

The school-buildings were generally excellent, and often handsome; the class- 
rooms numerous, lofty, capacious, and always clean ; for the inspectors take great 
care that the parochial authoi'ities do not neglect the whitewashing and repairs. 
The scholars themselves were always exquisitely clean. The rooms were con- 
stantly whitewashed and scoured. The law obliges the school committees to do 
this. If any neglect in these particulars is evident, the inspectors and county 
magistrates are empowered and required to act for the parochial committee, and 
to raise the funds necessary for the purpose by a parochial rate levied upon the 
householders. But from the beautiful neatness and cleanliness and from the 
excellent repair of the school-rooms which I saw in different provinces of Prussia 
and Germany, it appeared to me, that the people fully understood and appreciated 
the importance and utility of these regulations. 

The class-rooms were always well fitted up with parallel desks and forms, and 
almost always with excellent maps of Germany, on which all the leadmg phys- 
ical characteristics of the country vi'ere delineated in a strong and forcible manner, 
and on a large scale ; and also with smaller but excellent maps of other parts of 
the world. 

At one end of each class-room is the teacher's desk, raised a little above the 
others. Behind, and on each side of him hang great blackboards, fastened to the 
wall by moveable hinges. On these he writes copies of the writing exercises, and 
draws all his figures, &e.. for the illustration of his lessons: and on all these also 
each child is called upon in turn to explain arithmetical operations, or to fill up or 
draw the outlines of a map of some part of Europe, or of one of the principal 
countries of the world. The space between the teacher's desk and the other end 
of the room is filled with parallel rows of desks and forms, at which the children 
work ; for the Prussians are too anxious to make the children interested in their 
school duties, to think of making education more disagreeable to them than it 
necessarily is, by forcing them to stand through nearly the whole of their lessons, 
as they do in many of our national schools to this day. Each school has also a 
yard, where the children take exercise in the middle of the morning and after- 
noon school hours, to refresh themselves, and to awaken their faculties, while 
the windows of the class-rooms are thrown open, and the air of the rooms is 
thoroughly purified. 

Some persons seem to imagine th^t, if a school-room is built and children 
attend it, the results must needs be good ; but it behooves them to examine 
whether they have left any influence at work upon the children's minds, stronger 
than the influence for good which the school afl<)rds. If it is so, it seems a little 
sanguine, to say the least of it, to hope for happy results. The whole system of 
things in Germany is so entirely different to that in England, that any one who 
attempts to describ^ it to Englishmen must neoessarily appear to exaggerate. I 



SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 109 

can only say, let doubters go and inspect for themselves, and I am convinced they 
will own, that I have not said nearly so much as I might have done, in favor of 
the wonderful efforts the people and the governments are making to advance the 
great cause of popular instruction. 

Each child buys its own books and slate. Those children, however, who are 
too poor to pay the small school-fees, and who are consequently sent to school at 
the expense of the town or parish in which they dwell, are provided with books, 
&c., by the town or parochial authorities. The children generally carry their 
books home with them ; and every morning at a quarter to eight o'clock, a trav- 
eler may see the 'streets of a German town or village filled with boys and girls, 
neatly dressed and very clean, hurrying to school ; each of the boys carrying his 
school-books in a small goat-skin knapsack on his back, and each of the girls 
carrying hers in a small bag, which she holds in her hand. The cleanliness and 
neatness of dress which I generally observed among the children very much 
surprised me, and always served to convince me how the educational regulations 
were tending to civilize and elevate the tastes of the lower classes throughout 
Germany. At first, I was often disposed to doubt the veracity of my com- 
panions, when they assured me that the children I saw were the sons and 
daughters of poor laborers. 

The very way in which children of different ranks of society are to be found 
mingled in the same school, serves to show how superior the civilization of the 
lower orders in Germany is to that of the English peasants. With us it would be 
impossible to associate, in the same school, the children of peasants with those of 
even the lowest of our middle classes. JBut in Germany, I constantly found the 
children of the highest and of the lowest ranks sitting at the same desk, and in 
almost every school I saw the children of the lowest and of the middle classes 
mingled together. 

In Berlin, one of the teachers, on my asking him whose sons the boys at one 
of his forms were, requested them to tell me in what occupations their fathers 
were engaged. From these boys I learned, that one was the son of a clergyman, 
another of a ph5'sician ; that others were the sons of small shopkeepers, and 
others the sons of errand-men and porters. Now, were not the children of the 
errand-men and porters very much more civilized, polished, and, if I may use that 
that much abused word, more gentlemanly than the same class of children in 
England, such an association would be totally impossible. And yet this to us 
incredible state of things, exists with infinitely less discontentment and social dis- 
turbance than we find among our laboring classes in England. 

But it must not be imagined that the educational system is in a stationary state, 
that the people and the government are resting upon their oars, or that Ihey now 
think that they have done enough, and that they can let the stream bear 
them on without further exertion. Far, far othervfise ; on every hand extensive 
improvements are going on, as if they had only commenced last year, to take any 
interest in the question, and as if they were only now beginning the work, like 
fresh laborers. Here I found a new and handsome school-house just finished ; 
there, another one in building ; and here, again, old houses being altered and 
enlarged. In one town I found them preparing a great building for a normal 
college ; in another, I found them preparing to remove one of these noble institu- 
tions to a more commodious and larger set of buildings ; and wherever I traveled, 
I found the authorities laboring to establish infant schools, as well as to perfect the 
educational institutions of their several localities. Itsometimes appeared to me 
as if all the resources of the government must be devoted to this object; whereas 
my readers must recollect that, except in the cases of the normal colleges, this 
great work is effected by the people themselves ; and that the enormous expend- 
iture, by being divided between all the different towns and parishes in the king- 
dom, is scarcely felt. Since 1816, every year has witnessed a further progress: 
old schools have been pulled down, new ones have been erected ; the old and less 
efficient teachers have gradually died off, and their places have been supplied by 
excellently trained masters who now direct the schools ; the young men who are 
about to enter holy orders have been obliged to study pedagogy, in order to fit 
themselves to be inspectors ; the regulations respecting the factory children, 
which I have given in an earlier part of this work, have been put in force j 



no SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 

the minimum of the teachers' salaries has been considerably raised, and the 
system of teachers' conferences has been perfected, and put into operation. 

I shall now show what restrictions exists on the free choice of books by the 
teachers. The Prussian government lias here had two evils to guard against : 
one of these was the retarding of the gradual reform of school-books, ^^hich 
reform will always take place, when the teachers themselves are learned men, 
when they thoroughly understand the theory and practice of pedagogy, and when 
they are not fettered by unwise restrictions ; and the other was, the admission 
into the practical schools, of books of an irreligious or immoral tendency. These 
two evils are guarded against in the following manner : 

No book can be used in any school of the provinces, until the authorities com- 
posing the provincial Schulcollegium, which has the direction of the higher 
schools and gymnasia, as well as of the normal colleges of the province, have 
licensed it, or sanctioned its admission. Any book which has been so sanc- 
tioned, can be employed by any schoolmaster of the province in which it was 
licensed. There are, in every province, a great number of works on religion, 
history, science, &c., wliicli have been thus licensed, and from which the teachers 
are at liberty to choose. But, if a schoolmaster writes a book, which he deems 
better qualified for school use than those already published, or if he desires to 
employ a work written by some one else and which is not licensed, he forwards a 
copy of it, through the inspector, to the provincial authorities, in order to obtain 
their consent, which is only refused, where the book is positively imperfect or 
unfit for the young. In the schools, which I personally inspected, I generallj^ 
found the school-books very excellent, and written either by teachers, or by some 
person engaged in the educational profession. Coming as they do from men of 
very long experience in the practice of pedagogy, they are generally vi'ell adapted 
to answer the wants, which the writers themselves have experienced, in the exer- 
cise of their professional duties. With the above restrictions, the choice of books 
is left entirely to the schoolmasters. 

The character of the instruction given in all the German schools is suggestive ; 
the teachers labor to teach the children to educate themselves. There is little or 
no " cram'" about it, if I may use an old university phrase. In most of the 
best primary schools of England, the teacher still contents himself with the old 
cramming system ; that is, he tries to crowd the memories of his scholars with 
facts, and continually exercises their memories, without ever attempting to 
develop and strengthen iiny of their other intellectual faculties. Now, we know 
but too well, that a man may have the most retentive memory, and the best stored 
mind, and yet remain as incapable of reasoning, as improvident, and as irrational 
as ever. He may be full of facts ; but may be as unable to make any use of 
them, or to turn them to any good account, as one bereft of the faculties of speech, 
sight, and hearing. If a man can not use his reasoning powers, he is much better 
without knowledge; to impart facts to a fool, is like intrusting fire to a madman. 
The great desideratum for the poor, as well as for every one else in this world, is 
a capability of using the reasoning faculties ; not that this will always save a man 
from false ideas and from irrational conduct, but that a man who possesses it will 
be more likely than any other, to take a riglit view of liis position in life, his 
duties, and his advantages, and will be more likely to understand the best means 
of improving them. 

Next, then, to implanting good principles in the child, the first object of every 
system of instruction should be, to teach it how to use the high and important 
faculties, which Providence has given it, as the means by which to insure its 
temporal happiness and continued self-improvement. Facts are necessary, but 
facts alone are not enough : to cram a child's mind with facts, without constantly 
exercising its reflection and its reason, is like feeding it with quantities of rich 
viands, and denying it all bodily exercise. 

The German teachers are, therefore, taught that their duty is to awaken the 
intelligence of their children, far more than to fill their heads with facts, which 
they would not know how to use, unless their reasoning powers had been first cul- 
tivated. Tlie schoolmasters do not therefore hurry over many facts in one lesson j 
but endeavor to make them think and reason about the subject of instruction. 

The method of instruction is left to the unfettered choice of the teachers, bo 



SUBJECTS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. m 

that it is impossible to speak with certainty of the methods pursued in the majority 
of the schools ; but in all that I visited, I invariably found the simultaneous 
method pursued. By tliis the scholars are divided into different classes, and each 
class is instructed separately. This is not done on tlie old shouting plan, where 
one 01" two clever boys give the answer, and all the others follow in the same 
breath, and often without having known w'hat the question was. Not so : the 
class under instruction first reads a section or chapter from the school-book, 
relating to the subject of instruction ; the teacher then endeavors to illustrate 
what the children have been reading, to make them clearly understand it, to 
assure himself that they do understand it, and to impress it more clearly and 
firmly upon their memories. All this he does by suggestive questions, which he 
himself does not answer, until he has first tried whether any of the children can 
answer tliem for themselves. When a question is put, all the children, who ai'e 
prepared to answer it, are told to hold up their hands, and the teacher then 
selects one child, who stands up and gives what he conceives to be the answer ; 
if he is wrong, another is selected to correct him, and so on in like manner; 
but until the teacher has called upon some one to answer, not a single word is 
allowed to be spoken by any member of the class. If no one can answer the 
question, the teacher, before answering it for the children, excites their curiosity 
about it by questions and hints, and stories illustrating or partially explaining the 
subject under discussion ; and when he has succeeded in interesting the whole 
class in the answer, he then gives it, but not before. By these means, the 
reflective powers of the children are exercised and trained ; they are taught to 
think, to inquire an<J to reason, and their minds acquire strength and activity. 
During every lesson the teacher stands, and the children sit before him at their 
desks. The most perfect silence is observed, except when broken by the answer 
of the scholar fixed on to reply, or by a question made by a scholar seeking 
explanation, or by a laugh at some amusing story or joke of the teacher. No 
lesson is continued long. The subjects of instructions are changed about three 
times in every two hours ; and, at the end of. every two hours, the children of all 
the different classes meet in the play-ground, under the charge of one of the 
teachers, to get some fresh air and a little exercise. 

The great object of all this is to make the lessons as interesting and attractive as 
possible to the children, to keep up their attention, and to gradually develop all the 
powers of their minds. 

This system enables the German teachers to watch and tend the progi'ess of 
each individual child. No child can screen idleness or ignorance, behind the 
general shout of the class. The teacher sees instantly, if a scholar fails often to 
hold up his hand ; and as he questions those, who do hold up their hands, by 
turns, he soon finds out if a child is really attending or not. 

One thing which greatly surprised me in all the German and Dutch schools 
was, the great interest the children evidently took in the subject of instruction. 
This is to be explained entirely by the manner, in T\'hich they are treated and 
instructed by the teachers. The teachers address them as intelligent, rational 
beings, and in a conversational manner, as if they expected them to listen and 
to understand. The teachers further excite their interest by showing them, in all 
their lessons, the practical use of the knowledge they are acquiring. Con.stant 
references are made to the different pursuits, in which the children will be 
engaged after leaving school ; to the commerce of the country, and the way in 
which it is supplied with the various articles of foreign produce which it requires ; 
to the duties of citizens ; to the history of the country ; to its produce, its phys- 
ical ehacteristies, and its political relations ; to farming, in its various branches ; 
to the great inventions and vast undertakings of the day ; to the wonders of 
foreign countries ; and, in fact, to all the newspaper topics of the day. 

I have myself been obliged to answer questions in the German and Dutch 
schools about the navA' of England, the wealth of England, our metropolis, our 
colonies, and the miseries of Ireland. 

Instruction, or amusement which will excite the scholars to seek instruction, is 
sought from all the subjects and allusions started by the lesson. The children are 
made to see the end of instruction and the object of schools in every lesson which 
is given them. The teachers encourage thera by words and looks of approval, 



112 



BURGHER SCHOOL AT HALLE. 



A few words, such as " that's right, Charles," " that's a very good answer," 
" you have explained it very well," " well done indeed," and such like explana- 
tions, stimulate the children as if they were at a game. Added to this, that the 
teachers are so admirably drilled in the art of teaching, that they perfectly under- 
stand how to make every thing clear and comprehensible to the least intelligent 
scholar of the class, while they are so well educated, that they are able to illus- 
trate each lesson by a hundred interesting stories or descriptions. 

The subjects of instruction in the primary schools vary in the different classes. 
In those for the younger children, who have only just entered the school, they 
are confined to Scripture history, reading, writing, arithmetic, and singing ; but, 
in the classes for the elder children, not only are higher and more advanced exercises 
in the above subjects given, but the scholars learn also German history, geogra- 
phy, drawing, and mental arithmetic. In this last subject of instruction. 1 some- 
times found astonishing progress made. Besides the above lessons which the 
schoolmasters are obliged by law to teach in all schools, the children learn to 
recite the most beautiful of the Psalms and the finest passages of Scripture, as well 
as the most celebrated national melodies. In the higher elementary schools, or, 
as they are called, the higher burgher schools, which are open to all the children 
who like to enter them after leaving the elementary schools, and which are 
attended by the sons of small shopkeepei's and of laborers also, the course of edu- 
cation is much higher, embracing not only a continued exercise in the difterent 
subjects of instruction which I have enumerated, but in addition to these, geome- 
try, universal history, and the French language. No child "is obliged to attend 
these .schools ; but all are admitted, who wish to continue their education there 
after leaving the primary schoQls. These schools are only to be found in towns ; 
but each town is.ohliged by law to support at least one of them. They are gen- 
erally very well attended by tlje children of small shopkeepers, and contain also 
many children from the poorest ranks of society. 

The method of teaching these subjects generally, has already been 
given under the head of Primary Schools in Germany, in the lan- 
guage of Prof. Stowe and Mr. Mann. We will now give from Prof. 
Bache, and other authorities, the organization, study table, and methods 
of instruction of several schools of different grades. 



BURGHER SCHOOL AT HALLE. 



The series of schools, which now cluster about the Orphan-house of 
Halle, are called after the name of its founder, the Franke Foundations, 
and embraces the whole range of pubHc instruction. It begins with 
the common or elementary schools, in which the instruction' terminates 
at the age of twelve or fourteen years ; contains a " higher" or middle 
school, called, also, a " burgher school," the courses of which end at 
fourteen or sixteen years, and where the pupil is prepared to enter life 
as a tradesman. Also, a "real school," its courses ending at sixteen or 
eighteen, and intended to prepare for the higher mechanical occupa- 
tions ; and a classical school, or " gymnasium," retaining its pupils until 
eighteen or nineteen years of age, and fitting them for admission to the 
university. 

The attendance on these schools varies from year to year, being 
made up of pupils from other parts of Prussia, as well as from Halle. 
The attendance, at the date of Dr. Bache's visit, was as follows : 



BURGHER SCHOOL AT HALLE. 213 

Free School for boys 350, in four classes. 

« " " girls 350, " " 

Burgher School for boys 600, twelve " 

" " " girls 400, eight " 

Superior " " " 100, six " 

Real " " boys 150, five " 

Gymnasium or grammar school 300, six " 

Paedagogium 80, five "■■ 

Total, 2330 

In the establishments for education there were at the same time, in the orphan 
house, 114 boys and 16 girls, in the boarding school 230 boys, and in the paeda- 
gogium 80, total 436. 

The school which the boys of the orphan -house in general attend, is that called 
the " bm'gher" or citizens' school, sometimes also called middle school. Its ob- 
jects are thus defined, lii-st, " so to train the sons of citizens by instruction in use- 
ful science, that, at the age of fom-teen years, they may be in a condition to begin 
a handicraft, or other trade ;" second, '' to prepare the pupils for the lower classes 
of a gymnasium, or for the classes of a real school, to accompUsh which latter 
purposes Latin and French are taught." 

The lower classes are, in tact, those of an elementary school, and the boys who 
leave the orphan-house at fom-teen, are instructed exclusively in this establish- 
ment. The few who are selected to remain after fom-teen go to the Latin school ; 
Latin and French both are, however, studied in the upper classes of the burgher 
school, and the aptitude of the orphan pupils for language, is thus put to the test. 
The school is divided into four classes in reference to the progress of the pupils, 
and each is subdivided for convenience, with a teacher to every subdivision. 
Thus the same teacher gives instruction in all the subjects of study, to a class of 
boys numbering, on the average, about fifty. 

The branches taught are : Exercises of speech and thought. Bible history. 
Religious instruction. Mental and written arithmetic. Elements of geography. 
(Knowledge of home.) Reading and writing taught together. Readmg. Cal- 
ligraphy. Stories from history. German grammar. Composition. Geography 
of Germany. German histoiy. French grammar. General history. Higher 
arithmetic. Elements of geometry. Bible lessons. Christian morals. Chris- 
tian doctrines. Elements of Latin. 

There are teachers of singing and drawing, besides the regular class teachers. 
The pupils are examined privately once every six months, and publicly at Easter, 
when the change of classes takes place. 

The exercises of speech and thought, the fii'st subject on the above list, consti- 
tute the breaking-in, as it were, of the child, and being at the very threshold of 
instruction, try the teacher's skill more than many a learned branch. He must 
teach the pupil to think, taking care that his thoughts are expressed in appropri- 
ate words. Pestalozzi, who first practiced upon this idea, drew the child's atten- 
tion to the human frame, as the subject of contemplation ; others have preferred 
to bring him in contact with nature, in general, by making simple natm-al phe- 
nomena the basis of the inductive lessons; others, not surrounded by nature, 
made man and his dwelling their theme ; others introduce simple lessons on ob- 
jects of nature and art, which can readily be presented to the child for his exam- 
ination, and on which, as a basis, to rear the superstructure of natural history, 
physics, and technology, in his advanced course. All these are good in their 
way, but such as I saw tried seemed to depend for their efficacy upon the cir- 
cumstances of the school, and to be better or worse as the child found means to 
apply his newly acquired powers of perception, to observe for himself. Of all the 
plans, when the school is rightly situated for it, a reference to nature produces 
the best training of the heart, as well as the mind of the child. It would be im- 
possible to present, here, even extracts from the numerous works which contain 
the methods employed in these exercises. 

The Bible history and religious instruction next referred to, are principally 
given orally, the morals of the Bible and the events which it describes, being put 
into such a form that when the sacred book itseK, at a later day, comes into the 



2 14 BURGHER SCHOOL AT. HALLE 

child's hands, he is prepared to read it with proper iuterest. This plan is dia- 
metrically opposed to that which employs it as the beginner's horn-book, and 
from which, I feel bound to say, I have never seen any good result. 

I can not enter into details in regard to all the branches, but must be satisfied 
with noticing two which are here taught particularly well, namely, reading and 
writing, and geography. 

The reading and writing are taught at the same time, according to the method 
of Harnisch, developed by Scholtz. The child makes a letter on his slate, after a 
copy upon the blackboard, and is taught to name it. The German language 
having a fixed sound for each letter, when the sound of the letter has been learned, 
not its common arbitrary name, but the sound which it has in composition, the 
pupil has made some progress toward knowing how to form combinations, which 
is the next step, the vowels being placed alternately before and after the consonant. 
These combinations are first written on the slate, and then pronounced. The 
next exercise consists in placing a vowel between two consonants, which is fol- 
lowed by other simple combinations. These being classified by careful study, the 
child is soon able to compose simple sentences, in which his ideas are developed, 
BO that the mechanical operation of writing and of reading is interspersed with 
intellectual exercise. In this the talent of the teacher is strikingly exhibited, and 
a prescribed routine of instruction would fail in its object. The written letters 
being once learned, the next step is with the printed, and a reading book is not 
introduced until the child has felt the necessity of it in his further progress. It 
is then a relief, and not a task. 

I saw, here, a class which had been under instruction for only nine months, 
the pupils of which wrote short sentences very legibly in a hand of medium size, 
spelled them correctly, and read them distinctly. 

This method of learning to read is, in a great degree, inapplicable to our lan- 
guage, in which the vowel sounds are so numerous ; but the union of reading and 
writing may have its advantages. The characters of the ordinary (j-erman writ- 
ing are composed of very different forms from those of our roimd hand, and which 
are more simple, and, in general, angular ; hence no considerable dexterity of 
hand is required to trace the letters, and only a brief practice in elementary forms 
is required. I saw classes of children of ten and eleven years old, at Zurich, who, 
by being constantly practiced in this method from their earliest instruction, had 
acquired a very striking facility of expressing their ideas clearly and correctly in 
writing. The method produces a facility of composition, in writing, as that of 
Jacotot does a fluency in speaking. The orphans entering at ten years of age, 
do not, in general, pass through this class. 

The geographical instruction, founded upon the method of Pestalozzi, proceeds 
on strictly inductive principles, and is an example of how much may be done by 
making the pupil proceed from the known to the unknown. The following was 
the course of a recitation which I attended on the subject. The teacher drew, 
first, from the knowledge of the pupils of different objects or bodies, a definition 
of the term body, then led them to define extension, dimensions, &c., and thus 
furnished them ideas of space. Sunrise and sunset were used for establishing the 
position of the cardinal points, and that of the class-room was determined in refer- 
ence to these. Then commencing with home, with a map of the city of Halle, 
they gave an account of its localities, and the history connected with them. 
Widening hence in circles, the natural and political features of the surrounding 
district were described, always indicating the real directions of places, &c. The 
pupil thus grasps every step of geographical knowledge ; begins with his own 
house, rambles through his own town, makes excursions in its neighborhood, sets 
out on his travels through his fatherland, visits foreign parts, sees what is worth 
seeing in the natural and artificial state of the country, finally learns the relation 
of its parts and of the whole to other worlds, and thus the interest is kept up from 
the first to the last. The reverse method I compared with this over and over 
again ; some teachers have found this tedious, others have mixed the two systems, 
but, judging by the comparative results, I give this method greatly the preference 
over others, as not only teaching geography, and connecting history with it, but 
enlarging the general intelligence, while it improves the memory. In the upper 
classes, the pupils use maps without names, and draw maps on the board, marking 



MILITARY OKPilAN-HOUSE AT ANNABURG. 



115 



localities, &o. At other times, the places are imlicated by one pupil, and named 
by another, with otlier variations of exercise. In the lower classes, the responses 
were frequently repeated by the whole class, and in the upper classes the instruc- 
tion was more addressed to individuals. With all the inherent merits of this 
method, I have seen it wholly marred by a dull teacher. 

The inductive method applied to any branch of knowledge requires time, 
patience, and some skill on the part of the teacher. The routine method, or 
positive teaching, is much easier to the instructor. The former at every step 
unfolds the mind, the latter frequently overburthcns it. If the positive knowledge 
acquired by the fiist is entirely lost, the habit of thinking remains, while, if 
acquired by the second, there is nothing left unless some improvement of memory, 
and general development of the reasoning powers. 

A pupil who has properly improved the advantages of this school, will have 
acquired a reasonable knowledge of the German language, of reading, writing, 
and arithmetic, of geography and general history, will be familiar with the his- 
tory, morals, and doctrines of the Bible, and his general mental and moral devel- 
opment will be such as befits his age. If especially industrious or apt, he will 
have had an oportunity of beginning Latin and French, and if he prove to have 
a facility in language, will be transferred to the Latin school. It would seem 
that, if he have a peculiar disposition for mathematical studies, he should be sent 
to the real school to prepare him for one of the higher mechanical callings. If 
he should have had this advantage, on reaching seventeen years of age, he would 
have added to his stock of knowledge : 

Further acquaintance with German and French. Latin and English if re- 
quired, though not regularly taught. History and geography. Natural history. 
Mathematics. Practical ai'itlunetie. Physics and chemistry. Religion. Im- 
proved writing, and drawing. 

The Latin school, into which the more intelligent pupil now actually enters, 
conforms to the plan of the Prussian gymnasia. This gymnasium has si.x classes, 
divided each into two parts, and forming a connected series of instruction, one 
part being six months behind the other, except that the pupils of the two parts 
are sometimes assembled to listen to the same lecture. 

The branches studied are : Religious instruction, Latin, Greek, French, math- 
ematics, elements of physics, history, psychology, and logic. Poetry and rhetoric, 
and Hebrew or Enghsh, as the student may desire. 



MILITARY ORPHAN-HOUSE AT ANNABURG. 

The following plan of instruction was prepared by Dr. Harnisch, one 
of the most distinguished teachers of Prussia : 

The course is divided into two parts, one an elementary course, consisting of 
religious instruction, arithmetic, the mother tongue, singing, writing, and exer- 
cises of induction, taught in four classes, between the ages of ten and fourteen. 
The other, a higher course, taught in three classes, and between the fifteenth and 
eighteenth years of age of the pupils. In order to rise to the place of a non-com- 
missioned officer, the pupil must have gone through at least the lowest of the 
classes of the higher school. The subjects of instruction in this school are : relig- 
ious instruction, arithmetic, singing, the German language, calligraphy, geogra- 
phy and history, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and drawing. 

The courses in the different branches are arranged as follows s 

First. Religious Instruction. 

LOWER SCHOOL. 

Class VII. Bible stories, psalms and hymns, appropriate to the season. Four hours per 
week. 

Class VI. Histories from the Old and New Testament, portions of the history of the Chris- 
tian church, catechism. Four hours per week. 

Class V. Reading and explanation of the Bible, and of its arrangement. The gospel and 



2JQ MILITARY ORPHAN-HOUSE AT ANNABURG. 

historical works are selected, and the history is connected with the geography of the Holy 
Land. Catechism. Five hours. 
Class IV. Doctrines of the Lutheran church, taught by Luther's catechism. Five hours. 

UPPER SCHOOL. 

Class III. Moral instruction, duties to God and man. Three hours. 
Class II. Reading the Bible with comments, the pupils making abstracts. Three hours. 
Class I. (Two years.) The first year a repetition of Luther's catechism. The second, a 
history of tlie Christian dispensation. Three hours. 
Every class commits verses from the Bible to memory. 

Second. Arithmetic. Mental and written arithmetic are taught together, that the readiness 
afforded by the one, and the accuracy of the other, may both be cultivated. 

LOWER SCHOOL. 

Class VII. The four ground rules, with three places of figures mentally. Application to 
questions in weights and measures. Three hours. 
Class VI. The same rules e.vtended. Three hours. 

Class V. Fractions, with applications to weights and measures. Three hours. 
Class IV. Proportions. Three hours. 

UPPER SCHOOL. 

Class III. The applications of proportions to questions of weight, strength, value, time, 
and general quantity. Two hours. 

Class II. Exercii-es in practical algebra. Two hours. 

Class I. Review of the course. First year, practical operations. Second, theory of arith- 
metrical processes. Two hours. 

Third. Vocal Music. 

LOWER SCHOOL. 

Classes VII & VI. Practice of songs, adapted to youth of a cheerful, serious, military, or 
religious cast, with one part. Two hours. 

Classes V & IV. Choral and other songs, with the different parts. Elements of music. 
Two hours. 

UPPER SCHOOL. 

Classes III, II, & I. More difBcult choral pieces. Theoretical instruction continued. One 
hour. There is, besides, instruction given to a select choir, intended to conduct the vocal 
exercises of the church. 

Fourth. Reading In the lower classes, a readiness in reading, and in the higher, the style 
of reading, is attended to especially. Pieces learned previously, by heart, are recited. 

LOWER SCHOOL. 

Class VII. A good pronunciation, and some facility in reading. Six hours. 

Class VI. Readiness in reading, and repeating the substance of what has been read. Famil- 
iar illustrations. Five hours. 

Class V. Reading some work in reference to knowledge useful in common life. Four 
hours. 

Class IV. Reading, with attention to emphasis. Four hours. 

UPPER SCHOOL. 

Class III. Reading the Bible and sacred melodies, with the view to correct reading in this 
kind of composition. Two hours. 
Class II. Reading various selected works, in and out of the class. 
Class I. Reading continued, and recitations from works previously read. 

Fifth. Orthography and Writing. These may be taught together in the same way as 
mental and w-ritten arithmetic ; the teacher is, however, at liberty to follow his own method. 

LOWER SCHOOL. 

Class VII. Copying on slates from tlie blackboard. Four hours. 
Class VI. Copying on paper, from the board, and from books. Four hours. 
Class V. Writing from copy -slips, from books, or from dictation. (Practice in spelling and 
writing.) Four hours. 
Class IV. Similar exercises continued. Four hours. 

UPPER school. 

Class III. Copying useful papers, such as registers, accounts, contracts, &c. Two hours. 

Class II. Calligraphy, with Roman as well asy German letters; practice in orthography; 
reading of letters and documents in various handwritings. Two hours. 

Class I. Copying papers relating to the management of the institution, as a practical intro- 
duction to business. One hour. 

Sixth. Useful knowledge taught by induction 

LOWER school. 

Class VII. The pupils give their ideas, verbally, of surrounding objects of the most simple 
kind, of the commonest productions of nature and art. Conversations relating to them. 
Drawing the most simple mathematical figures on the slate. Three hours 

Class VI. Descriptions of animals and plants, the former in the winter, the latter in the 
summer term. Written remarks on these, serving to afford exercise in the formation of 
phrases and in orthography. Four hours. 



MILITARY ORPHAN-HOUSE AT ANNABDRG j ;[ 17 

Class V. The most essential parts of physics and natural history, the pupils taking notes of 
the lessons, rmii' hours. 

Class IV. Coiiijinsifions on various subjects. Letters relating to civil and military affairs. 
Four hours. 

UPPER SCHOOL. 

Class III. History of Prussia, and drawinjr of maps. Four hours. 

Class II General jreography, particularly that of Europe. Passing from physical to polit- 
ical geography. Civil geography in connection with the former. Five hours. 

Class I. Universal history. One year is devoted to ancient and one to moderu history. 
Selections are made of the more important parts of history. Five hours. 

The remaining studies only belong to the higher school. 

Seventh. German grammar and style. 

UPPER SCHOOL. 

Class III. Logical and grammatical instruction of the German language taught. 

Class II. Idiom of the language. Compositions on military subjects, with especial refer- 
ence to correctness of grammar. 

Class i. Acquaintance with the best writers. Exercises of composition on subjects taken 
from history. 

Eighth. Geometry. 

UPPER SCHOOL. 

Class III. Teaching the names and properties of mathematical figures by induction, in con- 
nection witli drawing. 
Class II. Equations, with applicafiou to problems of common life. 
Class I. Elements of trigonometry. 

Ninth. Drawing. 

UPPER SCHOOL. 

Class III. Drawings from common objects, varying the positions, &c. 

Class H. Copying flowers, or drawings of implements. 

Class I. Architectural drawing with instruments, drawings of furniture, &c. 

Dr. Bache makes the following remarks on the above plan: 

I have allowed myself to present this extended programme, because it conveys, 
m as brief a compass as possible, e.xcellent ideas of the succession of courses in an 
elementary school, and in a technical or trade school, for such the higher school 
must be considered. It should be remembered that the main purpose is the pre- 
paration of youth for the military service, and hence that the wants of the service 
are especially consulted. Another fact must be remembered, namely, that this is 
a Lutheran school, and therefore the religious instruction is adapted to the par- 
ticular views of that church. The course of morals of the third class, 1 must say, 
however, seems to me out of its place, for although our duties to God and our 
neighbor are of course best learned from his Word, yet their inculcation by pre- 
cept and example can not commence too early. 

In the arithmetical course, the union of mental and wi-itten arithmetic is abso- 
lutely essential. The gradation appears to me good, and the application to ques- 
tions of common life gives a zest to such studies, attainable in no other way. The 
theory of arithmetical processes, however, should accompany or follow more 
nearly their practical acquisition. Indeed, if they are taiight as they ought to 
be, by induction, the theory goes with the practice. 

If the youth at Aimaburg take the same pleasure in the exercises of song, fi'om 
the elements to the completion of the musical course, as those of the school* 
actually superintended by the author of this project, the success will be com- 
plete. 

The connection of orthography and writing, especially if combined with early 
reading, is natural. 

The exercises of induction, which In the lower classes are well drawn out, 
deviate from the appropriate track in the fourth class, and in the geographical 
and historical courses do not return to it. The system in both these branches is 
rather synthetical than inductive. There is a great temptation to break away 
from this method, into that of giving positive instruction, from the apparently 
greater rapidity of progress of the pupil ; some teachers have abandoned it alto- 
gether, as too slow, thougli ultimately to their cost, as appeared to me in cases 
where I had an opportunity of comparing the results. 

The writing is preceded by an introductory course of drawing, which might 



• Seminary for Teachers at Weiesenfels. 



118 



PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF BERLIN. 



with excellent effect be so extended as to branch out into complete courses of 
drawing and writing. 

As this plan results from an extended experience, the number of hours of 
instruction, per week, necessary to secure the results, is an important datum, and 
as such I have retained it, whenever it was inserted in the original programme. 



PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF BERLIN. 

The capital of Prussia is well supplied with public educational insti- 
tutions of various grades, from the Krippen, (or mere nurseries for 
children whose parents are obliged to labor away from their homes for 
their daily support) and Kleinkinderbewahranstalten, (or institutions 
for the care of children between two and four, resembling infant schools, 
but not doing much in mere instruction,) to the university, with its 
departments of law, theology, medicine, and philosophy, and schools of 
preparation for gardening, agriculture, commerce, trades, and the me- 
chanic, and fine arts. Of these, we have selected for description a few 
which belong to the department of primary education as understood in 
this country, as well as two which rank abroad with secondary schools, 
but correspond to the grade of public high schools, as now organized in 
our large cities, as parts of their systems of public instruction. 

ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 

The elementary schbols of Berlin are not organized as a part of a 
system of public instruction ; they are partly private and partly public ; 
some of them are intended exclusively for the poor, and are supported 
entirely by the city, and others are private establishments, in which the 
tuition of such poor children as attend, are paid by the city. In the 
burgher, or higher class of primary schools, as well as in the gymnasia 
and real schools, there are classes which belong properly to the elemen- 
tary schools. In 1827, Mr. Reichelen, member of the school council, 
devised a plan of organization for a class of schools for poor children in 
Berlin, differing in some respects from that adopted in the kingdom at 
large. From the document embodying this plan we make a few ex- 
tracts for the sake of explaining the organization of the schools, and 
illustrating the difference between these schools for the poor and our 
common schools. 

Although, in the middle class, the co-operation of the parents and the influence 
of families may be depended on, the contrary holds with children of the lowest, 
whom it is often necessary to withdraw as much as possible from the baleful 
influence of the bad example of their parents. In the case of these children, the 
exertions of the school are wholly unassisted. 

In the new organization, the two sexes should be separated ; which will not 
increase the expense, provided the schools be so proportioned, as that one com- 
plete school shall contain two divisions having seventy-five each, one for boys and 
one for girls ; these two divisions forming but one parish school for three hundred 
children, in one building. 

The speciaLcharaeter of the instruction proper for poor children, is defined in 
these two words, prayer and work. 



PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF BERLIN. Ug 

The subjects of instruction for the first class should be : 

1. For religion : the Bible, catechism, the positive truths of Christianity. 

2. For the German language : language considered as the expression of 
thought ; the most general rules of grammar, clear and intelligible pronunciation, 
reading and orthography. 

3. Writing. 

4. Arithmetic, to fractions and the rule-of-three, inclusive. 

5. Singing, and particularly exercises in sacred choral music. 

For the second class of boys, the most general elements of the natural sciences, 
of geography, and national history, as well as the elements of geometry and linear 
drawing should be added. 

For the second class of girls, instruction in needle-work, knitting, &c. 

For boys of from six to ten years of age, first class, twenty-six lessons of one 
hour each per week, from eight to eleven, and from two to four, every day ; 
thus : 

3 hours for religious instruction, (principally narratives from the Bible.) 

12 hours fur the German language, pronunciation, reading, orthography, &c. 
5 hours for arithmetic ; 3 for the slate as far as division, and 2 for mental arithmetic. 

4 hours for writing. 

2 hours for singing, (without counting the verses sung at the beginning and end of each 
_ day.) 

26 hours. 

For the second class of boys, from ten to fourteen years old, thirtj'-two hours 
of lessons per week, from eight to twelve, and from two to four, every day ; thus : 

6 hours for religion, instruction in the Bible, and catechism. 

10 hours for the German language, reading, grammar, intellectual exercises. 

5 hours for arithmetic, on the slate and in the head. 
4 hours for writing. 

2 hours for geometry, and linear drawing. 

3 hours for natural philosophy, geography, and history, &c. 

2 hours for singing, (not including the verses sung morning and evening.) 

32 hours. 

Girls' school, first class, from six to ten years old, twenty-six hours' lessonfl a 
week ; thus : 

3 hours for religion, (narratives from the Bible.) 

7 hours for the German language. 

3 hours for arithmetic, on the slate and mentally. 

3 hours for writing. 

2 hours for singing. 

8 hours for needle-work, &c. 

26 hours, from eight to eleven, and from two to four. 
The second class of girls, from ten to fourteen, thirty-two hours' lessons ; thus : 

6 hours for religion. 

8 hours for the German language. 

4 hours for arithmetic. 

3 hours for writing. 
3 hours for singing. 

8 hours for needlework, &c., (in the afternoon.) 

32 hours, from eight to twelve, and from two to four. 

A child shall be in a condition to pass from the first class to the second as soon 
as it can read well. 

It may perhaps seem strange, that in this plan of study no mention should be 
made of the time devoted to exercises of the memory and the mental powers. 
But the committee has considered that these exercises are included in the course 
of study, which keeps the memory and intellect constantly in action. The lessons 
in the German langiiage will always furnish exercises of this kind ; and in charity 
schools, above all others, it is necessary to avoid whatever is superfluous. 

The children of the lowest class have generally received an ill bent from the 
example of their parents; the strictest discipline is therefore required. Order, 
neatness, activity, prompt obedience, are by no means the least important things a 
child has to learn. The kind of instruction, the gravity of the ntaster, his devo- 



120 PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF BERLIN. 

tedness to his pupils, are of themselves a solid ground-work for discipline. But 
rigor is sometimes necessary ; and in a school for the poor especially, discipline 
should be inflexible in cases of disorder or indolence. But let the masters never 
forget, that the severest measures of discipline should be pervaded by a senti- 
ntient of tenderness and love, which chastises only to improve. 

There are seven evening schools in Berlin. It will be sufficient to institute 
three more of fifty scholars each, two for boys and one for girls. The three 
ablest and most zealous parish schoolmasters shall be engaged to give from eight 
to twelve hours' lessons a week in the evening, for which they shall be paid a 
hundred thaler, (15Z.) Reading and writing will be constantly taught there, and 
two hours a week devoted to religious instruction. 

A greater number of evening schools will be opened, if they are found to be wanted. 

Before entering upon a detail of the expenses which the city must bear for the 
support of fourteen parish charity schools, we will mention the very slight revenue 
which these schools can draw from other sources. 

1. A government order, dated January 30, 1827, directs that in every parish 
charity school each pupil shall pay a fee of one silber-grosehen (about five farth- 
ings) a month, in order not to violate the principle, that every father of a family 
is bound to contribute something to the school, even though he should claim for 
his children the favor of a gratuitous education ; for the exaction of this trifling 
payment does not take from the instruction its gratuitous character, and this im- 
perceptible charge produces nevertheless, in a school of three hundred children, 
the sum of 120 thaler, (18/.) 

2. Amongst the poor, many who are unable to pay the terms of private schools, 
can nevertheless very well give, besides the groschen per month fixed by the min- 
ister of public instruction, a further sum, varying from five groschen as a minimum, 
to ten as a maximum. Out of three hundred children, this would apply to at 
least a fifth ; and the minimum five groschen for sixty children, will give a reve- 
nue of 120 thaler, or 1680 for the fourteen schools, (136/.) This extraordinary 
fund {Aushulfe-fund) may be appropriated to the maintenance of the evening 
schools, to the instruction of children of a higher class who have fallen into pov- 
erty, and to rewards or pensions for schoolmasters in their old age, or to methodo- 
logical courses for their improvement; so that the town would have no other 
expense to support than that of the fourteen parish charity schools. 

3. Finally, the donations which the generosity of the citizens may give to the 
schools, but which can not be calculated on here, will form another resource for 
improvement in the education of the poorer classes. 

The excellence of a school depends entirely upon the master ; the choice of the 
master is therefore a matter of the first importance. In a school for the poorest 
class especially, where every thing is to be done, and where the master has con- 
stantly to struggle against the pernicious influence of the family and companions of 
the child, he should possess devotedness to his calling, patience, knowledge, an 
aptitude and taste for teaching ; and with all these qualities, that rare disinterest- 
edness which induces perseverance in a career at once humble and unaltering, 
and that enduring serenity of soul, that pious zeal which alone can secure pros- 
perity to a school. 

The masters who are examined and declared capable, shall be appointed for life ; 
nevertheless, in case of negligence or misconduct, they shall be dismissed without 
appeal, by an order from the town authorities, approved by the school board. 

Care should be taken, that whenever it is possible, the wives of the schoolmas- 
ters shall instruct the little girls in needle-work. 

The immediate superintendence of each poor's school shall be specially confided 
to a committee consisting of one of the clergj'men of the parish, named by the 
town school committee, and a member of the administration of the poor's fund, 
charged specially with the ins])ection of the external business of the school. 

The supreme superintendence resides with the poor's administration and the 
town school committee, of which the Stadt-Schulrath, or school councillor for 
the town, shall always be a member. 

The under masters shall be subject to the head masters ; they may be dismissed 
at will either for incapacity or misconduct. 

The purohass and maintenance of buildincrs tor the schools in the various quar- 



PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF BERLIN. 121 

ters, the choice and superintendence of the masters, the administration of the 
school funds belong to the administration of the poor. 

The charity board of each quarter, the clergyman, and the officer charged with 
the special superintendence, shall attend to: 

1. The admission of pupils. 

2. The control of the attendance at the schools. 

3. The departure of the pupils. 

4. The annual reports. 

1. As there will be fourteen parish charity schools required, the town will be 
divided into fourteen school wards, or districts, each having a complete school, 
(bovs and girls.) All parents living in each district, shall apply to the charity 
board, and particularly to the special officer, to obta,iu admission for their children 
to the school. 

This admission shall take place generally at two periods of the year, Easter and 
Michaelmas, at the commencement of the course. 

The officer shall determine whether the child shall be admitted gratuitously, 
(always paying one groschen per month.) or be made to pay from five to ten silber- 
groschen, which will form the extraordinary fund. 

This sum shall be paid in advance, from month to month, to an officer of the 
charity board chosen for tliis purpose, and shall be added each month to the extra- 
ordinary fund. 

When the number of pupils fixed for each class of boys or girls (seventy-five) 
shall be complete, no more shall be admitted, and applicants shall be sent to the 
neighboring schools. 

2. The regular attendance at the school shall be an object of special control 
and the most active vigilance ; for this is the source from which flow all the ad- 
vantages the school can produce. It would be very fortunate if parents and chil- 
dren were always willing of themselves to facilitate the measures adopted to secure 
regular attendance at the schools. Unhappily this is not the case, particularly in 
great cities. Although it is lamentable to be forced to use constraint, it is almost 
always necessary to commence with it ; though in a town so populous as Berlin, 
its enforcement is attended with much difficulty. 

In order to draw to the school all the children of an age to attend, the school- 
masters shall keep a register of attendance, and shall send, at the end of each 
month, an extract from this register, pointing out those who are most frequently 
absent. ' 

The poor's commission, or one of its members, shall send for the parents, and 
if the excuses are insufficient, shall warn and threaten them. Every three months 
a list shall be made of the parents who will pay no regard to the repeated remon- 
strances of the commission, and the poor's administration shall then have recourse 
to means of constraint, conformably to section 48, of title XII.,* in the second part 
of the general code, which adjudges the penalties for this offense. As an exam- 
ple to others, it would be well to publish, from time to time, a list of the parents 
who shall have been fined for not sending their children regularly to school. 

But it is not enough to insure, as far as possible, this regularity in the children 
who come to school ; other measures are needed to secure that no poor chid 
whatever be deprived of elementary instruction. In great cities there are always 
a considerable number of unfortunate persons who have no fixed residence, who 
are shifting about every quarter, every month, and often every day. We see onlj' 
one way of coming at these, which is this : to communicate with all the private 
establishments of elementary instruction, that are not under the direction of the 
town, and to arrange that, at a certain time, all the primary schoolmasters in the 
town, without exception, shall deliver to their pupils a certificate of attendance, 
the form of which shall be printed and sent to all the schools. The parents shall 
be obliged to show these certificates. At the same period, the municipal police, 
or commissions chosen from among the citizens, shall, by the aid of the census^ 
tables, effect a general and simultaneous inspection of the whole town. The list 
of the parents who shall not have shown the certificates of attendance at school, 
shall be made up in each district, and they shall be summoned before the correc- 

* Pee pace 95 



122 PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF BERLIN. 

tional police and fined according to law, and compelled to enter their children in 

the schools. 

rhe execution of such a measure would doubtless depend much on the zeal of 
the authorities intrusted with it; but difficulties should not deter us from the per- 
formance of the sacred duty of remedying so deplorable an evil. 

3. The law requires that the instruction of the school should be continued, until 
the clergyman charged with the examination of the children shall deem them suf- 
ficiently enlightened on the subjects most important to a rational being of their 
class. No fixed age will therefore be named at which they shall quit the school. 
This will be determined by an order from the miister of the school, and the cler- 
gyman charged with the special inspection ; and since nothing superfluous will be 
taught in any parish poor's school, this decision will depend upon the child's hav- 
ing profitably gone through the course of instruction of the school, and acquired 
those moral qualities which its influence ought to have produced. 

It will in general require at least six years fully to accomplish the end of an 
intellectual and moral education. Thus, the greater part of the children who 
enter at six or seven, will be sufficiently instructed at thh'teen to quit. 

The leaving of the school shall take place only at two periods of the year, 
Easter and iMichaelmas, after a public examination. At the end of this examina- 
tion, the ecclesiastical inspector and the master of the school shall make a list of 
the pupils who may quit. There shall be delivered to each a certificate of depart- 
ure, the form of which s^hall be printed ; and the most distinguished shall receive, 
by way of encouragement, books suited to their capacity ; the expense will be 
defrayed by the extraordinary fund. 

It would also be vei'y useful that the citizens should be bound under a penalty 
not to take into their service or apprenticeship any child who had not a certificate 
either of departure or of attendance. 

4. The annual reports of the ecclesiastical inspector and the officer of the char- 
ity board will serve to measure the progress of the schools. They shall ti'eat of 
the internal state of the school ; of the instruction and discipline, as well as the 
household expenses ; and shall point out imperfections, to the remedy of which 
the poor's administration and the school board shall direct their efforts. 

Dr. Bache makes the following remarks on this class of schools in 1838 : 

There are at present nine public elementary schools in the city, but if the classes 
were confined to seventy-five pupils each, as originally intended, fourteen schools 
would be required, according to the calculations of Mr. Reichelen. The number 
of pupils, however, in charge of a single master, is greater than that just stated, 
thereby impairing essentially the efficiency of the schools. 

The masters receive fixed salaries,* the fees which they collect, being paid over 
to the school committee. Of the two schools of this kind at Berlin, which 1 vis- 
ited, one came up to the requirements of the law in the branches of instruction, 
except in the omission of linear drawing. In the other, both drawing and natural 
hi-st'iry were omitted. In the first, the branches were : 1. Religious instruction. 
2. Reading. 3. German language. 4. The geography and history of Prussia. 
5. Arithmetic. 6. Elements of geometry. 7. Weights and measures of the 
country. 8. Natural history. 9. Writing. 10. Singing. In none of these 
schools is the physical education of the pupils attended to. In each there is a girls' 
school, separated from that of the boys, and giving similar instruction, except that 
a portion of the time is occupied in works appropriate to the sex. 

According to rule, these schools should have two classes for each sex, the head 
master teaching the first, and the assistant the second ; in one, however, the two 
classes were sub-divided, forming four. The lowest class learns to read and write 
a little, and is then promoted. In the school of two classes, the lower contained 
pupils from six to nine, and even ten years of age, and the upper class pupils from 



* The salary of the head master of both boys' and girls' schools, istwo hundred and twenty- 
five dollars per annum, besidt-s which he has his lodging and certain allowances, amounting 
to from seventy-five to a hundred and twelve dollars. The pupils pay at the minimum three, 
and at the maximum thirty cents per month. In one of the schoolswh'ch I visited, the fees 
amounted in all to about nine dollars a'ul seventy-five cents per month, the two-fifths of 
which, forming the master's perquisite, amounted tfierelore tn about forty. seven dollars a year. 



PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF BERLIN. ]23 

eight and nine to twelve and thirteen years. This division requires the union in 
one class of pupils in very different stages of progress, and renders simultaneous 
teaching almost out of the question. The lower class h;is twenty-six, and the 
upper thirty-two to thirty-four hours of instruction per week, the former having 
one hour less per day than the latter, which is a good arrangement. Ihere is a 
short interval of recess in the morning exercises. 1. The religious instruction con- 
sists, in all the schools, of Bible history, catechism, and reading the Bible. The 
schools are for Protestants, and the Lutheran catechism is used. 2. The reading 
is taught by the phonic method.* In many schools, the reading board and letter 
blocks are used; in one of those which I visited, writing was taught with reading. 
Exercises of thought and speech are intervvoved with the elements of i-eading. 
The reading books are various, and combine progressive instruction in this branch 
with incidental information in morals, the history of the country, history of the 
church and of sects, biography, geography, natural history and elementary 
physics, grammar, &c. This incidental method is however, far from giving suftie- 
ient instruction, unless combined with the direct, tiiough, by keeping it in view, 
the exercises in feading are prevented from degenerating into mere lessons of 
sounds. From the books which are allowed by the highest school authorities to 
be used, the committee of any particular school, after consulting the master, adopt 
such as they please, and when the teacher wishes a change, he applies to the same 
authority. The list of approved books is always sufficiently large to admit of the 
exercise of the individual judgments of the master and committee. The analysis 
of words and sentences is attended to in these schools, and exercises of induction 
are practiced, especially where younger masters from the teachers' seminaries are 
employed. As the method of teaching depends principally upon the master, it 
sometimes varies, even in the same school. If the precise routine were laid down, 
the spirit would be different, and thus, at last, it is the kind of education given to 
the teacher which determines the character of the school. It may be stated, how- 
ever, that the instruction is either simultaneous or individual. 3. The German 
requires no special remark ; it includes instruction in grammar. 4. The geogra- 
phy is taught by beginning with an outline of general geography, referring to 
maps, and learning from books. There is a great deficiency in the implements 
for teaching this branch. 5. Both mental and written arithmetic are taught, in 
one of the schools, the ground work is laid according to Pestalozzi's method, and 
the extent of the course is to the single rule of three, inclusive. Some of the 
pupils acquire great facility in mental arithmetic. 6. The geometry consists of 
the elements of form, according to Pestalozzi. 7. The weights and measures are 
taught as in our schools, by committing tables to memory, and not, as in Ilolhmd, 
by actual reference to the standards themselves. 8. The writing is taught by 
copying from ordinary copy boards, first on the slate, and then on paper. The 
blackboard is used in some cases. Writing from dictation is resorted to for 
orthography. The proficiency in this branch is, however, only tolerable. 9. Vocal 
music is taught by note, and particular attention is paid to church music. The 
school is begun and ended with a psalm or hymn, as well as with prayer. 

The ordinary discipline is conducted without corporeal punishment, though it is 
allowed in extreme cases. The individuals of the classes retain the same places, 
unless in 'cases of gross neglect, or as a kind of punishment. These places are in 
some schools, regulated in the upper classes by a writing lesson at the end of the 
month, in which correctness in spelling, as well as neatness of handwriting, are 
taken into the account. 

In addition to the class of elementary schools above described, there 
are at Berlin many more, public and private, numbering in 1850. over 
twenty thousand pupils under the age of fourteen years. Many chil- 
dren of this age are also to be found in the burgher schools, as well as 
in the lower classes of the gymnasia and real schools. The burgher 
schools embrace a wide range of studies and methods of teaching, from 
which teachers and committees in our own country can derive many 

* See page 195. 



124 PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF BERLIN. < 

valuable hints. Although impressed with some general characteristics 
by the law, they differ according to the different circumstances of the 
population, whether in a large or a small village, or whether each is 
complete in its own course of study, or made preparatory in some of its 
classes, to entrance into a gymnasia or real school. There are upward 
of eighty schools of this grade, numbering over eight thousand pupils. 
We give descriptions of several of the most distinguished. 

DOROTHEAN HIGHER CITY SCHOOL. 

This is a burgher school of tecent establishment, located in the Dorothean quar- 
ter of the town, from which the school takes its name. The pupils are admitted 
at six years of age, and may remain until sixteen, when they are prepared to 
enter a business life. If intended for a professional career, they pass from the 
second class to the third of a gymnasium or grammar school at about fourteen. 
At present, there is no first class, but this deficiency is to be supplied, and it is 
intended that a pupil of capacity, who has passed through its studies, shall be 
prepared for the second class of a gymnasium. In this case, private lessons in 
Greek must be taken, and 1 should judge that, when established, this class will 
bo composed only of those who intend to finish their education here, so as to pass 
to a " real school," or to so:ne " tccluiical school." Many pupils are actually 
prepared here for entrance into the third class of a gj'mnasium, and the courses 
iiave been in part adapted to this purpose. The certificate of the first class of 
this school, as of others of its grade, gives the privilege of claiming but one year 
oi' military service, and qualifies for employments in the government bureaux, 
which, however, do not in general require a knowledge of Latin. 

The school consists of about 200 pupils, arranged in five classes, of which the 
sixth and fifth, the lowest two, have courses of one year each, and the others of 
two years. There is a head master and four regular teachers, besides four assist- 
ants or special masters, who are employed during part of the school hours, or in 
t.aching particular subjects. In the lower classes, each master teaches, in gen- 
eral, the whole round of subjects in which his class is occupied. In the upper 
classes, the teachers are confined to a few subjects. The arrangement of this 
matter is, however, at the discretion of the director or head master, who varies 
it as appears best for the interests of the school. In some of the classes, there is 
a special master for religious instruction, which, however, is not usual in 
Prussia. 

The methods of instruction in this school are, in general, most excellent, and 
I was particularly struck with the small number of text-books employed. This 
is not peculiar, however, to this establishment, but is a feature in every good 
school in Germany. The master is expected to be so fully imbued with his sub- 
ject, and expert in his art, as to be able to impart knowledge principally orally to 
his pupds, and in such a way as to adapt it to each individual ; hence books are 
chiefiy required for study at home, and individual training is possible to an extent 
which no routine system with books would permit. 

The following statements give the course ofmstruction in detail : 

RELICIOTIS INSTRUCTION. 

Class VI. Stories from the Old Testament. 

Class V. Stories from the New Testament. 

Class IV. Bible History. 

Class HI. Rearling and explanation of selections from the Scripture. 

Class II. The evidences of Christianity. 

The stories alluded to in the course of the sixth and fifth classes, are the most 
remarkable biographies of the Old and New Testaments. The stories are chiefly 
narrated by the teacher, frequently in the words used in the sacred volume ; and 
in the fourth class, these same histories are read in the Bible itself The narra- 
tions in the lower classes admit of various explanatory remarks and illustrafions 
of the history, the natural history, and geography referred to. The subject of 
the narrative being thus familiar to the pupil, he is interested by the beautiful sim- 



PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF BERLIN. 125 

plicity of the language of the Bible, which otherwise he might fail to perceive, 
since his attention would be engaged with the incidents about which he was read- 
ing, rather than with the style. The study of the Evidences of Christianity 
would, it seems to me, be more suitable to the age of the fii'st than of the second 
class. 

GERMAN LANGUAGE. 

Class VI. Exercises of speech and thought (inductive exercises.) Preparatory exercises in 
reading by the phonic (lautir) metliod. Fluent reading of words and sentences. 

Class V. The most important parts of etymology explained by reading lessons. 

Class IV. Exercises of etymology. Reading from a text-book Stories narrated for written 
exercises. Orthographical exercises. 

Class III. Grammatical analysis of sentences. 

Class n. The same continued. Original written exercises and descriptions. 

The exercises of speech and thought are admirably conducted. In teaching to 
read, the letter-box and composition-board, are used. The lowest class is divided 
into two sections in receiving this instruction, so that each teacher has not more 
than twenty-five pupils under his charge. The reading exercises throughout the 
course, will be foimd included imder the title of " German." Diesterweg's read- 
ing book for schools is used in the lower classes. 

LATIN LANGUAGE. 

Clciss IV. Regular verbs and other parts of speech. Translation of Gedicke's reading 
book. 

Class III. Constructions varying from the German. More difficult parts of Gedicke's reading 
book. Cornelius Nepos. 

Class II. Irregular parts of etymology. Syntax. Special reference to the differences from 
the German. Ovid. 

Although the Latin is begtm with the fourth class, it will be seen hereafter, 
that it occupies but a small portion of the time of each week, and as far as men- 
tal cultiu'e is concerned to those who leave off this study at fourteen, I can not say 
that observation indicated its utility. On the contrary, an imperfect knowledge 
is acquired, which can produce no good effect. 

FRENCH LANOUAGB. 

Class V. Exercises in reading and translating small sentences. 

Class IV. Auxiliary and regular verbs. Exercises on simple sentences. 

Class III. Irregular verbs and rules on the use of pronouns. Numa Pompilius begun. 

Ciass II. More difficult parts of the French grammar. Numa Pompilius completed. 

ARITHMETIC. 

Class VI. The four ground rules, with numbers up to one thousand. 

Class V. Denominate numbers, and preparatory exercises in fractions. 

Class IV. Fractions. 

Class III. Proportions, with their applications. 

Class II. Elements of algebra, involution, and evolution. 

GEOMETRY. 

Class V. Regular figures, &c., from the elements of geometry. 
Class IV. Lines, angles, and triangles. 

Class III. Circles and Polygons. Mensuration of plane figures. 
Class II. Similarity of figures, &c. 

The geometry is here introduced earlier than in the seminary school, and, in 
general, the studies of the filth class appear to me rather too much diversified for 
their age. 

NATURAL HISTORY. 

Clasis IV. Domestic animals. 

Class III. Viviparous animals. 

Class II. Birds and fishes, illustrated by a small collection. 

Physics is also taught in the second class, so far as to give a knowledge of the 
general properties of bodies. 

GEOGRAPHY. 

Class V. Knowledge of home. The district. The province. The kingdom. 

Class IV General geography. 

Class HI. Principal countries of Europe. 

Class II. Europe more in particular. 

The knowledge of home includes an account of its history, its monuments, dis- 
tinguished men, &c. 



126 



PUBLIC SCHOOLS Of BERLIN. 



The course in geography follows the plan already described in the burgher 
school of Halle. 

HISTORY. 

Class IV. A general view of the more important historical events, with the study of particu- 
lar ones in detail. 
Class IIL Ancient history. 
Class IL Modern history, to the time of the reformation. 

Tlie general history is rather a series of biographical sketches than a regular 
narration of events, and serves well as an introduction to systematic historical 
studies. 

WRITING. 

Class VL Preparatory exercises in the lower division. Letters and words in the upper. 

Class V. Single letters and small sentences. 

Class IV. Writing from copy slips. 

Class III. Writing witli special reference to orthography. 

Tlie elements of writing are taught according to Pestalozzi's method, the upper 
and lower limits of the letter's being given by horizontal, and the slope by inclined 

liULS. 

DRAWING.* 

Class VI. Preparatory exercises. Regular figures 

Class V. Drawing of bodies in elevation. 

Class IV. Solids bounded by plane figures and straight lines. 

(Mass III. Solid.*! bounded by plane figures and straight lines, with shadows. 

Class II. Solids bounded by curved surfaces. 

The method of instruction is that devised by Mr. P. Schmidt, which is de- 
scribed particularly in the accoimt of the royal real school of Berlin, of which he 
is teacher. 

Si.NGiNG is taught by ear in the two lower classes, and by note in the upper. 
The execution by the second class, which I heard, was excellent. They sing in 
parts and by note. 

The following table shows the time devoted, in school, dm-ing the week by 
each class to the several subj ects of instruction : 

ARRANGEMENT OF THE BRANCHES OF INSTRUCTION AT THE DOROTHEAN HIGHER 

CITY SCHOOL. 



HOCKS PER WEEK. 


SUBJECTS OF STUDY. 


Second 
Class. 


Thinl 
Class. 


Fourth 
Class. 


Fifth 
Class. 


Sixth 

Class. 


Totals.il 


Religious Instruction, .... 


2 


2 


2 


2 


4 


18 


German Language, .... 


4 


3 


5 


8 


10+ 


42 


Latin, . 


b 


b 


4 






30 


French, 


4 


4 


4 


2 




26 


Arithmetic, 


3 


3 


3 


4 


4 


26 


Geometry, 


2 


2 


2 


2 




14 


Natural History, 


4* 


2 


2 






16 


Geography, 


2 


2 


2 


1^ 




13 


History, 


2 


2 


2 


H 




13 


Writing, 




2 


2 


4 


4 


16 


Drawing, 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


16 


Singing, 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


16 


Total, 


32 


32 


32 


i 28 


26 



* The book embodying Schmidt's method of drawing, has been translated and published 
by E. P. Peabody, Boston. 

t Six hours of the instruction called " German," are devoted in the sixth class to learning 
to read, and four to " Exercises of speech and thought." 

t Two houi's of this instruction is given to physics. 

§ In the fifth class, geography and history are combined under the title of "Knowledge of 
home." 

II This column is obtained by doubling the numbers in those classes of which the course is 
for two years, and adding the numbers for the other classes. 



SEMINAKY RiCHOOL OF BKKMN. ]27 

The three higher classes have, as shown by the table just given, six hours of 
recitation every day, except "Wednesday and Saturday, which are half-holidays, 
and on which tliey have but foui- hours. The lowest class has but five hours for four 
days in the week, and three the other two. The increase of school houi's m the 
upper classes, is manifestly a proper arrangement. 

This distribution of time assigns to language, including German, Latin, and 
French, ninety-eight hours ; to sciences and the kindred branches, namely, 
arithmetic, geometry, natural history, geography and history, eighty-two ; to the 
branches which specially educate a part of the senses, while they have important 
applications in after-life, as writing, drawing, and singing, forty-eight hours, and 
to morals and religion, eighteen hours. 

The burgher school connected with the teachers' seminary, recently 
■'established to educate teachers for the city schools, present several 
modifications of the above course, both in the order,' and extent to which 
the studies are pursued. 

SEMINARY SCHOOL OF BEKLI.V. 

This is a burgher or middle school, founded in 1832, and attached to the 
Teachers' Seminary of Berlin * taking its name from this connection. The school 
is for boys only, and, Uke other higher burgher schools, it serves to prepare for the 
third class of a gymnasium, as well as for entrance into active life. The same 
teachers give instruction in this school and in the seminary, being assisted here 
by the pupils of the seminary, to whom this serves as a school of practice. 
There ai-e foiu- regular teachers, besides the dkector, and also masters for draw- 
ing and singing. 

The pupils are admitted as early as five and six years of age. The time of 
year for general admission is Easter. There are six classes in the school, the 
lower four of which each retain the pupil, if industrious and intelligent, a year, 
and the two upper, each two years. The whole course thus lasts eight years. 
Fifteen is, however, the usual age at which those who do not pass to the gym- 
nasium leave the school. The average number of pupils in each class is thirty. f 

Every month there is a private examination, in presence of all the teachers, 
at which the parents may attend. Every three months the punil receives a note 
of progress and conduct, to be handed to liis parents. Formerly a printed circu- 
lar was sent, containing information in the form of an abstract from the account 
kept of recitations and conduct. It has been found, however, much more effect- 
ual to give a written statement of the character of the pupil, derived from the 
school journal, inasmuch as it insures more certainly the attention of parents. At 
Easter, a public examination is held, and those who have made a proper pro- 
ficiency in their studies are passed to a higher class. 

Arrangements exist by which those pupils whose parents desire it, may study 
under the superintendence of a teacher,:}: during the time considered necessary for 
the preparation of the lessons of their class. The following division of the 
studies of the school is made by the director. 

1. Religious Instruction. — Bible history. History of the Church and of the Reformatiou. 
Proteslmit Catechism. 

2. Languaoes.— (n) German. Fhiency in reading, and readiness in answering questions. 
Capability of writing an exercise upon an oidiiiary subject. Grammar of the lan'juage. (6) 
Latin. Orthography, etymology, and the elements of syntax. Translation of an easy Latin 
author (Cornelius Nepos) into German, or of an easy German author into Latin, (c) French. 
Knowledge of the Grammar. Facility in the translation of easy authors, and in writing composi- 
tions. 

3. SciKNCEs. — (a) Arithmetic. Mental and written. Positive and negative quantities. Invo- 
lution and evolution. (6) Geometry. Plane geometry, with practical applications, (c) Natural 
History. Knowledge of the most important minerals and plants of the neighboi'hood. General 

* Of which Dr. Diesterweg is director. 

t The school lees for the four lower classes are three dollars and seventy-five cents per quarter, 
and for tlie two higher classes four dollars and fifty cents per quarter, besides a charge of one dol- 
lar twelve and a half cents for fuel during the winter. 

i The fee for private study is four dollai's and fifty cents per quarter. 



128 SEMINARY SCHOOL OF BEKLLN. 

outline of zoology and anthropology. (<f) Geography, physical and mathematical, (e) History. 
Outlines of universal history. History of the country. 

4. Mechanical AcciuiRKMENTs.— (a) Reading. (4) A good handwriting, (c) Draughts of 
models, lurniture, &c. (d) Singing. 

It will be found, subsequently, that I have taken reading out of this class, and 
placed it beside the German language, to which it is subsidiary, and where it is 
classed in the preceding school. 

In regard to the methods of carrying out this course, the following rules are 
laid down, and after carefully visiting the school, I can testify that they are fully 
observed. Indeed, this is one of the most interesting estabhshments which I 
saw, from the liveliness and activity which prevails in its classes. 

The principle of induction is used, as far as practicable, in all branches ; thus, in 
the earlier exercises, an object is presented to the pupil, who is led to notice its 
peculiarities, and to express his conceptions of them. He passes from objects 
which are known, and even familiar, to tlie unknown. Unknown' objects are 
illustrated, if possible, by models, and the names of the parts are taught, and 
their uses or properties examined. The pupil proceeds first from particulars to 
generals. Subsequently, the order is reversed. He is made to understand 
whatever he is required to remember ; to find out for himself, if possible, rather 
than to be taught directly. 

Historical and similar subjects are taught by lecture, mingled with questions. 
The pupil is led to express himself readily and correctly ; the teacher speaks no 
more, tlierefore, than is absolutely necessary for explanation, or to induce suita- 
ble answers. Self-exertion, on the part of the pupil, is constantly encouraged. 
He is taught to observe whatever is interesting. Imitation of what is seen, and 
repetition of what is heard, lead to original thought. This, however, is to be 
expected only from pupils of talent, and hence the teacher must be satisfied to 
allow some to learn what others have found out. The common mistakes of over- 
burdening the mind with positive knowledge, and of too mucli system in teach- 
ing, are to be avoided, as both are injurious to mental development. The teacher 
must be able to make his subject interesting, and, therefore, should know how to 
communicate it without a book, and to elicit the knowledge of his pupil by proper 
questions. It is the mental activity of the pupil which will determine the meas- 
ure of his success in after life ; and hence this activity, rather than positive 
knowledge, should be looked to as the object of the instruction at school. 

In regard to thjs last-named principle, although I consider it applicable, in a 
great degree, in elementary education, yet it appears to me that exception must 
be made of the cases of pupils who intend to enter active life on leaving the 
school, and to whom, therefore, the knowledge which they will have immediate 
occasion to use, should be imparted, to render their education effective. lu 
general, where the mind may be cultivated by different studies, choice should be 
made of those most likely to be applied by the individual in his future career, 
especially if his education is necessarily to terminate before he can have time to 
master the complete circle. 

RELiGiotis Instruction. 
Class VI. Four hours per week. Narration by the teacher of stories from the Old Testament, in 

the words of the Bible, repeated by the pupils. Easy verses learned by heart. 
Class v. Four hours. Stories from the gospels, except the latlsr portion of the Life of Christ. 

Church songs and Bible verses learned. 
Class IV. Three hours. The Old Testament in a more connected form. The moral of the history 

is impressed upon the children. The Ten Commandments and chui'ch songs com- 
mitted to memory. 
Class III. Two hours. The life and doctrines of Christ, to the period of his imprisonment. 

Chui-ch history. Four weeks are set apart for learning the geography of Palestine. 
Class II. Two hours. The Protestant catechism committed to memory and explained. Church 

songs and verses committed. 
Class I. Two hours. A compendium of the history of the Christian Church, particularly after the 

apostolic age. Histoiy ol the Reformation. Review of the Bible. Committing to 

memory psalms and hymns, continued. 

German Languaqe. 
Class VI. Four hours. Exercises of speech. Stories narrated to the children and repeated by 

them. After learning to write, these stories are written upon the slate. 
Class V. Four hours. Exercises in orthography. Etymology begun. 
Claa« IV. Four hours. Exercises in orthography and style. Every week a short composition is 

written on some subject which has been narrated. 



SEMINARY SCHOOL OF BERLIN. 129 

Class ni. Grammar continued. 

Class IL Four hours. Original compositions, whicii are corrected during the recitations. Syntax 
commenced. 

Class L Three houis. Compositions on iiistoiical subjects. Essays written at home, and cor- 
rected in the class-room. Synta.K continued. 

Latin Language. 

Class IV. Three hours. Declensions of nouns, adjectives, and pronouns learned. Examples 
learned by heart, and otliers written as an exercise at home. Auxiliary verbs con- 
jugated. 

Class III. Four houi-s. Comparison of adjectives. Regular verbs conjugated. 

Class II. Four hours. Irretcular verbs. Syntax begun. Translation from Latin into German. 

Class I. Six hours. Grammar continued. Written exercises at home and in the class. Every 
four weeks an extempore exercise is written, which the teachers correct out of school 
hours. Cornelius Nepos read and construed. 

French Language. 
Class ni. Three hours. Exercises in reading. Elements of grammar. Words learned by heart. 

Easy exercises written at home and in school hours. 
Class II. Four hours. Regular and irregular verbs learned. Syntax. Translations from French 

into German. Words learned by rote. 
Chiss I. Four hours. Written exercises of increased difficulty. Tables dictated and learned by 

heart. Voltaire's Charles XII. read. 

Arithmetic. 

Class VI. Four hours. Practical arithmetic. The fundamental operations taught with numbers 
from one to one hundred ; first mentally, then with blocks, and afterward with 
figures. Exercises prepared at home twice a week. 

Class V. Four hours. The four ground rules continued, with numbere as high as one thousand. 
Exercisi'S in readini; and wriliug large numbers. .Mental arithmetic especially prac- 
ticed. Addition and subtraction of abstract numbers. 

Class IV. Four hours. Addition and subtraction revised. Multiplication and division of abstract 
numbers. Weights and measures explained. 

Class III. Four hours. The lour ground rules, with fractions. 

Class II. Three hours. Revision of the above. Rule of three. 

Class I. Three hours. In the firet year practical arithmetic finished. Proportions and decimal 
fractions. Elements ot algebra. WentiU algebra. 

Geometry. 

Class IV. Two hours. The essential preparatory exercises in form, in connection with drawing. 
Rudiments explained. 

Class III. Two hours. Praclice in the position of points, drawing of lines, angles, plane figures, 
representations of solids. 

Class II. Two houi?. Elements ol geometry proper, the point, line, angles, triangles, and meas- 
ures of straight lines, surfaces, and contents. 

Class I. Two hours. Plane geometry completed, with practical exercises. 'Every alternate si* 
months lessons in physics are given. 

Natural History. 
Class II. Two hours. In the summer term, study of certain classes of plants. In the winter term, 

of animals The subject is iluislraled by drawings. 
Class I. Two hours. .Systematic botany during the winter term, and zoology and mineralogy 

duriug the winter. 

Geography. 

Class III. Two hours. Knowledge of home. Berlin and its environs. Regency of Potsdam. 
Province of Brandenburgh. Necessary technical terms explained, as horizontal, ver- 
tical, &c. 

Class II. Two hours. Geography of Prussia and Germany. 

Class I. Two hours. General geography, particularly Europe and America. Asia more generally. 
Africa and Australia very briefly. 

History. 

Class II. Two hours. View of universal his'ory, biographical rather than chronological. 

Class L Two hours. First year universal history completed. Secondyear the history of Germany, 
and particularly of Prussia. The most important inventions and discoveries ara 
noticed in coimection with the history of these countries. ' 

Reading. 

Class VI. Seven hours. Reading by the phonic (lautir) method. Analysis of words in regard to 
division into syllables and sounds. 

Class V. Seven houi-s. Mechanical reading continued, but with reference to the meaning of the 
words. The pupils are examined upon words, sentences, and paragraphs. 

Class IV. Four hours. Explanatory reading continued. Accentuation. No piece is allowed to 
be read without its being understood. 

Class III. Two hours. Rythmical reading befjun. Interesting portions of the matter read, nar- 
rated by the pupils in their own words. 

Class II. Two hours. Rythmical reading continued. 

Class I. Two hours. Reading of some of the German classics. Analysis of the subject read. 

9 



130 



SEMINARY SCHOOL OF BERLIN. 



Writing. 

Class VI. Five hours. Litroductory exercises of drawiiis; upon the slate. Ckipyin? the small let- 
ters Irom the blackboard. Writing on paper. Capital letters. Written exercises at 
home twice a week. 

Class V. Five hours. Writing of German characters continued. Roman letters begun. Copying 
Jrom a book at home, with special reference to ortliogiaphy. 

Class IV, Four ii ours. Writing in German and Roman characters continued. Two hours copy- 
ing from copy^sllps. Two hours writing Irom dictation. 

Class III, Three hours. Exercises of Class IV. continued. Pupils who write well are allowed to 
write without lines. Writing without copies, according to pri>gress. 

Class II, Two hours. Exercises continued. Most of the pupils write without lines, or by direct- 
ing points merely. 

Class I. The written exercises in other departments are «(amined, to ascertain the character of 
the handwriting. No special lessons are given. 

Drawing. 

Class IV. Two hours. Drawing straight lines in various directions and of various lengths. Mak- 
ing definite angles. Drawing triangles, squares, and other rectilinear ligui'es. 

Class III. Two hoiirs. Drawing of circles and ovals. 

Class II. Two hours. Drawing of bodies bounded by planes and straight lines in perspective. 
Drawing of curves. 

Class I. Drawing from natmal objects, from plaster casts, and models. 

Singing. 
Class IV. Two hours suffice to learn fifteen or twenty songs, of one or two verses, by note, and 

some ten choral songs. 
Class III. Two hours. Songs with two parts continued. Chorals with one voice. 
Class II. Two hours. Songs with two or three voices continued. 
Class I. Two hours. Songs and chorals with three or foiu- parts. 

Once during the morning there is an interval for recreation in the court-yard 
of the school, and the pupils are directed in their exercises of marching and 
count er-inarclting. and the like, by one of tho teachers. 

The course marked out in the foregoing programme, as far as it extends, seems 
to me well adapted to educate the moral and intellectual faculties, as well as 
the senses ; to give mental vigor^ while it ftu-nislies information useful to the 
pupil ill after life. 

There are peculiarities in regard to the religious instruction, even as intended 
for Protestants, which may be remarked in the fifth and third classes, the object 
of which I do not understand. In other respects, wlien sectarian instruction 
may be given, as in this school, where all the pupils are of one denomination, the 
course appears to be good. The manner of communicating the instriiction by 
conversation and lectures, renders it very effective. Tliere are in all the classes, 
taken togetlier, twenty-two hours per week devoted to religious instruction 
here, and eighteen in the other, but the programme does not show a gain in the 
amount of knowledge communicated. 

The course in the motlier tongue is fully explained in the progi-amme, and is 
well adapted to produce fluency and accuracy of expression in conversation and 
writing. Both this and the foregoing course extend, as they should, through all 
the classes. 

The Latm language is introduced with a view to preparation for a gymnasium, 
in the nomenclature of natural history, the business of the chemist and druggist, 
and perhaps, to use the language of an accomplished teacher in one of the higlier 
town schools, " because such always has been the custom," I would give the 
preference to the course of this school over that of the other, considering the 
time of twenty seven liours devoted to it more appropriate than of thirty, as in 
the other. 

The. French, besides, combining with the German and Latin to give the due 
proportion of intellectual culture from language, is introductory to the courses 
m the real schools, whicli are parallel with the gymnasia, and prepare for the 
polytechnic or other special schools, as the latter do for the university. It is 
practically useful, too, to the shopkeeper and tradesman of the continent of 
Europe, and was, probably, formerly more so than at present. The Latin language 
is begun in tlie fourth class, or at about eight years of age, and the French lan- 
guage in the third class, but neither occupy more than three hours a week, until 
a year afterward. These languages occupy forty -seven hours per week, during 
the entire period through which they are taught. 

Nothing can be better than the fomidation laid for arithmetic. The pupils are 



• SEMINARY SCHOOL OF BERLIN. 131 

engaged a year in practical arithmetic before they are introduced to a knowl- 
edge of abstract numbers. Habits of thought are given by simple exercises in 
mental arithmetic. The eye is enlisted to aitl the mind by computing with cubes, 
according to the method in the schools of Holland. Written aritlmietic relieves 
the mental exertion, aids the memory, and trains the hand. The course is then 
carried on, combining mental and written arithmetic, and reachmg algebra, which 
is also, in part, taught mentally. 

The course of geometry begins with ideas of form, in connection with drawing, 
according to Pestalozzi's method, which it follows in general. It is thus a pow- 
erful means of stimulating tlie mind, and, though the time occupied is greater 
than if the subject were tuuglit in the ordinary way, the results are mucli more 
satisfactory. If there is latent niathematical talent in a pupil, his powers of 
invention cannot fail to be drawn out by this method. 

Natural history is not left to incidental instruction, to be derived from the 
reading-book, but is directly taught in the last two years. I had not the oppor- 
tunity of judging of the fruits of this instruction in the seminary school itself, but 
the pupils of the seminary were pursuing the subject with zeal. In comparing 
this course with that of the other school, I think it preferable, except in the 
omission, at the beginning, of an accomit of the domestic animals. There will be, 
I doubt not, great improvements in teaching this branch at a future day. At 
present, the plan is hardly formed, and the collections for illustration, where they 
exist at all, are, in general, quite small. There is, besides, a tendency to make 
the course too strictly scientific. 

The system of instruction in geography is begun in the third class, or at nine 
years of age, with a description of home. History, which in its elements is com- 
bined with geograpliy, takes a separate place in the second class. The pi-actice 
of giving biographical sketches instead of mere chronological details, cannot be 
tt)o much commended. The pupil learns with interest the events of the lives of 
men who iiave made an impression upon the age in which they lived ; these 
events form an outline which is easily fixed in the mind, and may subsequently 
be tilled up in detail. Agam, the discussions of inventions and discoveries in 
art or science afford relief from the descriptions of battles and revolutions, and 
serve to show the influence of genius exerted in civil life. 

The phonic method of teaching to read, wants only the use of words having a 
meaning, as in Mr. Wood's system, to be nearly perfect. No reading is allowed, 
however, without understanding not only the words, but their connection, and 
the ideas conveyed by the sentences. The habit of thus giving paraphrases of 
subjects, leads to facility of expression, and by combining this with copying from 
good models, a correct .style is formed. The course of reading of the highest 
class, includes selections from the German classics. Introductory exercises in 
drawing precede the instruction in writing ; these might, I have no doubt, be 
much further extended with advantage.* A good handwriting is produced by 
the succession of exercises described in the progranmie. The course of drawing, 
whicli is commenced as a distinct branch in the fourth class, is intended to enable 
the pupil to sketch correctly, and with facility, such objects of furniture, ma- 
chinery, (fee, as he may have occasion to represent in liis occupations in after Ufe. 
The addition of two hours of drawing in the fifth class, would seem to me not to 
overburden the class with work, while it would add materially to their profi- 
ciency in this useful branch. 

Singing is successfully taught, and b}- note. It is considered an indispensable 
branch of mstruction. and all my convictions are in its favor, whether as a means 
of developing moral sentiment, or of physical education. Singing by ear might, 
however, very well begin in the lower classes, and for this purpose the numlaer 
of hours of instruction per week might be increased from twenty-four to twenty- 
six in the lowest, and twenty-eight in the fifth class. 

The time allotted to the different studies will appear better by the annexed 
table. In regard to the ages of the pupils, inserted in the heading of the columns, 
it is to be understood that they are those of intelligent and mdustrious boys 
eutermg at six years, and going regularly through the classes. The subjects of 

• As has been done for the elements of an English hand, by our countryman, Mr. Rembrandt 
Peale, in his admirable system of graphics. The forms of the German letters would require a 
different system. 



132 



SEMINARY SCHOOL OF BERLIN. 



instruction are placed in the first column, the number of hours per week occupied 
by the several classes in the following ones, and the total number of hours de- 
voted to each subject, while in the school, in the lust column. In forming this 
total, the number of hours occupied by the four lower classes, the course in each 
of which is of one year, is reckoned once ; and the number of hours of the two 
upper classes, each course occupying two years, is doubled. 

Table of distribution of time in the Royal Smninary School of Berlin. 



SUBJECTS OF INSTRUCTION. 



Keligious Instructiuii 
German Language . . . 

Eeading 

Latin Language 

French Language. . . . 

Arithmetic 

Geometry 

Natural History 

Geography 

History 

Writing 

Drawing 

Singing 



NUMBER OF HOURS PER WEEK. 



2 32 26 24 24 



From this table it appears that language occupies one hundred and five hours, 
estimating the time devoted to reading with that for German, Latin, and French, 
science sixty-four hours, and the mechanical branches, including writing, drawing, 
and singing, forty-three. It would be erroneous, however, to suppose that the 
results are in these proportions. Tlie least consideration will show that the pro- 
gress in different branches in the same school cannot be estimated by tlje time 
devoted to them ; the intrinsic difficulties of acquisition, the different periods of 
the course at which they are introduced, and various otlier causes, prevent com- 
parisons of this sort. Not only so, but the time occupied in the same subjects in 
diflerent schools, which might be thought to aflbrd an accurate test of C(jiupara- 
tive progress in them, can not, in reality, be employed for this purpose, without at 
the same time carefully studying the programmes, to ascertain how the time is 
applied in each class, and the manner in which it is distributed among the several 
classes. The two higher city schools just described, afi'ord conclusive evidence 
of this fact. There can be no doubt, I think, that the Dorothean school is the 
stronger in language, and the seminary school in science. Such is the general 
reputation of the two, and such is the tone which the director of eaeh would be 
likely to give to the school under his charge. The impression which I derived 
from visiting the two establishnients was to the same effect. The number ol hours 
per week devoted to language in all the classes of the two schools is, however, 
ninety-eight for the first, and one hundred and five for the second, and to science, 
ejghty-two for the former and si.vty-four for the latter ; leading, in both eases, to 
tiie reverse of the conclusion just stated. If differences in the arrangement of 
studies, in the power of the teachers, in the metliods and implements of instruc- 
tion, and even in the pupils themselves, may lead to such results, small differences 
in the proportion of time allotted to different branches should not, without care- 
fully checking their results by other comparisons, be assumed to indicate corres- 
ponding differences in the value of the courses. 

In following the course of studies of these two schools, it will be seen that those 



* This includes preparatory geometrical exercises. 



SEMINARY SCIIOOI, AT WEISSENFELS. J33 

of the lowest class, in each, are almost identical. In the next, the seminary school 
has greatly the advantage in the compactness of arrangement, by which the atten- 
tion of the pupil is confined to fewer subjects. No less than ten branches are 
introduced into the prograunne of this class in the Dorothean school, while there 
are but five in the seminary school. The scientific branches, except those which 
run through all the years, are introduced later in the latter school, which is in 
accordance with the principle of concentrating the attention on a few subjects, 
where it is possible. It appears to me that, in general, it is not proper to introduce 
these branches early, except as matters of incidental instruction. The separation 
of the programmes of the two schools, produced as just stated, renders it difficult 
briefly to compare the courses of the same class in each. A general comparison 
of the subjects shows that the German language is taught according to the same 
plan in each, and that the highest class attains the same level in each, as far as 
the grammar is concerned ; much more attention, however, is paid in the seminary 
school to the reading courses, as well for the acquisition of reading as an art, and 
to cultivate a taste for it. as for the incidental knowledge to be communicated. 
Nearly one fourth of the pupil's time, in the school just named, is devoted to the 
vernacular. The Latin is begun in the same class in both schools, but the course 
in the Dorothean school at once takes the lead of the other, and keeps it through- 
out. The French begins in the fifth class in one school, and in the third in the 
other ; and, though the programmes terminate at about the same point, there is a 
greater proficiency made in the Dorothean school. One object, if not the princi- 
pal one, of learning this language being to speak it, the early commencement is 
an advantage. In a general comparison of progress in language, the Dorothean 
school, as already stated, ranks higher than the other. 

The courses of arithmetic are different, but terminate at the same level ; I have 
already mentioned my preference for the course of the seminary. Geometry is 
begun in the fifth class in the Dorothean, and in the fourth in the seminary school ; 
the courses go on together for three classes, and extend further in the latter insti- 
tut'on. The differences in the courses of natural history have already been the 
subject of remark. The course of geography is essentially the same, differing only 
in the age of the pupil at beginning. History is begun in the fourth class of the 
Dorothean, and in the second in the seminary school ; it is more systematic in the 
former, and assumes more the form of biograpliy in the latter ; the range of the 
two courses does not differ essentially. Taking these branches, classed as scien- 
tific, together, the superiority is with the seminary school, and thus, in both this 
and the former case, the judgment which would have been pronounced by refer- 
ring to the numbers merely, is reversed. 

SEMINARY SCHOOL AT WEISSENFELS. 

The Dorothean and Seminary school are described by Dr. Bache as 
characteristic specimens of the higher burgher school of Prussia. In 
the same connection he introduces the two following schools, the Sem- 
inary school at Weissenfels as representing, not a burgher school as it 
is denominated, but as covering the ground of a well organized ele- 
mentary school for a village, and the higher burgher school of Pots- 
dam, as carrying elementary instruction into the domain of secondary 
education. 

This is a higher elementary, or lower burgher school, attached to the seminary 
for teachers at Weissenfels, and is under the charge of the director of the semin- 
ary. The school is intended not only for the benefit of the citizens of Weissen- 
fels, but also as a model school, in which the pupils of the seminary may reduce 
to practice, under the eye of their teachers, the lessons of theory in the art of 
teaching, which forms an important part of the course of the seminary. 

The school has four hundred pupils, male and female. They are divided into 
five classes, in the three lower of which the two sexes receive instruction in com- 
mon, being separated in the highest. Each class averages thus eighty under the 
charge of one master, who ie, however, assisted by the pupils of the seminary. 



134 



SEMINARY SCHOOL AT WEISSENFEL8. 



Tho following table shows the subjects of instruction, and the amount of time 
devoted to each. The whole course usually lasts seven years, when the pupil 
enters at the age of six or seven. 

TABLE OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF TIME IN THE SEMINARY SCHOOL AT WEIS8ENFEL8. 



ircMBER or Houas psr wkek. 



StJBJipCTS OF rasTRuenoN. 



Religious Instruction, 

German Language, 

Reading, 

Inductive Exercises, 

Arithmetic, 

Geometry, 

Geography, History, Natural History, &c.,. 

Writing, , 

Drawing, 

Singing, 



Total, 



34 
21 
25 

1 
28 

6 
17 
30 
11 
17 



30 26 26 26 



The religious instruction consists in the narration of Bible stories, and in 
pointing out the appropriate moral ; in Bible history in a more connected form ; 
in learning Luther's catechism, and committing parts of the Bible to memory. 
The pupils are also expected to give an account of the Sunday's sermon. The 
study of German includes the grammar. There are exercises specially of orthog- 
raphy and syntax in the upper classes. Poetry is also com.mitted to memory. 

The elements or reading and writing are taught together according to Dr. 
Harnisch's method. § In the upper classes, the reading lessons are intended not 
only to give fluency in the art of reading, but also incidental instruction in gram- 
mar and general knowledge . 

Direct exercises of induction are in use only in the lowest class. 

The instruction in arithmetic, extends through fractions ; mental arithmetic 
preceding written through all the rules. That of geometry, consists merely of 
the elements of form, according to Pestalozzi. 

Under geography and history are included both physical and political geogra- 
phy and biography. With the physical geography is interwoven an account of 
the productions of nature and art of different countries. In the summer, the 
pupils are made acquainted with the botany of the environs, and in winter receive 
lessons upon animals, &c. 

Writing on paper is a matter of privilege attainable by those who improve suf- 
ficiently. The others write on slates. The first lessons in drawing are introduc- 
tory to wTiting ; afterwards it is made a separate branch. 

The higher classes learn music by note, and sing twice a week in company 
with the pupils of the normal school. The violin is used in leading the class 
singing exercises. 

The discipline and instruction are admirable. The teachers have little occa- 
sion to use punishment. The instruction is chiefly given viva voce, and the 
pupils in general appear interested in their studies. A book is kept for the 
record of delinquences, which is examined by one of the superior masters once a 
week, and notice taken of the faults recorded. The director examines it once a 
month, and admonishes those who need it. Corporal punishment is resorted to 
only in extreme cases. 



• This column is calculated on the supposition that the pupil remains in the school from 
six until thirteen years of age, passing through the lowest class in one year, and each of the 
others in two years. . . ,, x. t i. 

+ As the instruction in writing and reading is combined, 1 have placed half of the numlier 
of hours under each head. 

} Of these eight hours, three are combined, reading and writing, and two copying. 

S See page 200. 



HIGHER BURGHER SCHOOL OF POTSDAM. 



135 



The two schools first described, will be found to vary very considerably in 
their arrangements from this one, forming the opposite extreme as it were, of the 
class, but a connecting link will be supplied by the burgher school of Potsdam, 
which is intended to cover the ground occupied by both divisions. 

HIGHER BURGHER SCHOOL OF POTSDAM. 

This school differs from those already described in several particulars, exempli- 
fying, in its arrangements, the division into lower and higher burgher schools, and 
carrying the courses of the latter decidedly into the domain of secondary instruc- 
tion. Its principal objects are to prepare children of both sexes for occupations 
connected with, or corresponding to, the lower trades, and boys for the higher 
mechanical occupations, as builders, architects, &c., or for admission into the trade 
school connected with the government, mechanics', or trade institute at Berlin, 
and for the gymnasium. This school thus supplies instruction of different grades ; 
first, elementary instruction of a higher kind ; second, that usually given in the 
" real schools" of Prussia, and third, that necessary fur entrance into the higher 
classes of a gymnasium, or grammar school. Hence its studies embrace many 
subjects and stages of progress which properly belong to secondary instruction, 
and even to a greater degree than other higher burgher schools. 

The pupils pursue a course common to all in the three lower classes, or from 
about six to eleven or twelve years of age, when a separation takes place. Those 
who are to leave school at thirteen or fourteen, pass into the " middle burgher 
school class,'- in which the study of Latin and French is dropped, and the time is 
devoted to religious instruction, German, mathematics, geography and history, the 
elements of natural history, technology and physics, writing, drawing, and vocal 
music. Those pupils who are preparing for a higher class of a gymnasium, or 
who intend to pursue the entire course here, pass from the third class to the 
"second burgher school class." These arrangements appear to meet the wants 
of the citizens of Potsdam, for, in 1837, forty-two pupils passed from the third 
class to the middle burgher school class, and forty-one to the second class of the 
higher school. 

Pupils preparing for the sixth class of a gymnasium leave this school in the 
" second elementary class," or at about nine or ten years of age, and those who 
aim at the third class of a gymnasium, usually pass from this at the close of the 
course of the second class in the higher school. The first, or upper class, thus 
contain only those pupils who intend to enter into active business life on leaving 
the school, or to enter a special school of arts and trades. On this account, the 
branches of science which are immediately applicable to such objects, are intro- 
duced into the course. This class consisted, in 1837, of ten pupils. The complete 
course is usually gone through at or before sixteen years of age, and entitles the 
pupil to claim one year of voluntary military service, instead of the three regular 
years, and qualifies him for appointment in the government bureaux. 

The six boys' and three girls' classes have twelve ordinary teachers, besides one 
assistant, and two female teachers. Each of the lower classes has but one teacher, 
who attends to all the subjects as in the other schools already described. The 
total number of pupils was, in 1837, four hundred and fifty-six, of whom three 
hundred and twenty-three were boys. 

The usual system of change of place in the classes is employed to excile emula- 
tion, and discipline is mainly conducted by means of a black-book in which a 
pupil's name is entered at the end of the week or month, when he has had a cer- 
tain number of faults per week, or per month, marked against him by the teacher. 
Marks of merit are allowed to cancel those of demerit. The entry is communi- 
cated to the pupil's comrades, and also to his parents. As far as I have been able 
to judge of these and similar systems of discipline in day schools, I have not found 
any marked good effects from them. If a teacher is competent, he keeps up good 
discipline without them, and if he is not, they are of little or no service to him. 
In this remark I do not mean to include communications to parents, which are 
frequently of the greatest utility. The following plan, which apparently bears 
some analogy to this, but which owes its efficacy to a different principle, is in suc- 
cessful operation in Dr. Mayo's excellent boarding school at Cheam, in Surrey, 
England. When a pupil proves insensible to the admonitions of the teacher, and 



136 



HIGHER BURGHER SCHOOL OF POTSDAM. 



is frequently reported for oifenses or negligence, he is required to show to tho 
principal a written statement of character from each master after every hour, lie 
is thus subjected to admonition or other punishment from the principal immedi- 
ately after committing an offense. For this very strict supervision, one extending 
over a day or week is substituted when improvement manifests itself, or when the 
case does not require so great severity. 

I propose now to give a statement of the courses of the burgher school at Pots- 
dam, and of the time required for their completion, with remarks and comparisons 
with the schools already described. 

The annexed plan of the distribution of time gives also a list of the subjects of 
instruction : it is arranged exactly like the similar ones already presented. The 
first two columns of figures on the left hand refer to the number of hours of study 
per week in the two classes of the higher school. The third contains those of 
the middle burgher school class, the pupils in which terminate their course here. 
The next three contain the hours of study of the elementary classes, which are 
common to the whole school. 



TABLE OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF TIME OF THE HIGHER BURGHER SCHOOL OF 

POTSDAM. 



STTBJrCTS 

OF 

DTSTHlreTIOK. 


1 i 

2 
3 

6 
4 
3 
2 

2 
2 
2 
2 
4 
2 
2 
2 

38 


lis 

a ^ 
o ° 

J a 

2 
3 

6 
4 
3 

2 

2 
2 
2 

2 

2 
2 
2 

34 


•^ a' 

3 a.>, 

=5gi 
s s 

2 

6 

. 3 

4 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 

2 

3 

2 
2 

34 


ii» 

.§ ■« 

o 

3 

5* 

3 

4 

2 

4 

2 
2 
1 

3 

2 
2 

34 


b i 

ul 

W5^ 

1 1 

3 

5* 

4 

4 

1 

4 

2§ 

2 

1 

3 

2 
31 


lis 

w5 X 

•o t- 
.£: -TS 

H 1 

2 

6t 
6 

4 

^ 

2 

4 

2 

28 


24 
44 
26 
40 
22 
36 
18 
16 
14 
10 
4 
8 
8 
28 
12 
20 


Religious Instruction, 


German Language 


Readmg, 


Latin, 


French, 


Arithmetic, 


Geometry, 


Natural History, 


Geography 


_-. o ^ J ' 

History, 


Technology 


Pltysics, . 


Chemistry, 


Writing, 


Drawing, 


Singing, 





Besides the branches taught in the burgher schools already described, we have 
in this one technology, physics, and chemistry, and the number of hours attached 
to them in the foregoing table shows that they are actually taught to a considera- 
ble extent. These subjects are introduced, and at the same time the amount of 
study in the languages is increased, requiring an undue degree of labor of the 
classes, and dividing their attention among too many subjects. Thirty-eight hours 
of attendance on school per week is certainly too much to require. 



* Includes orthography, 2 hours ; grammar, 2 hours ; exercises of style, 1 hour. 

t Includes exercises of memory, 2 hours. 

t I'reparalory exercises. 

§ Elements of form. 

H The column of totals refers to the regular progression of five classes, and is obtained by 
doubling the numbers here given for the three elementary' and two upper burgher school 
olaEses. 



HIGHER BURGHER SCHOOL OF POTSDAM. 13 Y 

Latin is begun in the second elementarj* class, where the first rudiments of 
grammar are learned, and easy sentences translated. This course is oonlinued in 
the next class. Those vvlio intend to leave the school in the middle burgher school 
class, may be excused from attending the Latin lessons in the first. 

The second class of the higher school read Cornelius Nepos, and the first Cassar 
and Ovid. Their proficiency did not, however, seem to me to correspond at all 
with the number of hours devoted to this branch, viz., forty. The object of this 
instruction, for those who do not go to the gymnasium, is stated to be to enable 
them to pursue the science necessary to their calliiigs, without embarrassment 
from the terms. I am of opinion that, in such a case, the system pursued in Mr. 
Wood's school, applied to learning the etymology of compound Latin words, and 
of the German words derived from the Latin, would answer the end better, with 
a less consumption of time; and if Latin is to be retained, the number of hours 
devoted to it in the Dorothean school, (thirty) or in the seminary school, (twenty- 
seven) seem much better suited to the object in view. I am induced to what may 
seetn a tedious discussion of these programmes, because they afford different exam- 
ples of primary instruction, the grade with which our college must begin, and we 
can not examine too carefully the subjects which should compose it, nor draw too 
largely upon experience in the details of arrangement. 

French. This course does not differ materially from those already given. Tele- 
machus is used as a text-book. The time appropriated to the language appears 
sufficient, without being burthensome. Both the Latin and French being com- 
menced in the second elementary class, which contains pupils who intend to leave 
school at the end of the " middle burgher school class year," it may be supposed 
that this time is thrown away, as very little proficiency can be made in so short a 
period ; the force of this objection is, however, somewhat diminished by the fact, 
that tiie arrangement gives an opportunity for the development of a disposition for 
language whiefi may warrant a change in the destination of the pupil. 

In arithmetic, the lovvest chiss is employed mainly in the mental exercises. 
After they have learned to make figures, they prepare written examples at home. 
Ill the next class, written arithmetic is combined with mental. The four ground 
rules are learned with abstract and concrete numbers. P'reparatory exercises in 
fractions are taught. The first elementary class proceed as far as to include frac- 
tions, and a part of the class study proportions. The middle burgher school class 
pjvss on to decimal fractions and the square and cube root. The second burgher 
school class have their attention in these same parts of arithmetic directed to the 
technical applications, and besides, begin algebra, and proceed as far as simple 
equations. The first burgher school class extend their course of algebra through 
equations of the second and third degrees, progressions, and logarithms. Mer- 
cantile arithmetic also forms part of their course. These latter subjects, however, 
can in novvise be considered as belonging to primary instruction. 

Geometry. Preparatory exercises of form, after the method of Pestalozzi, are 
taught in the elementary classes, and the higher ones proceed through the ele- 
ments of geometry, and include mensuration and plane trigonometry. The head 
master has arranged, for the benefit of his pupils, a course containing the most 
important elements, and teaches also by lectures, which the pupils are required 
to write out. The time allotted to this subject is nearly double that of the semi- 
nary school, and I saw some reason to doubt the propriety of beginning the ele- 
mentary exercises so early. 

Knowledge of nature and art. The introduction to this subject, taught in the 
lowest two classes, is drawn from natural history, physical geography, and physics, 
and is made the means of inductive exei'cise. The recitations and conversation 
lectures which I heard, evidently interested the pupils, while they cultivated 
habits of reflection and observation. They are parallel with the lessons on 
objects of the English schools, being, however, more extended. The more s}-s- 
tematic course of natural history of the higher classes, is like that of the seminary 
school. In summer the pupils make occasional excursions into the country, for 
practical exercise in this branch, under charge of a teacher ; these excursions, if 
rightly improved, may be made also the means of cultivating proper relations 
between the pupil and teacher, but they are liable to abuse, and should be care- 
fully attended to, in order to prevent such result?. This school possesses a good 



138 HIGHER BURGHER SCHOOL OF POTSDAM. 

collection of plates of natural history,* and has the use of the museum of the trade 
school, which is under its roof 

The course of technology, intended to give a knowledge of the principal arts 
and their processes, lies open to the objection already urged, on the score of over- 
burthening the pupils with work. Such knowledge, as well as that of physics 
and chemistry, would be of service in after-life, but I do not see the possibility of 
teaching it, except in a mere outline, in a short course, and the time allotted 
appears to contemplate something more. 

Geography. This course is begun with physical geography. The natural and 
artificial divisions of the world follow. Then the physical and political geography 
of Europe is taken up. The course of the upper or middle burgher school class 
terminates with that of Germany, and especially of the Mark of Brandenburgh, 
and with a review of the whole. The second burgher school class has the same 
course with the middle cl;iss. The first takes up mathematical geography, and 
reviews physical geography more minutely', adding a knowledge of the climate, 
productions, commerce, manufactures, &e., of the countries studied. Maps are 
drawn, as an exercise, at home. This geogi'aphical course, which attaches every 
other part of the information to physical geography, appeared to me next in its 
success to the inductive plan already described. It is much facilitated by the use 
of raised maps, on which the natural features of the country strike the eye more 
forcible than on a common map, where, if the physical details are given, the names 
and positions of the places, the boundaries, &c., are obscured by them. 

The course of history, in the lower classes, is like that in the other schools. 
In the middle class the subject is reviewed, and the history of Germany, and 
especially that of Prussia, and of the Mark of Brandenburgh is studied. The 
second higher burgher school class is taught an outline of ancient history, of that 
of the middle ages, and of later times, and then proceeds to the history of Ger- 
many and of Brandenburgh. In the first class, the history of Germany, and of 
modern Europe in general, is continued. 

In the mechanical branches, the distribution of time agrees with that in the 
other schools, except in the number of hours allotted to writing, which is here 
twenty-eight, and in the Dorothean school but sixteen. Vocal music is taught 
by ear in the lower classes, and by note in the upper. 

Physical education. There is an interval of a quarter of an hour in the middle 
of the morning, during which the pupils are free to take exercise, but there is no 
regular gymnastic or other exercise under the superintendence of the teachers. 

It is obvious from what has been presented, that the elementary instruction 
requires raising to a higher level than at present, namely, to that of which an 
example has been given in the higher elementary school of Weissenfels. That 
then all pupils whose circumstances permit them to devote a longer time to edu- 
cation should pass to other schools, of a kind depending upon their destination in 
after-life, as determined by the circumstances of their parents and their own 
talents. The tone of these higher schools would, it appears, require to be varied 
according to the wants of the population among which they are placed, whether 
that of the country, of small towns, or of cities. In the cities, it has been seen 
that one class of burgher schools required is provided, and others will be described 
belonging more properly to a higher grade of instruction, upon the province 
of which, however, these latter decidedly trench. An example of a systematic 
arrangement appropriate to a city is afforded by the burgher school of Leipsic, 
presently to be described. Such a plan would, however, be inappropriate to a 
small town, where, of necessity, several schools must be united in one. In this 
case, it would require care to avoid the union of incompatible classes of pupils, 
causing mutual losses of time, and giving rise to defective habits of study. The 
same teachers should give instruction in the different departments of the school, 
in the same or kindred subjects, rather than to miite different classes. The pupil 
preparing for the gj'mnasium should not be called upon to study the natural 
sciences or mathematics which he will pursue there, and of which he does not 
feel the want for admission, nor the student who is to enter an architectural, 
commercial, or trade school, the classics which the gj^mnasial student requires for 
his admission. 

* Bv Fisher of BrealaW. 



SECONDARY INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 



139 



The subjects and methods of instruction thus far described, belong 
avowedly and appropriately to the department of primary schools. 
Those, which follow, aim first, to prepare pupils for the university, and 
subsequently for the professions of law, medicine, theology, or public 
office ; and second, to engage in commerce, trade, architecture, engineer- 
ing, and other kinds of practical business. The schools, where these 
subjects are taught, belong to the departments of secondary and special 
instruction. They are introduced here as examples of courses of study 
which should be provided in all our large cities, in independent schools, 
or as part of our plan of public high schools. We introduce an account 
of the Frederick William Gymnasium, with the following summary of the 
system of secondary instruction in t'russia by Dr. Bache. in his report. 

The immediate authority superintending secondary instruction is the 
school board (schul-coilegium) of the province in which the gymnasium 
is situated. This school board is a branch of the provincial consistory, 
of which the chief magistrate of the province, the higher president 
(ober-president.) is the head. One of the councillors of the ministry of 
puplic instruction, at Berlin, is specially charged with the concerns of all 
the gymnasia, and is the channel through wliich the provincial autlior- 
ities communicate with the ministry. The school board consists of tlie 
president and vice president of the provincial government, and of two 
school councillors, and holds its meetings in the chief town of the province. 
They regulate the details of instruction and discipline in the gymnasia, 
correspond with the directors, appoint the teachers, except the director, 
who is appointed by the minister, make visits of inspection, and attend 
the examinations, especially those for passing to the university, and 
authorize the books to be used in the school and placed in the library. 
The inspection of religious instruction belongs to the ecclesicastical func- 
tionaries of the Protestant and Ccifholic churches severally. The royal 
gymnasia are supported from the funds of the state and the payments 
of their pupils, and their receipts and expenditures' are under the 
charge of a special officer, or of the director. The funds of those which 
are otherwise endowed, are usually under the direction of a committee, 
or of one of the officers. In 1850, there were 117 gymnasia with l,6l34 
teachers and 29,474 pupils, and more than one hundred real schools 
and other schools of this grade, for special instruction tor particular 
departments of practical life. 

The following abstract of a series of regulations adopted by the cen- 
tral board in 1837, will give a good idea of the general organization of 
secondary instruction. 

The regulations embrace the following heads: 1. Admission of 
pupils. 2. Subjects of instruction. 3. Distribution of teachers and of 
the subjects of the lessons. 4. The number of hours of teaching. 5. 
Studies out of school hours. 6. Duration of the courses. 7. Remarks 
on the regulations tor the examinations. 8. Remarks on the supposed 
defects of teachers, methods of instruction, &c. 9. Physical education. 
10. Religious instruction. The following is an abstract of the remarks 
upon these subjects. 

1. Admission. Experience has fully proved that the admission of 
pupils at a very early age into the gymnasia is prejudicial to the indi- 
viduals themselves, as well as to the institutions. Neither the mental 
nor physical development, nor the attainment, at an early age, are ade- 
quate to the pursuit of the courses appropriate to a gj'mnasiura, and 
hence the admission of very young pupils induces an improper lower- 



140 SECONDARY INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 

ing of the standard of instruction in these estabhshments. The minis- 
try, therefore, recommends that pupils be not admitted at an earlier age 
than ten years, and that the following qualifications be required: 1. 
Facility in logical and rhythmical reading, both in German and Roman 
text, and the rudiments of grammar and orthographic writing. 2. 
Writing from dictation. 3. Practice in the four ground rules of arith- 
metic, with abstract numbers, and first principles of fractions. 4. Ele- 
ments of geography, particularly that of Europe. 5. Stories of the Old 
Testament, and hfe of Christ. 6. Elementary notions of drawing and 
of form. 

Two errors on the part of parents are pointed out by the ministry, 
the influence of whose advice is directed against them : The first is, that 
children of feeble bodily constitutions should be devoted to literary pur- 
suits; the second, that young men who have passed the appropriate 
age for instruction may be advantageously pushed into one of the 
learned protessions, even if they are required to teach in order to obtaiii 
the needful education. 

2. Subjects of instruction. As the ground work of higher instruction, 
the following subjects are recommended to be pursued in the gymnasia: 
1. Religious instruction. 2. German. 3. Latin. 4. Greek. 5. Math- 
ematics. 6. Physics. 7. Natural history. 8. Geography. 9. History. 
10. Writing. 11. Drawing. 12. Vocal music. Experience has shown 
that these subjects are particularly calculated to develop the intellect- 
ual powers, and to give a systematic and practical preparation lor the 
higher studies. 'J'he same can not be said of the Hebrew, the study of 
which is specially appropriate only to theologians. A knowledge of the 
French is not considered essential to the true purpose of a gymnasium. 
This language has been made a subject of public instruction on account 
of its uselulness in after-life, and not of its correctness or purity. \\ ith 
the exception of these two languages, the subjects enumerated above 
have always been taught in the gymnasia, though in variable propor- 
tions. No one of them could, with propriety, be omitted, and proposi- 
tions to that effect will receive no countenance. The ministry does not 
fear that injury will result to the menial or physical development of the 
pupils, by pursumg all the branches in their appropriate degree, bat 
teachers are cautioned against attempts to push one subject at the 
expense of another; being reminded that the course should be viewed 
as a whole, which must suffer by the unequal forcing of its parts. The 
directors of gymnasia are especially required to attend to this point, and 
the school boards are requested to relieve them from teaching, as far as 
may be necessary to the insj)ection thus required. 

If the subjects of instruction, as here laid down, be compared with 
those of the secondary schools of England, it will be found that what is 
there regarded as innovation, has been successl'ully used as the course 
of grammar school instruction in Germany. That the efficiency oi" the 
course is confirmed by long experience, and that the subjects are recom- 
mended, anew, as the future course of those institutions. While ancient 
letters are successfully cultivated, other subjects are not neglected, but 
their equal ia)portance with the former is clearly asserted, and as clearly 
proved by results. While the Germans have lost nothing in general 
literary culture by this system, they have gained much in other depart- 
ments of knowledge. 

The scholastic year is divided into two terms, or half years, at the 
close of each of which there is an examination. At the end of the 
second half year, the examinations for passing from one class to another 
are held. The usual vacations are two weeks at Easter, one at Whit- 
suntide, three in August, one at Michaelmas, and two at Christmas. 



SECONDARY INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. ^4^ 

3. Distribution of the teachers and of the subjects of instruction. 
There are, in general, six classes in a gymnasium, of which the lowest 
is called si.xth, and the highest first. To produce a harmony in ihe 
methods and degree of instruction, notwithstanding the variety of sub- 
jects taught, it has, for some time, been the custom in the Prussian 
gymnasia to assign several subjects of instruction to the same teacher, 
in the same class. This arrangement is confirmed in the document 
under discussion. It is recommended that similar subjects of instruction 
be classed together, to constitute a department, as, for example, German 
and Latin ; history, geography, and natural history ; and mathematics, 
and physics. That then the instruction of one or more classes, in one 
department, be consigned to one teacher; as the instruction of the lower 
classes in German and Latin; of the two middle classes in Latin. 
Greek, and French; of the two higher in German, Greek, and French; 
of the lower and middle classes in history and geography; of the higher 
classes in mathematics, physics, and mental philosophy. The number 
of teachers would thus be, in general, in a gymnasium of six classes, 
two for the two lower classes, three for the two middle, and four for the 
two higher classes. 

The ministry further recommend that kindred subjects he taught in 
different parts of the same term, rather than on different days of the 
same week, as geography at the beginning of a term, and history at the 
close ; a Latin and Greek prose author at the beginning of a term, and 
a poetical author at the close of the term, &c. 

With a view to induce teachers to take upon themselves the arduous 
duties of a department, or class teacher, as just explained, the school 
board are recommended to promote teachers according to merit, not cor\- 
fining their promotion to the institution in which they may be, but taking 
the entire range of the province. A promise is made by the ministry 
to pay strict attention to this rule, in promoting to vacant situations of 
directors of gymnasia. The class teachers are to have the title of 
"upper teachers," (ober-lehrer,) the others being designated simply as 
" teachers." 

It is obvious that very varied attainments are thus required of the 
regular, or class teachers, and that the difficulty of finding persons com- 
petent to discharge these duties, increases very much as the grade of 
instruction becomes more elevated. Hence the practice in the gymna- 
sia varies very materially from this recommendation. It is so desirable, 
in the higher classes, that the teacher should devote much time to his 
own improvement in the knowledge of his branch of instruction, and 
that he should have a strong taste for its cultivation, that in general it 
is found advisable to confine his attention to a single subject, or to sub- 
jects much nearer akin than those which are classed together in the 
enumeration just made. This is particularly the case in tiie mathe- 
matics, beyond the mere elements, the physics and physical geography, 
the natural history, the less elementary parts of drawing, and vocal 
music. In the case of the French language, a special teacher, from the 
very beginning, is absolutely necessary, if the instruction in it is to be 
any thing more than a matter of form. 

4. Number of hours of recitation. This is fixed at thirty-two per 
week; a number which experience has shown may with propriety be 
exacted of students, and which is requisite to complete the course of stu- 
dies. In the French colleges there are but twenty -four hours of regular 
obligatory instruction per week. This difference alone would go far to 
explain the reason for the fact, that in the gymnasia, the written course 
of studies is closely followed in all its departments, while in the royal 
colleges it is but partially carried out. That in the former, all branches 



142 



SECONDARY INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 



are deemed worthy of attention, while in the latter, in practice, some 
are treated as if they were not appropriate parts of a regular course of 
studies. The Prussian minister asserts, very justly, that four hours 
every morning, and two hours in the alternoon, four times a week, may 
be passed in a well ventilated school room, without injury to health. 
The condition in regard to ventilation is, however, essential to the truth 
of the proposition; it is easily realized in the gymnasia, on account of 
the small number constituting each class. I found, in fact, generally, 
but little objection to the arrangements, in this respect, in these insti- 
tutions. 

I had reason to remark, in the city gymnasia of Prussia, in general, 
that the appearance of the upper classes betoken a higher state of 
health than that of the lower, which would not have been the case had 
they been over worked. The mental labor, on the part of the student, 
indicated by thirty-two hours per week spent in school, is less than it 
would be from the same time in an English grammar school, or in one 
of our own establishments of the same grade, from the mode of teach- 
ing. Much of the instruction is communicated by conversation and by 
lecture, during the school hours, which are thus devoted to acquiring 
knowledge as well as to reciting what has been learned by study at 
other times. The school boards are requested not to allow this time of 
thirty-two hours per week to be exceeded, and a general plan for the 
distribution of time, which will be given below, is appended to the 
instructions. This plan, however, may be modified according to the 
circumstances of the institution to which it is to be adapted, preserving, 
however, the number of hours devoted to religious instruction, to the 
languages and mathematics, as cardinal points in the system. It is 
deemed unnecessary to begin the French earlier than in the third class, 
which would postpone it as late as thirteen years of age. Natural his- 
tory may be substituted for physics in the second class, and a general 



PLAN OF STUDIES ARRANGED FOR THE GYMNASIA OF PRUSSIA BY THE MINISTRY OF 
PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, OCTOBER 24tH, 1837. 



SUBJECTS OF STUDY) &C. 



Latin, 

Greek, 

German, 

French, 

Religious Instruction, 

Mathematics, 

Arithmetic and Elements of Form, 

Physics, 

Philosophy, 

History and Geography, 

Natural History, 

Drawing, 

Writing, 

Vpcal Music, 



Hebrew for the future Theologians, 



30 



NUMBER OF HOURS PER WII^K. 



30 



2 J 2 



32 



32 



32 



10 



32 



SECONDARY INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. ^43 

review of that branch, as studied in the previous years, is recommended, 
Drawing and vocal music are intended to be carried so far as that the 
pupil may follow them to advantage ifhis tastes incline that way, 

The ministry recommends that where several hours per week are 
devoted to a subject, more than one each day should be given to it, so 
as to concentrate the attention upon a few branches every day. 

5. Study out of school hours. On this subject the ministry remarks, 
that while it is highly important that the pupil should have preparation 
to make, requiring the exercise of his own resources, it is not less so that 
the amount ol" private study should not be carried to an injurious extent. 
The regulations, therefore, provide that at the beginning of each term 
there shall be a conference of the teachers, to determine the due amount 
of such work in the different classes, in detail. Every teacher should 
keep a book, in which the exercises actually given are accurately noted, 
so that the director may see at any time how far the decisions of the 
conference have been conformed to. The written exercises of the pupils 
must be regularly corrected by the teachers, and at least once a month 
they must review the exercise books, to ascertain the progress and the 
propriety of the exercises. German and Latin compositions are to be 
especially attended to. Themes on subjects with which the pupils are 
not acquainted, so that they must labor both for the matter and lan- 
guage, are forbidden. The teacher should not only select subjects 
known to the pupils for these exercises, but should also explain the 
manner in which he expects them to be treated. 

6. Duration of the courses. The six classes should, according to rule, 
be passed through in nine years: the three lower, each, in one year, and 
the three higher, each, in two years; thus a pupil entering at ten would 
leave the gymnasium at nineteen. The provincial school board may 
determine the period of the year for the examinations for passing from 
class to class. In the gymnasia, where the classes are subdivided on 
account of numbers, and the pupils pass from one section to another 
at the end of six months, the arrangement is permitted to be con- 
tinued. 

Superior excellence in a ^evf departments is not to warrant the pro- 
motion of the pupil to a higher class ; he must be reasonably proficient 
in all. 

7. Examination for the university. The regulations of 1834, on this 
subject, are confirmed by the present; certain erroneous constructions, 
which have been put upon the former, being pointed out. The first of 
these is, the supposition that the amount which the pupils are able to 
go over, during the time fixed for examination, determines the character 
of their certificate of capacity, while, on the contrary, this is given for 
the general knowledge of the subjects which they show. The fact that 
this examination requires a previous attendance of two years in the first 
class, is considered as indicating positively that the course of that class 
can not be intended to drill for the examination. The next refers to the 
specific direction in regard to the extent of examination on the different 
subjects, which being intended as a general guide to the examiners, has 
been misconstrued so far as to be supposed to furnish teachers who are 
preparing pupils the means of imparting the least amount of knowledge 
consistent with their passing. The ministry considers that the qualifi- 
cations for the final examination have stood the test of experience, hav- 
ing been found not too high, and calculated to promote sound instruction 
and not hasty preparation. As, however, the excitement of these ex- 
aminations appears to act injuriously on certain temperaments, the min- 
istry authorizes the examining commissions to reduce the viva voce 
parts of the examination, in cases where they see cause to do so. The 



J 44 SECONDARY INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 

ministry declines omitting the examination on the course of religious 
instruction. 

8. Supposed defects of teachers, d^c. The ministry states, as the 
remark of many intelligent persons, that while so much progress has 
been made within the last twenty years in the elementary schools, many 
of the teachers of the gymnasia, neglecting the progress of the science 
of teaching, still follow the old routine methods; that the teachers over- 
rate the importance of their special branches, and thus destroy the har- 
mony of the system; that they imitate the style of lecturing of the uni- 
versity professors, which renders their explanations ill adapted to the 
age and state of progress of their pupils, and when, in consequence, 
their pupils get on slowly, instead of seeing in this fact the necessity for 
a change of method, they charge the fault upon the classes. The min- 
istry remarks that it has not the means of judging personally whether 
such criticisms are well founded or not, but that the provincial school 
boards, to whom they have been submitted, are of opinion that, in gen- 
eral, they are too severe. They are made public, however, that the 
teachers of the gymnasia may reflect upon them. 

No specific method of instruction, it is remarked, applicable to all 
varieties of age, preparation, and subjects of study, can be pointed out. 
Every teacher should observe, closely, the results of his instruction, and 
adopt I'reely the advice or example of teachers of known ability in their 
art. The directors of gymnasia are especially enjoined to visit the 
classes of their teachers frequently, and. to make such suggestions as 
may seem to be required; they are further expected to set an example 
themselves of thorough teaching. The ministry considers that the 
system of class teachers, already described, facilitates the course of 
observation recommended, by giving the teacher a thorough ac- 
quaintance with all the members of his class. The importance of 
making the science of teaching one of observation is thus directly 
inculcated. 

The probation of a year, required by the decree of September 26th, 
1836, before the admission of a teacher to full standing, being intended 
to prevent the admission of incompetent teachers, the provincial school 
boards are enjoined to give effect to the provision, by promoting to the 
V situations of ordinary or class teachers (ordinarii,) those only who have 
shown decided capability in their art. The ministry promises to give 
such an extension to the normal schools for teachers of gymnasia, as 
shall insure an adequate supply from them. 

The provincial boards are enjoined to see that suitable books are pro- 
vided for the gymnasia, and to attend to regulating the details of the 
programmes of the ditferent classes. This authority obviously leaves 
the most essential points of instruction within their power. 

9. Physical education. On this subject, the document from the min- 
istry states that representations have been made from many of the 
directors and teachers of gymnasia, that physical education should be 
introduced as an essential part of their systems. The necessity for due 
physical development is admitted ; but it is argued, that in the gymna- 
sia which receive day scholars alone, an attention to it forms no part of 
the duty of the teacher, who is merely bound to furnish the requisite 
time for recreation, and to take care that the health of the pupils is not 
injured during the hours of recitation by causes depending upon the 
school. In the boarding gymnasia the case is admitted to be different. 
A continuance of gymnastic exercises in these establishments, when 
they have been tried and found beneficial, is allowed, but the compul- 
sory attendance of day scholars upon them is not permitted. When 
regular gymnastic exercises are introduced, it is made the duty of the 



SECOXDARY IXSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. j^g 

school board to see that a proper teacher is provided, and the exercises 
must be conducted under charge of the director of the institution. 

I conless, that the idea of leaving the physical education of children 
entirely to their parents, especially in the cities and towns where the 
day gymnasia are usually established, seems to me very unAvise; par- 
ticularly so in Prussia, where all else is regulated, and where the youth 
are always glad to engage in gymnastic exercises, when the means are 
furnished to them. 

10. ReUgiuiis education. It is enjoined that this contain the whole 
doctrine of Christian faith, and that the instruction be given according 
to a regular plan. 

The provincial authorities are charged with the communication of the 
foregoing regulations to the directors and teachers of the gymnasia, and 
with the superintendence of their execution. 

Each instructor manages his class in his own way, subject to the 
advice of the director, and hence, of course, there is considerable 
variety. Harsh punishments, and personal violence, are discounte- 
nanced in all the classes. Appeals to the moral sentiments and feelings, 
and admonitions, are the favorite methods of discipline. I nowhere saw 
the discipline in better condition than in these schools, the youth of the 
upper class, especially, going through their duties without the necessity 
for more than occasional admonition, and exhibiting the decorum of gen- 
tlemen in whatever situation I met them. The director is the supreme 
resort when a teacher fails in being able to produce proper conduct on 
the part of a pupil, and he may dismiss from the institution. This, how- 
ever, is rarely necessary. 

The means of securing attention to study do not differ from those in 
other countries, and already often alluded to. The system of excite- 
ment is carried to a far less extent, in general, than in the French col- 
leges. Emulation is encouraged, but not stimulated into ambition. In 
the lower classes, the pupils change places during the daily recitations; 
afterward, they are arranged by monthly trials of composition, and at 
the examinations ; and in the higher classes, from the same composi- 
tions, and from the results of their marks for daily recitation, and at the 
half yearly examinations. Prizes are not given as a general rule, 
though there are some special ones in certain gymnasia, 

This outline of the system of the gymnasia, as regulated by the cen- 
tral authority, requires, to complete it, some account of the regulations 
for the final examination prior to passing to the university (abiturienten- 
priifung,) and oi"the means of providing teachers. The regulations for 
the final examination occupy fifty sections, and enter into very minute 
details ; it will be sufficient for the present purpose to present an abstract 
of the more important of them under the following heads : 1. The per- 
sons to be examined, the object, place, and time of the examination. 2. 
The authorities by whom, and under whose direction, the examination 
is to be conducted. 3. The character and subjects of the examination. 
4. The kind of certificate obtained on passing the examination satisfac- 
torily, and the privileges attached to it. 

1. The persons to be examined, ^c. Those who intend to embrace 
one of the professions requiring a course of three or four years at a uni- 
versity, must, before matriculating at the university, pass the ordeal of 
this examination; the object being to ascertain whether the candidate 
has made himself duly master of the subjects required for successful 
entrance upon his university career. The examination must be made 
in a regular gymnasium, and in some part of the last two months of the 
scholastic year. 

To be admitted to the examination, a pupil of a gymnasium must 

10 



146 SECONDARY INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 

have been in its first class at least three terms of half a year each, 
except in cases where pupils have especially distinguished themselves 
during a year in this class. Three mouths' notice of their intention to 
stand this examination is to be given by the pupils to the director of the 
gymnasium, who advises with tliem on their intention, but has no right 
to prevent any pupil of three terms' standing in the first class from 
coming forward. 

Persons who are educated in private undergo this same examination 
in any gymnasium which their parents may select. They are required 
to present beforehand the certificate of their masters as to moral con- 
duct and proficiency, and are examined at a different time from the reg- 
ular students. 

2. By whom the examinntion is conducted. There is a committee 
for each gymnasium, consisting of the director, the masters who have 
charge of the higher classes, a member of the ecclesiastical authority of 
the place, and a member of the provincial consistory. This latter mem- 
ber presides, and his appointment must be approved by the ministry of 
public instruction. The ecclesiastical member must be approved by the 
provincial consistory. Besides these, there is a royal commission ap- 
pointed by the ministry, and consisting of professors of the university 
and others, who are present as inspectors at the examination. Tlie 
teachers of the gymnasium and the local authorities of the school are 
also present at the oral examinations. 

3. Character and subjects of examination. The examinations are 
of two kinds, written and oral. The subjects are, the German, Latin, 
Greek, and French languages,* for students in general, and in addition, 
the Hebrew for those who intend to study theology. Religion, history, 
and geography, mathematics, physics, natural history, and the elements 
of mental philosophy. The subjects of the written examination are chosen 
by the royal commissary present, from a list furnished hy the director of 
the gymnasium. These subjects must be such as have never been treated 
specially in the class-room, but not yet beyond the sphere of instruction 
ol' the pupils. AH the candidates receive the same subjects for compo- 
sition, which are given out at the beginning of the examination. The* 
candidates are assembled in one of the halls of the gymnasium, and 
remain there during the period allotted for their exercises under the 
charge of one or other of the examining teachers, who relieve each 
other. The only books allowed them are dictionaries and mathematical 
tables. The written exercises consist, first, in a German prose compo- 
sition, the object of which is to discern the degree of intellectual devel- 
opment, and the style of composition of the candidate. Second : of a 
Latin extempore! and a Latin composition on some subject which has 
been treated in the course, the special reference in this exercise being 
to the correctness of the style. Third : a translation from a Greek 
author, which h.as not been read in the course, and from Latin into 
Greek. Fourth: a translation from the German into the French. 
Fifth: the solution of two questions in geometry, and of two in analysis, 
taken from the courses in those subjects. Candidates who desire it, 
may be examined further than is required for passing. 

Those who intend to study theology or philology, translate a portion of 
one of the historical books of the Old Testament, or a psalm, into Latin, 
adding a grammatical analysis. The time allowed for the several 
written exercises is as follows: For the German, five hours; Latin 
composition, five hours; Latin extempore, one hour; Greek translation, 

* In the grand duchy of Po.sen, the Polish lang^uage is also one of the subjects, 
t An exercise in wliich the master speaks iu German to the pupil, who mpst reijder the 
(Berman into Latin, in writing. 



SECONDARY INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. J4'7 

three hours; translation from Latin into Greek, two hours; French 
composition, four hours; mathematical e.x'ercises, five hours; Hebrew 
exercises, wlien required, two hours. Four days are allowed tor the 
examination in these subjects, and they must not immediately follow 
each other. The viva voce examination is conducted by the masters 
who have given instruction in the first class on the subjects of examina- 
tion, unless the royal commissary directs otherwise. The subjects are, 
first; the general grammar and prosody of the German language, the 
chief epochs of national history and literature, and the national classics. 
Second; the translation and analysis of extracts from Cicero, Sallust, 
Livy. Virgil, and Horace; the ability of the candidates to render the 
author with judgment and taste being put to the test, as well as their 
grammatical and archeological acquirements; parts of the examination 
are conducted in the Latin language. Third : the translation and 
analysis of Greek prose and of portions of Homer, with questions upon 
Greek grammar, Grecian history, arts, and mythology. Fourth : trans- 
lations li-om the French cla.ssics during which an opportunity is given 
to the pupil to show how far he can speak the language. Fitth ; ques- 
tions upon the Christian doctrines, dogmas and morals, the principal 
epochs in the history of the Christian church, and the Bible. Sixth; 
arithmetic, the elements of algebra and geometry, the binomial theo- 
rem, simple and quadratic equations, logarithms and plane trigonome- 
try. Seventh: in history and geography, on ancient history, especially 
that of Greece and Rome, and modern history, especially that of the 
conntry, on physical, mathematical, and political geography. Eighth : 
in natural history, on the general classification of its subjects. Ninth; 
in such portions of physics as can be treated by elementrry mathe- 
matics, and on the laws of heat, light, magnetism, and electricity. 
Tenth; on the elements of moral philosophy, psychology, and logic. 
The future theological student must, besides, translate and analyze a 
portion of one of the historical books of the Old Testament. 

4. Tke kind of certificate obtained^ and the privileges attached to it. 
When the examination is closed, the board already alluded to as con- 
tiucting and superintending it, deliberates upon the notes which have 
been taken during its course, each member having a vote. Those 
students who are deemed to have passed a satisfactory examination, 
receive a certificate called a '"certificate of maturity," (maturitats-zeug- 
iiiss.) the others are remanded to their class, and may present them- 
selves, after an interval of six months, ibr another examination, unless 
they are deemed entirely incompetent to continue a literary career. 
Proficiency in all the subjects of examination is, in general, required to 
entitle a candidate to a certificate, but exception is sometimes made in 
Ikvor of those who show great attainments in the languages or mathe- 
matics; and in the case of students of a somewhat advanced age, the 
direct bearing of the different subjects upon the profession which they 
intend to embrace is considered. The daily records of the class-rooms 
are presented by the director of the gymnasium to the examiners, as 
showing the character of the candidates in regard to progress and con- 
duct, these points being specially noted in the certificate. The certifi- 
cate of maturity contains, besides, the name and address of the pupil, 
and of his parent or guardian; the time during which he has been at 
the gymnasium, and in its first class ; the conduct of the pupil toward 
his fellows and masters, and his moral deportment in general; his char- 
acter for industry, and his acquirements, as shown at the examination, 
specifying the result in each branch, and adding a statement from the 
masters of drawing and music of his proficiency in their respective de- 
partments ; the studies which he proposes to prosecute at the university, 



148 FREDERICK WILLIAM GYMNASIUM OF BERLIN. 

and to commence which he leaves the gymnasium. These certificates 
are dehvered in an assemblage of the students of the gymnasium with 
suitable remarks. The certificate of maturity is necessary to enable a 
youth to be matriculated in either of the faculties of tlieoioiiy, law, 
medicine, and philology, in one of the national universities, to be ad- 
mitted to examination for an academic degree, to be appointed to office 
in state or church, or to obtain one of the royal bursaries at the universi- 
ties. Special exception in regard to matriculation may be made by 
authority of the minister of public instruction. Students wJio have not 
passed a satisfactory examination, and whose parents demand it, arc 
entitled to a certificate, stating the branches in which they are deficient; 
they may enter the university with this, and are registered accordingly. 
This registry enables them, if they subsequently obtain a certificate of 
maturity, and the special permission of the minister of public instruction, 
to have their matriculation dated from the time of inscription. Pupils 
who have passed through the third class of a gymnasium are entitled to 
claim one year of voluntary military service, provided they report them- 
selves at a specified time during their twentieth year. 

There are two kinds of schools devoted to the preparation of teachers 
for the gymnasia, called respectively philological and pedagogical sem- 
inaries, (philologische seminare, padagogische seminare.) One of the 
first kind is attached to the universities of Berlin, Bonn, Breslaw, Halle, 
Kunigsberg, and Greifswalde, and one of the second is placed at Berlin, 
Stettin, Breslaw, Halle, Konigsberg, and Minister. Besides these, 
there is a seminary for teachers of natural philosophy and the natural 
sciences, at Bonn. 

FREDERICK WILLIAM GYMNASIUM OF BERLIN. 

This institution dates from 1797, and was at first an appendage to the "real 
school" of Mr. Hecker. It is now a royal institution, and is independent of the 
real school, except so far that it has the same director, and that the preparatory 
classes are in the real school, in which, or in other equivalent schools, the pupils 
are taught until ten years of age. The qualifications for admission are those con- 
tained in the general account of the gymnasia. This gymnasium had, in 1837,' 
four hundred and thirty-seven pupils, divided into six classes, and instructed by 
fourteen teachers and six assistants. The second and third classes are subdivided 
into two parts, called upper and lower, pursuing different courses, and both divi- 
sions of the third class are again subdivided into two others, for the convenience 
of instruction. The course in each class occupies a year, except in the first, which 
is of two years. Pupils who enter in the lowest class, and go regularly through 
the studies, will thus remain nine years in the gymnasium. Tlie numbers of the 
several classes in 18-37 were, in the first, fifty-four; in the upper second, thirty- 
two; lower second, forty-seven; upper third division, first, or A, thirty-six; 
second division, or B, thirty-six ; lower third, division first, or A, thirty-eight ; 
division second, or B, thirty-two ; fourth class, fifty-five ; fifth, fifty-seven ; and 
sixth, fifty. Each division averages, therefore, nearly forty-four pupils, who are 
at one time under the charge of one teacher. One hundred and eight were 
admitted during the year, and the same number left the gymnasium ; of these, 
twenty-one received the certificate of matul-ity to pass to the university, viz., ten 
who intend to study law, three medicine, five theologj', one theology and philo- 
logy, one philosophy, and one pohtical economy, finance, &o., (cameralistic.) Of 
these all but five were two years in the first class ; out of this number two were 
two years and a half in the first class, and three more had been in the gj'mnasium 
less than two years, having entered it in the first class. The average age at leav- 
ing the gymnasium was nearly nineteen years, and the greatest and least, respec- 
tively, twenty-two and between sixteen and seventeen years. It appears, thus, 
that on the average, the pupils actually enter at ten, and remain nine years, as 
required by rule. 

The subjects of instruction are Latin, Greek, German, French, religious instruc- 



FREDERICK WILLIAM GYMNASIUM OK BERLIN. 



149 



tion, mathematics, (including arithmetic, algebra, and geometry,) natural philoso- 
phy and natural history, history, geography, writing, drawing, vocal music, and 
Hebrew for theologians. 

The numbers attached to the names of the different classes, in the following 
programme, show the number of hours of study per week in the regular branches 
in which the division of classes takes place. In like manner, the numbers attached 
to the several subjects of study show how many hours are occupied per week in 
each of the .subjects by the several classes. 

SIXTH CLASS, THIRTY HOURS. 

Latin. Inflections of nouns, &c. Comparisons. Conjugation of the indicative moods of 
regular and of some irregular verbs. Translation from Bluime's elementary book. Exercises 
from Blume. E.xtemporalia. Ten hours. 

German. Etymology and syntax. Exeixises in writing upon subjects previously narrated. 
Exercises in orthography, reading, and declaiming. Four hours. 

French. Etymology, to include the auxiliary verbs, in Herrmann's grammar. Oral and 
written exercjses. Readnig and translation. Exercises on the riMes from the grammar. 
Three hours. 

Religion. Bible history of the Old Testament. Committing to memory selected verses. 
Two hours. 

Geography. Delineation of the outlines of Europe, Africa, Asia, and America, from deter- 
minate points given. Divisions of the countries, with their principal cities, rivers, and moun- 
tains. 'I'wo hours. 

Arithmetic. The four ground rules, with denominate whole numbers. Their applications. 
Four hours. 

Writing. Elements of round and running hand. Dictation. Writing from copy slips. 
Three hours. 

Drawing. Exercises in drawing lines. Two hours. 

FIFTH CLASS, TWENTY-NINE HOURS. 

Latin. Etymology. L^se of the prepositions. The accusative before an infinitive, prac- 
ticed orally and in writing, and extempore, and in exercises. Ti'anslation from Blume's 
reader. Ten hours. 

German. Parsing, reading, and declamation. Exercises on narrations. Four hours. 

French. Etymology, by oral and written exercises. Easier stories from Herrmann's 
reader. Three hours. 

Religion. Explanation of the gospels, according to St. Matthew and St. Luke. Commit- 
ting to memory the principal facts. Two hours. 

Geography. Review ol the last year's course. Rivers and mountains of Europe, and 
chief towns, in connection. Two hours. 

Arithmetic. Review of the preceding Fractions Four hours. 

Writing. Running hand from copy slips. Two hours. 

Drawing. Drawing from bodies, terminated by planes and straight lines. Two hours. 

FOURTH CLASS, TWENTY-EIGHT HOURS. 

Latin. Review of etymology. The principal rules enforced by oral and written exercises 
and extemporalia Translation from Jacob's reader and Corn. Nepos. Ten hours. 

German. Compositions on subjects previously read. Declamation. Reading from Ka- 
lisch's reader. Parsing. Three liours. 

French. Review of etymology. Irregular verbs. Reciprocal verbs. Anecdotes and nar- 
rations from Herrmann's grammar, and committing the principal to memory. Two hours. 
^ Religion. Gospel, according to St. Matthew, explained. Verses and psalms committed to 
memory. Two hours 

Geography. Political geography of Germany, and of the rest of Europe. Review of the 
geography of the otiier parts of the world. Three hours. 

Arithmetic. Review of fractions. Simple and compound proportion. Partnership. 
Simple interest. Three hours 

Geometry. Knowledge of forms, treated inductively. One hour. 

Writing. Running hand, from copy slips. Two hours. 

Drawing. From bodies bounded by curved lines. Two hours. 

LOWER THIRD CLASS, THIRTY HOURS. 

Latin. Syntax. Rules of cases from Zumpt. Exercises and extemporalia. Inflections 
formerly learned reviewed. Cornelius Nepos Eight hours. 

Gree.li. Etymology, from Buitmann's grammar to regular verbs, included. Translation 
from Greek into German from Jacob's, from German into Greek from Uess's exercises. 
Six hours. 

German. Compositions in narration and description. Declamation. Two hours. 

French. Repetition of inlleclions, and exercises by extemporalia and in writing. Trans- 
lation of the fables from Ht-rrmaiin's reading book, 2d course. Two hours. 

Religion. Morals, and Christian faith. Two hours. 

Geography. Physical geography Europe and the other parts of the world. Two hours. 

History. General view of ancient and modern history. 'Two hours. 

Mathematics. Legeudre'sgeometry, book 1. Decimals. Algebra. Square and cube root. 
Four hours. 

Drawing. Introduction to landscape drawing. Two hours. 

UPPER THIRD CLASS, THIRTY HOURS. 

Latin. Division I. Syntax, from Zumpt. Review of the preceding course. Oral exer- 
cises in construction of sentences. Written exercises and extemporalia. Caesar Bell. Gall 



150 



FREDERICK WILLIAM (JVMNASIU.H Ol fJi;i-lLIN. 



books 1, 2, and 7, in part. Ovid's Metamorphoses, extracts from books 7 and S. Prosody, 
rules from Zumpt. Ten liours. 

Greek. JJiDision 1. Etymology, from Buttmann's grammar. Oral and written exercises 
and extt-mporalia. Jacob's reader. Six hours. 

German. Examination of exercises on historical subjects. Poetical selections for decla- 
mation. Two hours. 

French. Exercises in translation. Written exercises. Extemporalia. Two hours. 

Religiun. Principal passages from the gospels gone over. General view of the Old Testa- 
ment writings Two hours. 

History and Geography. Roman history, from the Punic Wars to the destruction of the 
western empire. History of the middle ages, three hours. Review of the live general divis- 
ions of the world, one hour. Four liours. 

Mathematics. Geometry. Ltgendre, books 1 and 2, and part of 3. Algebra, with exer- 
cists from Meyer Hirsch. Four houx's. 

LOWER SECOND CLASS, THIRTY-ONK HOURS. 

Latin. Extracts from Livy and Caesar de Bell. Civ. Review of Bell. Gall., books 2 and 
'A. Synlax. Exercises and extemporalia. Committing to memory exercises from Livy and 
•JiE.<ar. Ovid s Metamorphoses, books 11 to 14. Eight hours. 

Greek. Homer's Odys., 11, 12, 13, and 14. Exercises on the dialects. Xenophon's Anab. 
1. 2. and part of 3. Excerpts from the grammar reviewed. Exercises and extemporalia. 
tjynta.ii. S.x hours. g. 

Hebrew. Grammar, ending with irregular. verbs. Easier parts of historical books of 
Scr.j)lure translated. Vocabulary learned by rote. Exercises on regular and irregular verbs 
out oi tlie recitation room. Two hours. 

German. Correction of written exercises and essays. Exercises on delivery. Two hours. 

P'rench. Voltaire's Charles XII. Exercises and extemporalia. Two hours. 

Religion Explanation of the princ-pal parts of the Epistles of St. Paul, with historical 
sketches, and a view of the life of early Christian communities. Two hours. 

History. Roman history, from the Punic Wars. History of the middle ages concluded. 
General view ol history. Three hours. 

Mathematics. Geometry to proportions and simple figures. Elements of algebra. Loga- 
rithms; Four hours. 

Natural History. Mineralogy. Botany, especially of native plants. Two hours. 

UPPER SECOND CLASS, THIRTY-TWO HOURS. 

Latin. Cicero's Orations, pro. Rose. Amer., de Amic, de Senectute. Livy, books 22 to 
25, inclusive. Virgil's jEneid, books 1 and 2. Some eclogues and excerpts Irom Georgics. 
Exercises and extemporalia. Nine hours. 

Greek. Homer's Iliad, books 4 to 11, inclusive. Arrian Alex, expedition, books 1 and 2. 
Buttmann's grammar, with exercises and extemporalia. Six hours. 

Hebrew. Books of Judges and of Ruth, with exercises of syntax. Easy exercises, and 
commitiuig vocabulary to memory out ol the classroom. Two hours. 
' German. Essays. Delivery. Two hours. 

French. Excerpts from Herrmann and Briichner's manual of the more recent French 
literature. Two hours. 

Religion. Christian faith and morals. Two hours. 

History. Review of ancient history and geography, using the Latin language. Three hours. 

Mathematics. Arithmetical geometry and plane trigonometry. Algebraic exercises. Poly- 
gons, Stereometry. Simple and quadratic equations. Four hours. 

Physics. General physics. Electricity and magnetism. Two hours. 

FIRST CLASS, THIRTY-ONE HOURS. 

Latin. Horace's Odes, books 3 and 4. Cicero against Verres. Tacitus, Annals, books 11 
and 12, and extracts from 3 to 6. Cicero, Tusc. quest. Extempore translations from Ger- 
man into Latin. E.xercises. Declamation. Eight hours. 

Greek. Homer's Iliad, book 16, Odyssey, books 9 to 16, inclusive. Hippias Major, Char- 
mides, and Gorsias of Plato, (excerpts ) Sophocles' Edip. tyr. and Antigone. Grammatical 
exercises. Buttmann's grammar. Six hours. 

Hebrew. Second book ol Kings. Genesis. Psalms, 61 to 100. Grammatical criticisms 
of histor.cal excerpts, or of psalms, as an exercise at home. Two hours. 

German. Criticism of compositions. General grammar, and history of the German gram- 
mar and literature. One liour. 

French. Selections from Scribe and Uelavigne. Exercises and extemporalia. Two hours. 

Religiun. History of the Christian church, to the times of Gregory VH. Two hours. 

History. Modern history, and review. Three hours. 

Mathematics. Plane trigonometry and application of algebra to geometry. Algebra. 
Mensuration and conic sections. Binomial theorem. Exponential and trigon. functions. 
Four hours. 

Physics. Physical geography. Mechanics. Two hours 

Philosophy. Propajdeutics. ' Logic. One hour. 

There are five classes for vocal music, the fifth receiving two hours of Instruction in musi- 
cal notation and singing by ear. The lourth, time and cliflfs, &c. Exercises in the natural 
scale, and harmony Songs and chorals with one part. The third, two hours, formation of 
the scale of sharps, running the gamut with difficult intervals, combined with the practical 
exercises of the last class. The second, two hours, repetition of tones; sharps, and flats. 
Formation of the scale of flats. Exercises of songs and chorals, in two parts. The first class 
is an appl. cation of what has been learned, as well as a continuation of the science and art, 
and all the pupils do not, of course, take part in this stage of the instruction. The course is 
of four hours per week, two for soprano and alto, one for tenor and bass, and one for the 
union of the four parts. The proficiency is Indicated by the fact, that the pupils perform 
very creditably such compositions as Haydn's •■ Creation " and Handel's " Messiah." 



FREDERICK WILLIAM GVMNASIUM OF BERLIN. jgj 

The extemporalia spoken of in the courses of language, consist of written 
translations made on the spot by the pupils into a foreign language, of sentences 
spoken in the vernacular bj' the teacher. These sentences are, of course, adapted 
to the progress of the pupil, and are prepai'ed bef<jrehand by the teacher who 
renders them, especially in the early parts of the coui'se, the application of the 
rules of grammar on which the pupil is engaged, or of peculiarities of idiom to 
which his attention is called. 

In the classical course, the oral and written exercises are varied in their relative 
proportions to each other. The translation from Latin or Greek into German, 
and vice versa, the grammatical exercises, Latin compositions or essays, the ex- 
temporalia before explained, the practice in versification, &c., are varied in amount 
in the different classes, according to the views of the instructor. 

One characteristic difference between the classical instruction in the higher 
classes and in those of similar schools in England and our country, is that, in gen- 
eral, it supposes the grammatical minutiae to have been fully impressed in the 
lower classes, and discusses philological questions, varieties of reading and collate- 
ral subjects of antiquities, history, biography, and geography. The students 
receive much oral instruction, which they are required to record. The same is 
the practice to even a greater extent in the other departments of instruction, and 
the students thus acquire a facihty in taking notes which they turn to good 
account in the university lectures, and which strikes a stranger with surprise on 
first witnessing it. 

Most of the pupils in this class of schools begin their classical course at nine or 
ten years of age, and yet, judging by the progress shown in the programme of 
the first class, and by the scholars which the universities of northern Germany 
turn out, and which are, in fact, formed in the gymnasia, the proficiency is all 
that can be desired. It is what a youth of nineteen issuing from one of our col- 
leges would be proud of, and clearly proves that the classics are not begun too 
late. 

The mother tongue and French are both taught in these institutions, in combi- 
nation with the classical studies. These languages are not merely entered upon 
the programme, but are actually more or less thoroughly taught, according to the 
time which is allotted and the skill of the teacher. The course of German would 
seem calculated to make both writers and speakers, and, probably, if the demand 
for the latter were equal to that of the former, this would prove true in the latter 
case, as it does in the former. 

The religious characteristic of these schools is a striking one, and important in 
its effects. The Bible is taught rather than a particular creed, though from the 
fact that the pupils are nearly all of one creed, this forbearance is not essential, 
and is not always exercised. The separation of religious from other instruction 
can but have a most injurious tendency, and their connection, as in these schools, 
on the contrary, a happy influence. Religious knowledge is classed with the 
sciences in the formal division of the subjects of study. 

Tlie courses of physics of the Frederick William gj-mnasium are exceedingly 
well calculated to fuUfil their object, to give general ideas of natural phenomena, 
without going into what may be considered technical minutiae ; in the latter school 
physics is connected with an excellent course of physical geography. It seems to 
ine doubtful whether, in the natural history course, more than a general outline 
of the subject, is necessary, with the prosecution, practically, of such branches as 
the locality of the institution may render applicable for improving the habits of 
observation and discrimination. The scientific details of the different branches 
belong rather to special purposes of study than to general education. The expe- 
rience of these institutions may, however, be appealed to as proving the entire 
compatibility of such instruction with an otherwise sound system, and the entire 
possibility of accomplishing it without neglecting other more important branches. 

Drawing and vocal music, which form parts of the I'egular courses of all these 
institutions, have not yet found their way into the systems of other nations on the 
same footing with the regular studies. As a part of physical training, they are im- 
portant, and as offering a relief from severer pursuits, further recommend them* 
selves in this connectior. 



152 ROYAL REAL SCHOOL OF BERLIN. 

The Frederick William Gymnasium is regarded by Dr. Bache, as a 
fair specimen of this class of schools in Prussia ; in the organization and 
instruction of which a good degree of liberty is tolerated by the govern- 
ment, to enable them the better to meet the peculiar circumstances of 
each province, and the peculiar views of each director. 

The Royal Real School, and City Trade School of Berlin, furni.sh a 
course of instruction of the same general value for mental discipline, but 
better calculated for that class of pupils who are destined in life, not for 
what are designated as the learned profession, but for tradesmen and me- 
chanics. There is less of verbal knowledge but more of mathematics 
and their application to the arts ; and the whole is so arranged as to fa- 
ciHtate the acquisition of those mental habits which are favorable to 
the highest practical success. 

ROYAL REAL SCHOOL OF BERLIN. ^ 

The Royal Real School of Berlin was founded as early as 1 747, by Counsellor 
Hecker. At the period in which this school was founded, Latin and Greek were 
tlie exclusive objects of study in the learned schools, and the avowed purpose of 
tiiis establishment was that " not mere words should be taught to the pupils, but 
realities, explanations being made to them from nature, from models and plans, 
and of subjects calculated to be useful in after-life." Hence the school was called 
a " real school," and preserves this name, indicative of the great educational 
reform which it was intended to promote, and the success of which has been, 
though slow, most certain. 

The successor of Heeker, in 1769, divided this flourishing school into three de- 
partments, the pedagogium, or learned school, the school of arts, and the German 
school : the whole establishment still retaining the title of real school. The first 
named department was subsequently separated from the others, constituting the 
Frederick William gymnasium ; the school of arts, and the German, or elemen- 
tary school, remain combined under the title of the royal real school. The same 
director, however, still presides over the gymnasium and the real school. 

The question has been much agitated, whether the modern languages should be 
'considered in these schools as the substitutes for the ancient in intellectual educa- 
tion, br whether mathematics and its kindred branches should be regarded in this 
, light. Whether the original principle of the " realities" on which the schools 
Wjere founded, was to be adhered to, or the still older of verbal knowledge, only 
with a change of languages, to be substituted for it. In tliis school the languages 
•■vvill be found at present to occupy a large share of attention, while in the similar 
institution, a description of which follows this, the sciences have the pre- 
ponderance. 

In the royal real school the branches of instruction are — religion, Latin, French, 
English, German, physics, natm-al history, chemistry, history, geography, draw- 
ing, writing, and vocal music. The Latin is retained as practically useful in some 
branches of trade, as in phai'macy, as aiding in the nomenclature of natural his- 
tory, and as preventing a separation in the classes of this school and that of the 
gymnasium, which would debar the pupils from passing from the former to the 
latter in the upper classes. It must be admitted that, for all purposes but the last, 
it occupies an unnecessary degree of attention, especially in the middle classes. 

The following table shows the distribution of time among the courses. There 
are seven classes in numerical order, but ten, in fact, the third, fourth, and fifth 
being divided into two ; the lower fourth is again, on account of its numbers, sub- 
divided into two parallel sections. Of these, the seventh, sixth, and fifth are ele- 
mentary classes, the pupils entering the seventh at between five and seven years of 
age. In the annexed table the number of hoiu's of recitation per week of each 
class in the several subjects is stated, and the vertical column separating the ele- 
mentaiy classes from the others, contains the sum of the hours devoted to each 
branch in the higher classes, excluding the lower section of the fourth class, 
which has not a distinct course from that of tlie other division. 



ROYAL REAL SCHOOL OF BERLIN. 



153 



TABLE SHOWING THE NUMBER OF HOURS OF RECITATION PER WEEK, OF EACH CLASS, 
IN THE SUBJECTS TAUGHT IN THE ROVAL REAL SCHOOL OF BERLIN. 



























Proportion of other 


























studies to German 


























in th 


<= 














-r 


J3 










•3 


|s 1 1 = 














K^M 


"^ M 










.c 


v, ^ 


o >• 


SDBJKCTS OF STUDY. 






< 


M 


< 


mm 


3 oJ 
Co 


< 








to 


So 






i 


o 

■a 

c 




i 




55 
£•5 


— a. 

e- 3 


5 


5 


i 

5 


5 


« 




1^ 






1 


b 




£ 


££ 


11 


4 
8 
2 


5 
8 
3 


10 

2 


10 




I§ 


*l£ 


0.9 
1.0 
0.8 


Latin, 


4 
4 
2 
3 

2 


4 
4 
2 
3 

2 


4 
4 
2 
3 

2 


5 
3 

4 

2 


6 
3 

3 

2 


5 
4 

4 

2 


6 
4 

4 

2 


28 

22 

6 

20 

12 


1.4 
1.1 
0.3 
1.0 

0.6 


2.9 
0.7 

0.8 

0.6 


Flench, 


English 


German, 


Reliorion, 


Mathematics,* .... 


6 


6 


5 


6 


7 


6 


4 


35 


4 


3 


6 


6 


1.7 


1.1 


1.6 


Natural History, . . 


3 


2 


2 


2 








9 










0.4 


0.1 1 


0.1 


Physics, 


2 
2 


2 
2 


2 
2 


2 
2 








8 
8 










0.4 
0.4 


0.2t 


0.2 


Chemistry, 


' xeography, 








3 


3 


3 


3 


9 


2 


2 


2 




0.4 


0.5 


0.5 


History, 


3 

2 


3 

9 


3 

2 


2 
2 


2 

2 


2 

2 


2 

2 


15 

12 


2 


2 


2 




0.7 
0.6 


0.3 
0.4 


0.7 
0.4 




Drawinsr, 


\V'ritin£i', 


2 
36 


4 
36 


3 
35 


2 
35 


2 
2 

32 


2 
2 

32 


2 
2 

32 


4 
15 


4 
1^ 


4 
26 


6 

26 


8 
26 


0.2 

0.7 


0.3 
0.6 


0.3 
0.6 


Sinsincf 




Total, 





Pupils who enter this school between five and seven years of age, and go regu- 
larly through the elementary classes, are prepared at ten to pass to its higher 
classes, or to enter the lowest of the gj'mnasium. It is thus after the fifth class 
that a comparison of the two institutions must begin. The studies of the real 
school proper, and of the gymnasium, have exactly the same elementary basis, 
and they remain so far parallel to each other that a pupil, by taking extra instruc- 
tion in Greek, may pass from the lower third class of the former to the lower third 
of the latter. This fact alone is sufficient to show that the real schools must be 
institutions for secondary instruction, since the pupils have yet three classes to pass 
through after reaching the point just referred to. It serves also to separate the 
real schools from the higher burgher schools, since the extreme limit of the 
courses of the latter, with the same assistance in regard to Greek, only enables 
th.^ pupil to reach the lower third class of the gymnasium. In general, a pupil 
w<5uld terminate his studies in the real school at between sixteen and eighteen 
years of age. The difference between the subjects of instruction in the real 
school and the Frederick William gymnasium, consists in the omission in the 
former of Greek, Hebrew, and philosophy, and the introduction of English and 
chemistry. The relative proportions of time occupied in the same subjects in the 
two schools, wiU be seen by comparing the two columns next on the right of the 
numbers for the seventh class, in the table just given. The first of these columns 
contains the proportion of the number of hours per week devoted to the different 
subjects in the six classes of the real school above the elementary, the number of 
hours devoted to the German being taken as unity ; and the second, the same 
proportion for six classes of the gymnasium, beginning with the lowest, the same 
number of hours being taken as the unit, as in the preceding column. To bring 
the natural history and physics into comparison, I have taken the numbers for the 



* Including arithrrxetic, geometry, algebra, and trigonometry. 
t These numbers include the entire course. 



154 ROYAL REAL SCHOOL OF BERLIN. 

upper classes of the gjTnnasium in which these branches are taught. Of the 
courses common to the two schools, those to which nearly equal attention is paid 
in both institutions, are — the religious instruction, the German, geography and 
history, writing, and vocal music. The French, mathematics, physics, and nat- 
ural history, predominate in the real school, the Latin in the gymnasium. The 
effect of reckoning the first, second, and upper third classes of the gymnasium, 
does not materially change the proportionate numbers of the courses which are 
common to the two schools, except as to Latin and mathematics. To show this, 
the column on the extreme right of the table is introduced, containing the pro- 
portions for all the nine classes of the Frederick ^^'illiam gymnasium. 

Tliere were, in 1838, five hundred and ten pupils in this real school, under the 
charge of fourteen regular or class masters, teaching several subjects in the lower 
classes, and of six other teachers. Each of the eleven class divisions thus aver- 
ages about forty-six, who are under the charge of one teacher at a time. 

The elementary course in the real school is similar to that described in the 
burgher schools, beginning with the phonic method of reading, the explanations 
of all the words and sentences being required at the same time that the mechani- 
cal part of reading is learned. Written and mental arithmetic are taught together 
in the lowest class. The religious instruction consists of Bible stories adapted to 
their age ; and verses are committed to improve the memory of words. Tlie ex- 
ercises of induction are practiced, but in a way not equal to that with objects, 
introduced by Dr. Mayo in England. Some of the pupils are able to enter the 
gymnasium after going through the two lowest classes; 

In regard to the real classes proper, as I propose to enter into the particulars of 
the course of study of the trade school, I shall here merely make a few remarks 
upon two of the branches studied in them, namely, French and drawing. The 
remarks in regard to the French will serve to show how great a latitude 
a teacher is allowed in the arrangement of his methods, the result of which 
is, that those who have talent are interested in improving their art by observation 
and experiment. The French teacher to whom I allude had been able to secure 
the speaking, as well as the reading, of French from his pupils. From the very 
beginning of the course this had been a point attended to, and translation from 
French into German had been accompanied by that from German into French : 
tlie conversation on the business of the class-room was in French. The pupils 
were exercised e.specially in the idioms of the language in short extempore sen- 
tences, and the diiTerences of'structure of the French and their own language 
were often brought before them, and the difficulties resulting from them antici- 
pated. Difficult words and sentences were noted by the pupils. Declamation 
was practiced to encourage a habit of distinct and deliberate speaking, and to 
secure a correct pronunciation. The chief burthen of the instruction was oral. 
Without the stimulus of change of places, the classes under this gentleman's in- 
struction were entirely aliv« to the instruction, and apparently earnestly engaged 
in the performance of a duty which interested them. If such methods should 
fail in communicating a greater amount of knowledge than less lively ones, which 
I belive can not be the case, they will serve, at least, to break down habits of in- 
tellectual sloth to promote mental activity, the great aim of intellectual education. 
The drawing department of this school is superintended by a teacher who has 
introduced a new method of instruction, particularly adapted to the purpose for 
which drawing is to be applied in common life and in the arts ; a method which 
is found to enable a much larger proportion of the pupils to make adequate ])ro- 
gress than the oi'dinary one of copying from drawings.* In this method the pupil 
begins by di-awing from simple geometrical forms, those selected being obtained 
from models in wood or plaster, of a square pillar ,t a niche, and a low cylinder, 
(the form of a mill-stone.) The square pillar separates in joints, affording a cube 
and parallelepipeds of different heights. The hemisphere which caps the niche 
may be removed, leaving the concave surface of its cylindrical part. Tlie exer- 
cises of the pupil ran thus : First, to place upon a board, or upon his paper or 

* Mr. Peter Schmidt, who now. in his old age. has received from the government a pension 
in rf turn for the introduction of his method, and the instruction in it of a certain number of 
teachers. 

t Seven and a half inches high, and one inch and a half in its £,quare section. 



CITY TRADE SCHOOL. I55 

slate, a point vertically above another, or so that the lines joining the two shall 
be parallel to the right or left hand edge of the board, paper, or slate. Second, 
to join them. Third, to place a point horizontally from the second, and at a dis- 
t:mce equal to that between the first and second points. Fourth, to place one 
vertically over the third, and at a distance equal to that below the first, and to 
join the third and fourth. The first and fourth being then joined, a square is 
formed. After practice in this, the simple elevation of the cube is drawn. Next, 
a perspective, by the use of a small frame and silk threads, such as is common in 
teaching the elements of this subject, and by means of which the pupil acquires 
readily a knowledge of the practice. The drawing of lines in various positions, 
and with various proportions, termi^iates this division of the subject. The niche 
and cylinder afford a similarly graduated series of lessons on the drawing of curved 
lines, and the drawing of lines of diflierent degrees of strength and of shadows is 
introduced. This is accompanied with some of the more simple rules of shadow 
and shade. Moi'e difficult exercises of perspective follow from natural objects 
and from works of art or mechanism, according to the dii-ection to the pupil's at- 
tainments and the amount of taste which he displays. This method of teaching 
has been introduced quite generally in Prussia, and with the best results as to the 
formation of accuracy of eye and of hand. 

CITY TRADE SCHOOL. 

The City Trade School was founded to give a more appropriate education for 
the mechanic arts and higher trades than can be had through the courses of clas- 
sical schools. It is a great point gained, when the principal is admitted that dif- 
ferent kinds of education are suited to different objects in life ; and such an ad- 
mission belongs to an advanced stage of education. As a consequence of a gen- 
eral sentiment of this kind, numerous schools for the appropriate instruction of 
those not intended for the learned professions grow up by the side of the others. 

The city of Berlin is the patron of the trade school which I am about to notice, 
as the king is of the real school already spoken of Its stability is thus secured, 
but the means of furnishing it with the necessary materials for instruction are 
liberally provided.* The trade school is a day school, and consists of five classes, 
of which the lowest is on the same grade as to age and qualification at admission, 
as the fourth class of a gymnasium. It is assumed that at twelve years of age it 
will have been decided whether a youth is to enter one of the learned professions, 
or to follow a mechanical employment, or to engage in trade, but the higher classes 
are not closed against pupils. Of the five classes, four are considered necessary 
for certain pursuits and the whole five for others ; the courses of all but the first 
class last one year, that of the first, two years, a youth leaving the school at from 
16 to 17 or 18 years of age, according to circumstances. During the year 1836-7, 
the number of pupils in the several classes were, in the first class, eleven ; in the 
second, twenty-nine ; in the upper third, forty-three ; in the lower third, fifty- 
two ; in the fourth, fifty ; total, one hundred and eighty-five ; from which num- 
bers it appears that a considerable proportion of the pupils leave the school without 
entering the first class. The number of teachers is nineteen, five being regular or 
class teachers, and fourteen assistants. Tiie director gives instruction. 

The following list of the callings to which pupils from this school have gone on 
leaving it, will show that it is really what it professes to be, a school for the in- 
struction of those who intend to follow occupations connected with " commerce, 
the useful arts, higher trades, building, mining, forestry, agriculture, and military 
fife ;" and further, that its advantages are appreciated by the class for whom it is 
intended. The list includes the pUpils who have left the school from the first and 
second classes, in the years 1830, 1833, 1833 and 1837. From the first class, two 
teachers, five architects, one chemist, twenty-six merchants, one machinest, two 
calico-printers, two glass-workers, one cloth manufacturer, one silk manufacturer, 
one miner, thirteen agriculturalists, eight apothecaries, two gardeners, one painter, 
one mason, one carpenter, one tanner, one miller, one baker, one potter, one 
saddler, one soap-boiler, one cabinet-maker, two soldiers, one musician, five to 

* The present director of this school, Mr. Kloden, was formerly director of the hij;her 
burgher school at Potsdam, and is one of the most distinguished teachers in his line iu Persia 



156 ^^"^^ TRADE SCHOOL IN BERLIN. 

public offices, one to the trade institution, six to gymnasium. From the second 
class, forty-one merchants, one teacher, one chemist, one machinest, one ship-car- 
penter, nine agriculturist, one sugar-refiner, three dyers, one tanner, one brewer, 
two distillers, one miner, two lithographers, one dye-sinker, three apothecaries, 
one dentist, two painters, two gardeners, three masons, five carpenters, one miller, 
four bakers, one butcher, one to the trade institution, thi'ee to public offices, two 
to a gynmasium, one musician, one veterinary surgeon, one soldier, being ninety 
from the first class, and ninety-seven from the second, in the period of four years. 

In the course of instruction, the sciences and kindred branches are made the 
basis, and the modern languages are employed as auxiliaries, the ancient languages 
being entirely omitted. The subjects embraced in it are — religious instruction, 
German, French, English, geography, history", mathematics, physics, chemistry, 
technology, natural histor}', writing, drawing, and vocal music. 

The courses are fully laid down in the following list, beginning with the studies 
of the lowest or fourth class. 

FOURTH CI.ASS, 

Religious Instruction* The eospel accnrtiiiiff to SI. l.uke, and the Acts of the Apostles 
explained, with a catechetical development of the truths of religion and ethical applications. 
Tvyo hours per week. 

Gfrmim. Grammatical exercises in writing. Recital of poetical pieces. 

French. Grummatical exercises. Regular ami irregular verbs. Reading from Lauren's 
Reader One hour of conversation. Four hours. 

Arithmetic Mental and written, including proportions and fractions, with the theory of 
the operations Four hours. 

Geutnetry Introductory course of forms. Two hours. 

Gejigrnphy. Elementary, mathematical, and phy.sical geography. Two hours. 

Natural History. In the summer term, elements of botany, with excursions. In the win- 
ter, the external characters of animals. Two hours. 

Physics. Introductory instruction. General properties of bodies. Forms of crystals, 
spec'fic gravity <SlC. Two hours. 

Writing. Two hours. 

Draicivg. Outline drawingand Sbhadows, from models and copy-boards. Two hours. 

Vucal Music. Two hours. 

LOWER THIRD CLASS. 

Religious^ Instruction. The Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles read and explauied. 
Two hours. 

German. Grammar with special reference to orthography and etymology. Written exer- 
cises upon narrations made by the teacher Delivery of poetical pieces. . Four hours. 

Prench Translation from l'"rench into German from Gredicke's Chrestomathy Grammar ; 
irreg-iilar VI rbs. Extemporalia, and translations from German into French. Fourhnurs. 

Arithmetic Partly abstract, partly practical, from Diesterweg's Instructor. Four hours. 

Geometry. Delermination of ansles in triangles and polygons Equality of triangles. 
Depeiidanre of angles and sides of triangles Construrtions. Three hours. 

Ge igrriphy. Physical description of the parts of the earth, except Europe. Two hours. 

Natural History Mineralogy. In summer, botany, the class making excursions for prac- 
tical exercise Man. Three hours. 

Physics. General properties of bodies and solids in particular. Doctrines of heat and 
their application to natural phenomena and the arts. Two hours. 

Chemistry. Introduction. Atmospheric air. Experimental illustrations of chemistry, 
applied to the arts. Two hours. 

Writing. Two hours. Architectural a7id topographical drawing. Two hours. Drawing 
by hand lor those who do not take part in the other. Two hours. 

Vocal Music. Two hours. 

UPPER THIRD CLASS. 

Religious Instruction. Christian morals, from Luther's Catechism. Two hours. 

German. Simple and complex sentences. Compositions on special subjects. Poems ex- 
))lained and committed. Four hours. 

French. Translation from Gredicke's Chrestomathy, oral and in wr'ting. Written trans- 
lations from Beauvais' Introduction, from German into French. Grammar, examples treated 
extempore. Four hours 

Arithmetic. Properties of numbers. Powers. Roots. Decimal fractions Practical 
Arithmetic from Uiesterweg. Four hours. 

Geometry. Similar figures. Geometrical proportion. Exercises. Mensuration of rectili- 
neartigures. Three hours. 

Geography. Physical geography of Europe, and in particular of Germany and Prussia. 
Two hours. 

Natural History. Continuation of the mineralogy of the lower third class. Review in 
outline of zoology and the natural history of man in particular. Botany, with excursions in 
summer. Three hours. 

* Roman Catholic pupils are not required to take part in this instruction, which is commu- 
nicated by a Protestant clergj-man 



CITY TRADE SCHOOL IN BERLIN. 15'; 

Physics. Electricity and magnetism, witn experiments. Two hours. 
Chemistry. Water and non-niefallic bodies, witli e.xperiments. Two hours. 
Writing- Two liours. Architectural and topngraphiral draicing. Two^ours. Some of 
the pupils during lliis time are engaged in ornamental drawing. 
Vocal Music. Two hours. 

SECOND CLASS. 

Rdigious Instruction. Explanation of the first three gospels. History of the Christia^n 
religion and church to the reformation. Two hours. 

German. Correction of exercises written at home, upon subjects assigned by the teacher. 
Oral and written exercises. Introduction to the history of German poetry Three hours. 

French. Grammar; extemporalia for the application of the rules. Written and oral 
translations from German into French, from Beauvais' Manual, and vice versa, from Ideler 
and Nolte's Manual. Four hours. 

English Exercises in reading and speaking. Translation into German, from Burkhardt. 
Dictation. Verbs. Two hours. 

Arithmetic. Commercial Arithmetic. Algebra, to include simple and quadratic equa- 
tions. Logarithms Three hours. 

Geometry. Circles. Analytical and plane trigonometry. Three hours. 

Geography. The stales of Europe, with special reference to their population, manufac- 
tures and commerce. Two hours. 

History. Principal events of the history of the middle ages and of later times, as an intro- 
duction to recent history. One hour. 

Natural History. Mineralogy. Physiology of plants. Three hours. 

Chemistry. Metallic bodies and their compounds, with experiments. Three hours. 

Architectural, topographical, and plain drawing. Drawing with instruments. Introduc- 
tion to India ink drawing. Beginning of the science of constructions. Two hours. 

Drniping. From copies, and from plaster and-other models. Two hours. This kind of 
drawing may be learned instead of the above. 

Vocal Music. Two hours. 

FIRST CLASS. 

Religious Instruction. History of the Christian religion and church continued. Refer- 
ences to the bible. One nour. 

German. History of German literature to recent times. Essays. Exercises of delivery. 
Three hours. 

French. Reading from the manual of Buchner and Hermunn, with abstracts. Classic 
authors read. Review of Grammar. Exercises at home, and extemporalia. Free delivery. 
Correction of exercises. Four hours. 

English. Syntax, with written and extempore exercises from Burkhardt. Reading of 
classic authors. Writing of letters. Exercises in speaking. 

Arithmetic Alsebra. Simple and quadratic equations. Binomial and polynomial theo- 
rems Higher equations. Commercial arthmetic continued. Three hours. 

Geometry. Plane trigonometry and its applications. Conic sections. Descriptive Geome- 
try. Three hours. 

History. History of the middle ages. Modern history, with special reference to the prog- 
ress of civilization, of inventions, discoveries, and of commerce and industry. Three hours. 

Natural History. In summer, botany, the principal families, according to the natm-al sys- 
tem. In wiiiter, zoology. The pupils are taken, for the purpose of examining specimens to 
the Royal Museum. 

Physics. In summer, optics with experiments. In winter the system of the world. 
Three hours. 

Technology. Chemical and mechanical arts and trades, described and illustrated by mo- 
dels. Excursions to visit the principal workshops. Four hours. 

Architectural and machine dratcing. Two hours. Those pupils who do not take part in 
this, receive lessons in ornamental drawing from plaster models. 

Vocal Music. Two hours. 

The pupils of this class are, besides, engaged in manipulating in the laboratory of the insti- 
tion several hours each week. 

The courses require a good collection of apparatus and specimens to carry 
them out, and this school is, in fact, better furnished than any other of its grade 
which I saw in Prussia, besides which, its collections are on the increase. The 
facilities for the courses are furnished by a collection of mathematical and physical 
apparatus, a labratory, with a tolerably complete chemical apparatus and series of 
tests, a collection of specimens of the arts and manufactures (or technological col- 
lection,) a collection of dried plants, and of engravings for the botanical course, 
and a small garden for the same use, a collection of minerals, a collection of insects, 
a collection in comparative anatomy, a series of engravings for the drawing course, 
and of plaster models, a set of maps, and other apparatus for geography, some as- 
tronoiTiical instruments, and a library. The pupils are taken from tiriie to time, 
to the admirable museum attached to the university of Berlin, for the examination 
of zoological specimens especially. 

That this school is as a preparation for the higher occupations, and for profes- 
sions not ranking among the learned, the equivalent of the gymnasium is clearly 
shown by the subjects and scope of its courses, and by the age of its pupils. 



158 



CITY TRADE SCHOOL IN BERLIN 



Some of these occupations require no higher instruction, others that the pupils 
shall pass to the special schools introductory to them. So also, many of the pupils 
of the gymnasia pass at once into active life, others enter the university. 

The class of schools to which the two last described belong, are most important 
in their influence. In many countries, an elementary education isthe limit beyond 
which those intending to enter the lower grades of the occupations enumerated in 
connection with the City Ti'ade School of Berlin, do not pass ; and if they are in- 
clined to have a better education, or if intending to embrace a higher occupation, 
they desire to be better instructed, they must seek instruction in the classical 
schools. The training of these schools is, however, essentially different from that 
required by the tradesman and mechanic, the verbal character of the instruction 
is not calculated to produce the habits of mind in which he should be brought up, 
and the knowledge which is made the basis of mental training is not that which 
he has chiefly occasion to use. Besides, were the course ever so well adapted to 
his object, the time at which he must leave school only permits him to follow a 
part of it, and he is exposed to the serious evils which must flow from being, as it 
were, but half taught. 

In fact, however, he requires a very different school, one in which the subjects 
of instruction are adapted to his destination, while they give him an adequate in- 
tellectual culture ; where the character of the instruction will train him to the 
habits which must, in a very considerable degree, determine his future usefulness; 
and where the course which he pursues will be thorough, as far as it goes, and 
will have reached before he leaves the school the standard at which it aims. Such 
establishments are furnished by the real schools of Germany, and as the wants 
which gave rise to them there, are strongly felt every where, this class of institu- 
tioiTs must spread extensively. In Germany they are, as has been seen, no new 
experiment, but have stood the test of experience, and with various modifications 
to adapt them to differences of circumstances or of views in education, they are 
spreading in that country. As they become more diffused, and have employed a 
greater number of minds in their organization, their plans will no doubt be more 
fully developed. 

It is certainly highly creditable to Germany that its " gymnasia." on the one 
hand, and its " real schools" on the other, offer such excellent models of secondary 
instruction in its two departments. The toleration which allows these dissimilar 
establishments to grow up side by side, admitting that each, though good for its 
object, is not a substitute for the other, belongs to an enlightened state of senti- 
ment in regard to education, and is worthy of the highest commendation. 

DISTRIBUTION OF STUDIES IN THE CITY TRADE SCHOOL OF BERLIN. 



OF HOURS PER 



SUBJECTS OF INSTRUCTION. 



Religion, 

German, , 

French, , 

English, , 

Arithmetic, 

Geometry,. , 

Geography, 

History, 

Natural History, 

Physics, 

Chemistry, 

Technology, 

Writing, 

Drawing, 

Vocal Music, 

Total, 



Upper 
TTiird 
Class. 



34 82 32 32 28 



9 

18 

20 

4 

18 

14 

8 

4 

13 

9 

7 

4 

6 

14 

10 



INSTITUTE Of ARTS OF liERLIN. jgg 

In Prussia, every trade in which a want of skill may jeopard human 
life, is regulated by law; and before its exercise can be commenced, a 
license is required, to obtain which an examination must be passed. 
This requisition of the law is considered to involve a reciprocal obliga- 
tion on the part of the government to afford the opportunity of obtain- 
ing the necessary knowledge, and schools have accordingly been estab- 
lished for the purpose. Twenty of the regencies of the kingdom already 
have technical schools established in them, where instruction is. ip gen- 
eral, given at the expense of the state, or province, or for a very trifling 
remuneration; and it is the intention that each regency shall haw at 
least one such school within its limits. When there is a burgher school 
in the place intended as the locality for one of these technical schools, 
the two schools are connected as already described: at Potsdam, the 
special technical course alone being given in a separate department. 
In all cases the government supplies the apparatus for the courses of 
mechfCnics, physics, and chemistry; furnishes the requisite engravings 
for the courses of drawing; and supplies works for the library and for 
instruction. 

The most promising pupils from the provincial schools usually find 
places at the central Institute at Berlin, which is in fact the university 
of artg. There is a special school for ship-builders at Stettin, in 
Pomerania. 

INSTITUTE OF ARTS OF BERLIN, 

This institution is intended to impart the theoretical knowledge essential to im 
provement in the arts, and such practical knowledge as can be acquired to advan- 
tage in a school. It is supported by the government, and has also a legacy, to be 
expended in bursaries at the school, from Baron Von Seydlitz. The institution is 
under the charge of a director,* who has the entire control of the funds, of the 
admissions and dismissions, and the superintendence of the instruction. The pro- 
fessors and pupils do not reside in the establishment, so that the superintendence 
is confined to study hours. There are assistant professors, who prepare the lec- 
tures, and conduct a part of the exercises, in some eases reviewing the lessons of 
the professors with the pupils. Besides these officers there are others, who have 
charge of the admirable collections of the institution, and of the workshops, 
offices, &c. The number of professors is eight, and of repeaters, two. The dis- 
cipline is of the most simple character, for no pupil is allowed to remain in con- 
nection with the institution unless his conduct and progress are satisfactory. There 
is but one punishment recognized, namely, dismission ; and even a want of punc- 
tuality is visited thas severely. 

In the spring of every year the regencies advertise that applications will be re- 
ceived for admission into the institute, and the testimonials of the candidates who 
present the best claims are forwarded to the director at Berlin, who decides finally 
upon the several nominations. The pupils from the provincial schools have, in 
general, the preference over other applicants. At the same time notice is given 
by the president of the Society for the Promotion of National Industry, in rela- 
tion to the bursaries vacant upon the Seydlitz foundation. The qualifications es- 
sential to admission are — to read and write the German language with correctness 
and facility, and to be thoroughly acquainted with arithmetic in all its branches. 
The candidate must, besides, be at least seventeen years of age. Certain of tho 



* Thedirecior, M. Beuth, is also president of the Royal Technical Commission of Prussia, 
and has the distribution of the funds for the encouragement of industry, amounting to about 
seventy-five thousand dollars annually. M. Beuth is also a privy counsellor, and is president 
of the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry in Prussia. 



I go INSTITUTE OF ARTS OF BERLIN. 

pupils, as will be hereafter more fully stated, require to have served an appren- 
ticeship to a trade. The Seydlitz bursar must, in addition, show — 1st. That their 
parents were not artizans,* relatives of the founder ha\'ing the preference over 
other applicants. 2d. That they have been apprenticed to a trade, if they intend 
to follow one not taught in the institution. 3d. They must enter into an engage- 
ment that if they leave the mechanical career they will pay back the amount of 
their bursaries. There are sixty or seventy gratuitous pupils in the school of 
whom eighteen are upon the Seydlitz foundation. Forty arc admitted annually, 
this number having been adopted because it is found that, in the course of the 
first month, about a fourth of the newly admitted pupils fall away from the insti- 
tution. Each bursar receives two hundred and twenty-five dollars per annum 
for maintenance. The education is gratuitous. The regular pupils enter on the 
first of October, but the director is authorized to admit, at his pleasure, applicants 
who do not desire to become bursars, but who support themselves, receiving gra- 
tuitously, however, the instruction aflbrded by the institution. 

The education of the pupils is either solely theoretical, or combines theory and 
practice, according to the calling which they intend to follo\\-. The first division 
is composed of students, who receive theoretical instruction only, and who are 
preparing to become masons, carpenters, and joiners. They are supposed to have 
become acquainted with the practice of their trade before entering the institution, 
being required to have served, previously, a part of their apprenticeship. An ex- 
cellent reason is assigned for this rule, namely, that on leaving the school such 
pupils are too old to begin their apprenticeship to these callings, and would, if they 
attempted to do so, find the first beginnings so irksome as to induce them to seek 
other employments, and thus their special education would be lost-, and the object 
of the school defeated. The second division embraces both theoretical and prac- 
tical instruction, and consists of three classes. First, the stone-cutters, engravei's, 
lapidaries, glass-cutters, carvers in wood and ivory, and brass-founders. Second, 
dyers and manufacturers of chemical products. Third, machine-makers and me- 
chanicians. The practical instruction is different for each of these three elas.ses. 

The general course of studies last two years, and the pupils are divided into 
two corresponding classes. The first class is, besides, subdivided into two sections. 
The lower or second class is taught first ; mechanical drawing, subdivided into 
decorative drawing, including designs for architectural ornaments, utensils, vases, 
patterns for weaving, &c., and linear drawing, applied to civil works, to handicrafts, 
and to machines. Second, modelling in clay, plaster, and wax. Third, practical 
arithmetic. Fourth, geometry. Fifth, natural philosophy. Sixth, chemistry. 
Seventh, technology, or a knowledge of the materials, processes, and products of 
the arts. The studies of the lower section of the first class are general, while 
those of the first section turn more particularly upon the applications of science to 
the arts. In the lower section, the drawing, modelling, natural philosophy, and 
chemistry, of the first year, are continued ; and, in addition, descriptive geometry, 
trigonometry, stereometry, mixed mathematics, )nineralogy, and the art of con- 
struction are studied. In the upper or first section, perspective, stone-cutting, 
carpentry, and mechanics applied to the arts, are taught, and the making of plans 
and estimates for buildings, workshops, manufactories, machines, &c. These 
are common to all pupils, whatever may be their future destination ; but beside 
them, the machinists study, during the latter part of their stay at the institution, 
a continuation of the course of mechanics and mathematical analysis. The ex- 
amples accompanying the instruction in regard to plans and estimates are adapted 
to the intended pursuits of the pupils. 

The courses of practice are begun by the pupils already enumerated as taking 
part in them, at different periods of their stay in the institution. The future 
chemists and mechanics must have completed the whole range of studies above 
mentioned, as common to all the pupils, while the others begin their practice after 
having completed the first year's course. There are workshops for each class of 
pupils, where they are taught the practice of their proposed calling, under com- 
petent workmen. There are two foimdries for bronze castings, one for small, the 

* The object of M. Von Seydlitz appears to have been to counteract, to the extent of his 
power, the tendency to the increase of the learnecl professions, at the expense of the mechanic 
arts, by an inducement to a course exactly contrary to the usual one. 



INSTITUTE OF ARTS OF BERLIN. Jgj 

other for large castings, and tTie work turned out of both bears a high character. 
A specimen of this work is retained by the institution in a beautiful fountain, 
which ornaments one of the coui'ts of the building. The models for castings are 
made in the establishment. In the first division of pupils, in reference to their 
callings, there are usually some whose art is connected with the fine arts in some 
of its branches, and these have an opportunity during part of the week to attend 
the courses of the Berlin Academy. The future chemists work for half the yeaK 
in the laboratory. They are chiefly employed in chemical analysis, being furnished 
with the requisite materials for practice by the institution. In the shops for the 
insti'uetion of mechanics are machines for working in wood and the metals, a steam- 
engine of four horses' power, a forge, tools in great variety, lathes, &c. The pupils 
have the use of all necessary implements, according to their progress, and are 
gradually taught, as if serving a regular apprenticeship. When capable, they are 
enable to construct machines which may be useful to them subsequently, as a 
lathe, or machine for cutting screws, or the teeth of wheels, &c., and are furnished 
with all the materials for the purpose, the machine becoming their own property. 
In these workshops, also, the models for the cabinet of the school are made. 
This is by far the most complete establishment for practice which I met with in 
any institution, and I believe the practice is both real and efl:ectual. It involves, 
however, an expenditure which in other cases it has not been practicable to com- 
mand. The scale of the whole institution is, in the particular of expenditure, 
most generous. 

This is one specimen of the various plans which have been devised to give 
practical knowledge of an art in connection with theory in a school. It is first 
most judiciously laid down that certain trades can not be taught to advantage in a 
similar connection, but that the practical knowledge must be acquired by an ap- 
prenticeship antecedent to the theoretical studies. There are besides, however, a 
large number of trades, the practice of which is to be taught in the institu- 
tion, and requiring a very considerable expenditure to carry out the design pro- 
perly. This could not be attempted in a school less munificently endowed, 
and requires very strict regulations to carry it through even here. The habits of 
a school workshop are, in general, not those of a real manufactory, where the 
same articles are made to be sold as a source of profit ; hence, though the practi- 
cal knowledge may be acquired, the habits of work are not, and the mechanic 
may be well taught but not well trained. At the private school of Charonne, 
workshops were established, giving a variety of occupation to the pupils ; but the 
disposition to play rather than to work, rendered these establishments too costly to 
be supported by a private institution, and the plan adopted instead of this, was to 
make the pupils enter a regular workshop for a stated number of hours, to work 
for the proprietor or lessee. This plan remedies one evil, but introduces another, 
that as the machinist takes orders, with a view to profit, the work may have so 
little variety as only to benefit a small class of the pupils. The pupils at Charonne 
are, however, under different circumstances fi-om those at Berlin ; they are gen- 
erally younger, and, being independent of the school, where they paj' for their 
education, are not under the same restraint as in the other institution ; hence the 
experience of the one school does not apply in full force to the other. At Dres- 
den, in a school somewhat similar to that of Berlin, a different mode from either 
of those just mentioned has been adopted. An arrangement is made with a num- 
ber of mechanics, of different occupations, to receive pupils from the schools as 
apprentices, allowing them the privilege of attending, during certain specified 
hours of the day, upon the theoretical exercises of the institution. Where such 
an arrangement can be made, the results are unexceptionable, and the advantages 
hkely to accrue to the mechanic arts, from the union of theory with practice, will 
offer a strong inducement to liberally disposed mechanics to take apprentices upon 
these terms. Small workshops, connected with an institution, must necessarily 
offer inferior advantages, even if closely regulated, so as to procure the greatest 
possible amount of work from the pupils ; this should not be done for the sake of 
the profit, but to give him genuinely good habits. 

The difficulties in giving practical instruction in the chemical arts are not to be 
compared with those under di.scussion, and will be found to have been satisfactorily 
obviated in several schools. This subject will receive its more appropriate discus- 
sion in connection with the polytechnic institution of Vienna, where the chemioal 

11 



IQ2 INSTITUTE OF ARTS OF BERLIN. 

department, at least as far as manufacturing chemistry is concerned, is generally 
recognized as having produced the best results of any yet established. 

Returning to the subject of the theoretical instruction in the Berlin institute of 
arts, the following statement will serve to show the succession of the course, with 
the time devoted to each : 

WINTER COURSE, 
MONDAY. 

First Class. First division— drawing and sketching machines, eight A. M. to twelve o'clock. 
Discussion of machines, estimates of power, <tc , two P. M. to five P. M. Second division — 
machine drawing, eight to ten. Modelling in clay, ten to twelve. Physics, two to five. 

Stcond C/ass. Machine drawing, eight to ten. Modelling, ten to twelve. Elements of 
geometry, two to four. Repetition of the lecture, four to five. 

TUESDAY. 

First C/ass. First division— architectural plans and estimates, eight to twelve. Practical 
instruction in machinery, two to five. Second division — ornamental and architectural draw- 
ing, eight to twelve. Trigonometry, two to five. 

Secund Class. Ornamental and architectural drawing, eight to twelve. Physics, two to 
four. Repetition of the lecture, four to five. 

WEDNESDAY. 

First Class. First division— original designs, eight to twelve. Discussion of machinery. 
Second division — mineralogy, eight to nine. Machine drawing, nine to twelve. Trigonome- 
try, two to five. 

Second Class. Machine drawing, eight to twelve. Practical arithmetic, two to five. 

THURSDAY. 

First Class. First divisions-drawing and sketching machines, eight to twelve. Architec- 
tural instruction, estimates, two to five. Second division— decorative and architectural 
drawing, eight to ten. Modelling in clay, ten to twelve. Trigonometry, two to five. 

Second Class. Decorative and archiltclural drawing, eight to ten. Modelling in clay, ten 
to twelve. Physics, two to four. Repetition of the lecture, four to five. 

FRIDAY. 

First Class, First division— architectural plans, eight to twelve. Practical instruction in 
macliinery, two to five. Stcond division — machine drawing, eight to twelve. Physics, two 
to five. 

Second Class. Machine drawing, eight to twelve. Elementary mathematics, two to four. 
Repetition of the lessons, four to five. 

SATURDAY. 

First Class First division — perspective and stone-cutting, eight to twelve. Original de- 
signs. Iwo to five. Second division— mineralogy, eight to nine. Decorative and architectu- 
ral drawing, nine to twelve. Trigonometry, two to five. 

Second Class. Decorative and architectural drawing, eight to twelve. Practical arithme- 
tic, two to five. 

The suimiier term, which follows this, embraces the practical instruction. 

SUMMER TERM. 

MONDAY. 

First Class. First division— in the workshops from seven A. M. to twelve, and from one 
until seven P. M. Second division — machine drawing, eight to twelve. Applied mathemat- 
ics, two to five. 

Second Cass. Machine drawing, eight to ten. Modelling, ten to twelve. Chemistry, two 
to four. Repetition, lour to five. 

TUESDAY. 

First Class First division— analytical dynamics, eight to nine. Drawing of machines from 
original designs, nine to twelve. Machinery, two to five. StCond division — decorative and 
architectural drawing, eight to twelve. Chemistry, two to five. 

Seco7id C/ass. Decorative and architectural drawing, eight to twelve. Elementary mathe- 
matics, two to four. Repetition, four to five. 

WEDNESDAY. 

First Class. First division— in the workshops from seven to twelve, and from one to seven. 
Second division— machine drawing, eight to ten. Modelling, ten to twelve. Applied mathe- 
matics, two to five. 

Second Class Machine drawing, eight to twelve. Practical arithmetic, two to four. Ma- 
terials used in the arts, four to five. 

THURSDAY. 

First Class. First division— in the workshops from seven to twelve, and from one to 
seven. Second division— machine drawing, eight to ten. Modelling, ten to twelve. Applied 
mathematics, two to five. 

Second Class. Decorative and architectural drawing, eight to ten. Modelling, ten to 
twelve. Chemistry, two to four. Repetition of the lesson, four to five. 



INSTITUTE OK ARTS OF BERLIN. 



163 



FRIDAY. 

First Class. First division— analytical dynamics, eight to nine. Drawing of a machine for 
an original design, nine to twelvfe. Mjclnnery, two to five. Second division — chemistry, 
eight 10 nine. Applied mathematics, nine to twelve. Chemistry, two to five. 

Secu7id C/ass. Machine drawing, eight to twelve. Elementary mathematics, two to four. 
Repetition of the lesson, four to five. 

SATURDAY. 

I\rst Class. First division— in the workshops, from seven to twelve, and from one to 
seven. Second division — decorative and architectural drawing, eight to twelve. Applied 
malhematics. two to five. 

Secund C/ass. Decorative and architectural drawing, eight to twelve. Practical arithme- 
tic, two to four. Materials used in the arts, four to five 

The chemical division of the practical classes is engaged every day in the laboratory. On 
Tuesday and Wednesday, the library is open for reading from five to eight, P. M. 

The collections for carrying out the various branches of instruction are upon 
the same liberal scale with the other parts of the institution. There is a library 
of works on architecture, mechanics, technology, the various arts, archeology, &c., 
in German, French and English. This library is open twice a week, from five to 
eight in the evening, to the pupils of the first class of the school, and to such me- 
chanics as apply for the use of it. 

There is a rich collection of drawings of new and useful machines, and of illus- 
trations of the different courses, belonging to the institution. Among them is a 
splendid work, published under the direction of Mr. Beuth, entitled Models for 
Manufactures and Artisans, (Vorlegeblatter for Fabricanten and Handwerker,) 
containing engravings by the best artists of Germany, ai^d some even from France 
and England, applicable to the different arts and to architecture and engineering. 
Among the drawings are many from original designs by Shenckel, of Berlin. 
There is a second useful but more ordinary series of engravings, on similar sub- 
jects, also executed for the use of the school. These works are 'distributed to the 
provincial trade schools, and presented to such of the mechanics of Prussia as 
have especially distinguished themselves in their vocations. The collection of 
models of machinery belonging to the school probably ranks next in extent and 
value to .that at the Conservatory of Arts of Paris. It contains models of such 
machines as are not readily comprehended by drawings. Most of them are 
working models, and many were made in the workshops of the school. They 
are constructed, as far as possible, to a uniform scale, and the parts of the models 
are of the same materials as in the actual machine. There is an extensive col- 
lection of casts, consisting of copies of statues, basso-relievos, utensils, bronzes, 
and vases of the museums of Naples, Rome, and Florence, and of the British 
Museum, and of the models of architectural monuments of Greece, Rome, Pom- 
peii, &c., and copies of models, cameos, and similar objects ; those specimens only 
have been selected which are not in the collection of the Academy of Fine Arts 
of Berlin, to which the pupils of the Institute of Arts have access. There are 
good collections of physical and chemical apparatus, of minerals, of geological and 
technological specimens. 

The instruction is afforded in part by the lectures of the professors, aided by 
text-books specially intended for the school, and in part by the interrogations of 
the professors and of the assistants and repeaters. At the close of the first year 
there is an examination to determine which of the pupils shall be permitted to go 
forward, and at the close of the second year to determine which shall receive the 
certificate of the institute. Although the pupils who come from the provinces are 
admitted to the first class of the institute, upon their presenting a testimonial that 
they have gone through the course of the provincial schools satisfactorily, it fre- 
quently happens that they are obliged to retire to the second, especially from de- 
fective knowledge of chemistry. 

The cost of this school to the government is about twelve thou.sand dollars an- 
nually, exclusive of the amount expended upon the practical courses and upon the 
collections — -a very trifling stun, if the good which it is calculated to do through- 
out the country is considered. 

The schools and institutions above described, are only specimens of 
the care of the government to provide facilities for special instruction in 
every department of labor which ministers to the physical wants of 



164 INSTITUTE OF ARTS OF BERLIN. 

society, and to the improvement of decorative art in the workshop and 
the factory. Schools for civil engineering, architecture, gardening, agri- 
culture, commerce, &c., are established indifferent provinces, and aided 
by llie government. The practical skill in drawing, made universal by its 
introduction as a regular exercise in all primary schools as well as per- 
fected in the higher class of public schools, has given increased value to 
the productions of the loom, and the hand, and enabled the Prussian 
manufacturer not only to supply the home demand for articles of taste 
and beauty, but to compete successfully with those of other nations, in 
the markets of the world. 



LEGAL PROVISION 

RESPECTING THE 

EDUCATION, IMPROVEMENT, AND SUPPORT OF TEACHERS IN PRUSSIA. 



The following are the provisions of the law of 1819 respecting Normal 
Schools and teachers. It is difficult to describe the well-qualified teacher 
in more appropriate language : 

" In order that a master may be enabled to fulfill the duties of his sta- 
tion, he ought to be religious, wise, and alive to the high importance of 
his profession. He ought thorougiily to understand the duties of his 
station, to have acquired the art of teaching and managing youth, to be 
firm in his fidelify to the state, conscientious in the discharge of his duties, 
friendly and prudent in his relations with the parents of his children, and 
with his fellow-citizens in general ; finally, he ought to inspire all around 
him with a lively interest in the progress of the school, and to render 
them favorably inclined to second hia own wishes and endeavors." 

In order to insure the education of such schoolmasters, the following 
regulations are laid down : 

"Each department is required to have a number of young men well 
prepared for their duties, who may supply the yearly vacancies in the 
ranks of the schoolmasters of the department, and therefore each depart- 
ment shall be required to support a Normal School. These establish- 
ments shall be formed on the basis of the following regulations : 

1. No Normal School for teachers in the primary schools shall admit 
more than seventy pupil teachers. 

2. In every department where the numbers of Catholics and Protest- 
ants are about equal, there shall be, as often as circumstances will per- 
mit, a Normal School for the members of each sect. But wliere there is 
a very marked inequality in the numbers of the two sects, the masters of 
the least numerous sect shall be obtained from the Normal Schools be- 
longing to that sect in a neighboring department, or by smaller establish- 
ments in the same department annexed to an elementarj'^ primary school. 
Normal Schools for simultaneous education of two sects shall be permitted 
when the pupil teachers can obtain close at hand suitable religious in- 
struction, each in the doctrines of his own church. 

3. The Normal Schools shall be established whenever it is possible in 
small towns, so as to preserve the pupil teachers from the dissipations, 
temptations, and habits of life which are not suitable to their future pro- 
fession, without subjecting them to a monastic seclusion ; but the town 
ought not to be too small, in order that they may profit by the vicinity of 
several elementary and superior primary schools. 

6. No young man can be received into a Normal School who has not 
passed through a course of instruction in an elementary primary school ; 
nor can any young man be received, of the excellence of whose moral 
character there is the least ground of suspicion. The age of admission 
into the Normal Schools shall be from sixteen to eighteen years. 

7. As to the methods of instruction, directors of the Normal Schools 
shall rather seek to conduct the pupil teachers by their own experience 
to simple and clear principles, than to give them theories lor their guid- 
ance ; and with this end in view, primary schools shall be jomed to all the 



166 



NORMAL SCHOOLS IN PRUSSIA 



Normal Schools, where the pupil teachers may be practised in the art of 
teaching. 

8. In each Normal School the course of wstructinn shall last three 
years, of which tlie first sliall be devoted to the continuation of the course 
ol' instruction vvliich the pupils commenced in the primary schools ; the 
second to an instruction of a still higher character, and the third to prac- 
tice in the primary school attached to the establishment. For those who 
are sutficiently advanced when they enter not to require the first year's 
instruction, the course may be reduced to one of two years. 

10. In each Norma! School particular funds, set apart for that purpose, 
shall be devoted to the support of young men of good character not able 
to pay for themselves, but in such a manner as not to habituate them to 
too many comforts, and not to render them unfit for the worst paid situa- 
tions in the primary schools. 

11. Every pupil who receives such assistance from a Normal School, is 
obliged at the end of his educational course to accept the place which the 
provincial consistories assign him ; a prospect of advancement, however, 
must always be held out to him in case of perseverance and good conduct. 

12. The provincial consistories have the immediate surveillance of all 
the Normal Schools in the ditierent departments of their respective 
provinces ; and the provincial ecclesiastical authorities have the especial 
surveillance of the religious instruction of tlieir respective sects." 

The following provisions, gathered from the law of 1819, and from the 
general regulations, have an important bearing on the social and pecuniary 
condition of the teacher, 

No young man is allowed to conduct a primary school until he has 
obtained a certificate of his capacity to fulfill the important duties of a 
schoolmaster. The examinations of the candidates for these certificates 
is conducted by commissions, composed of two laymen aixl two clergy- 
men, or two priests. The provincial consistories nominate the lay mem- 
bers, the ecclesiastical authorities of the respective provinces nominate 
the clerical members for the examination of the religious education of the 
Protestant candidates; and the Roman Catholic bishop nominates the 
two priests who examine the Roman Catholic candidates. 

The members of these commissions are nominated for three years, and 
they can afterward be continued in their office if advisable. 

I'he lay examiners and the clerical examiners join in granting the cer- 
tificates, but the religious and secular examinations are conducted sepa- 
rately. The certificates are signed also by the director of the Normal 
School in which the young man has been educated, and describe his 
moral character and his intellectual capability. 

These certificates are not valid until they have been ratified by the 
superior authorities, that is, by the provincial consistories; and in the case 
of the certificates granted to the Roman Catholics, the further ratification 
of the bishop is necessary. If the provincial consistories and the bishops 
can not agree about the granting of any certificate, the matter is relerred 
to the minister of public instruction, who decides between them. The 
provincial authorities can re-examine the candidates, if they think there is 
any reason to doubt what is specified on the certificate granted by the 
committee of examination, and can declare them incapable, and can re- 
quire the local authorities to proceed to another examination if they are 
not satisfied with the character of any of the candidates. 

The young women who are candidates for the situations of school- 
mistresses are obliged to .submit to the same kind of examination before 
they can obtain the certificate enabling Ihem to teike the charge of a 
girls' Bchool. 



NORMAL SCHOOLS IN PRUSSIA. 1 g^ 

The election and nomination of masters for the communal schools, is 
the duty of the local committees, on the presentation of the communal 
inspectors. 

The masters can not be installed and begin to receive their salaries, 
until their certificates have been ratified by the provincial authorities. 

'' The provincial consistories are required to choose able and zealous 
clerical inspectors, and to engage them to form and direct great associa- 
tions between the masters of the town and rural schools, for the purpose 
of fostering among them a feeling of interest in their profession, of further- 
ing the further development of their education by regular reunions, by 
consultations, conversations, practical treatises, study of particular branciies 
of instruction, and discussions on treatises read aloud in their public as- 
semblies." 

These teachers' conferences are very useful. They not only promote 
a spirit of generous emulation among the schoolmasters, and so stinuilate 
them to, further exertions, but they encourage the masters, by reminding 
them that they form part of a great and honorable body. And nothing 
encourages man more than a feeling of association. Man alone is weak 
and timid ; but let him only feel that his feelings and aims are those of a 
number who regard him as their fellow, and he then is a giant in his 
aims and etlbrts. 

The provincial consistories have the power of sending the master of a 
primary school, who appears to be in need of further instruction, to a 
Normal School, for the time that may appear requisite to give him the 
nece.«sary additional instruction ; during his absence his place is supplied 
by a young man from the Normal School, who receives a temporary cer- 
tificate. 

The expenses of the conferences and of the masters who frequent for a 
second time the Normal Schools, are generally defrayed by the provincial 
educational authorities. 

The schoolmasters are encouraged to continue their own education by 
hopes of prelerment to better situations, or to superior schools ; but befijre 
they can attain this preferment, they must pass a second examination, 
conducted by the same authorities who conducted the tbrmer. 

If a schoolmaster is negligent or conducts himself improperly in his 
station, the inspector of the school first remonstrates with him, and if this 
fails to convince him, the inspector of the canton reproves him ; and if he 
still prove refractory, they report him to the provincial authorities, who 
have the power of fining him, or of removing him Irom the school. 

If he commits any flagrant crime, he is reported at once to the pro- 
vincial authorities, who remove him immediately, after having carefully 
verified the accusations brought against him by the inspectors. 

Every school in a village or town must have a garden suitable to the 
nature of the country and habits of the people, for a kitchen-garden, nur- 
sery-orchard, or the raising of bees. This is provided as an additional 
resource for the teacher, as well as an available means of instruction of 
the scholars. 

Every school-house must not only embrace what we regard as essen- 
tial features in such structures, such as size, location. Ventilation, warmth, 
seats and desks, &c.. but apparatus for illustrating every study, and '-a 
sufficient collection of books for the use of the master," as well as a resi- 
dence for him. 

Whenever a new fund, legacy, or donation, accrues to the schools of a 
province or commune, the same must be appropriated to the improvement 
of the school, or of the master's income, and not to the diminution ol' any 
tax or rate before collected. 

The practice of '• boarding round," or the right of the teacher to a 
place at the table of every family in the commune or district in rotation 



168 



NORMAL SCHOOLS IN PRUSSIA 



(called, in German, Wandeltisch, movable table,) formerly prevailed in 

Prussia, but it was first arrested by an ordinance in 1811, directing that 
this '' movable table" should not be reckoned in payment of the teacher's 
compensation, and should be given up at the option of the teacher. It is 
now abandoned in every commune which makes any prelensioti to civili- 
zation. It never included any thing beyond an " itinerating table." The 
teacher always had a fixed residence provided, and usually under the 
same roof with his school. 

Scholars are encouraged to form among themselves a fund, by voluti- 
tary contributions, for the assistance of their necessitous schoolfellows. 
The fund is managed by themselves under the direction of their teacher. 
This is done to cultivate good feeling in the school, and save the teacher 
from a constant tax for articles for such pupils. 

All school fees, all contributions or assessments in money, fuel. &c., 
must be collected by the regular school authorities, and not by the 
teacher. And no service can be required of the teacher in or about the 
school, and he can engage in no employment, which will lower his dignity, 
or weaken his influence. 

All public teachers are regarded as public functionaries, and are ex- 
empt from liability to military .service in time of peace, and from all local 
and capitation taxes, or if taxed, an equivalent, is allowed in an increase 
of salary. 

Whenever any division of land belonging to a parish, or town, is made, 
a sufficient quantity shall be allotted to the schoolmaster for a vegetable 
garden, and for the feed of a cow. Wherever the right of common'exists, 
the teacher shall share in its benefits. 

Schoolmasters who become temporarily infirm, are entitled to an allow- 
ance l>om the school moneys provided for the support of their schools. And 
when permanently di-sabled, are entitled to an annual allowance from the 
income of funds provided in each province for this purpose, and for the 
support of the widows and children of teachers, who entitle themselves to 
such provision for their families, by a small annual contribution from their 
salaries. 

Teachers, who show themselves entitled to promotion to the direction 
of Normal Schools, are enabled to travel both in Prussia, and other 
countries, for the purpose of extending their knowledge of the organiza- 
tion, instruction and discipline of schools. 

A valuable ordinance passed in 1826, and renewed in 1846, requires 
the director of a seminary to travel about, once a year, and visit a certain 
part of the schools within his circuit. He makes himself acquainted with 
the stale of the school, listens to the instruction given, takes part himselt 
in the same, and gives to the teacher such hints" for improvement as his 
observation may suggest. The results of his yearly visits he presents, in 
the form of a report, to the school authorities of the province. This occa- 
sional visitation is very useful in clearing up the dark corners of the land, 
correcting abuses, and giving an impulse, from time to time, to teachers, 
who might otherwise sink into apathy and neglect. To render the effi- 
cacy of the seminaries more complete, it is provided that at the end of 
three years after leaving the seminary, the young teachers shall return 
to pass a second examination. 

By an ordinance in J 826, it is provided : " To the end, that the benefi- 
cial influence of the seminary may extend itself to those teachers already 
established, who either require further instruction, or who in their own 
cultivation and skill in office do not advance, perhaps even recede ; it is 
required that such teachers be recalled into the seminary for a shorter or 
longer time, as may be needful for them, in order, either to pass through 
a whole methodical course, or to practice themselves in particular da* 
partments of instruction." 



PRUSSIAN TEACHERS Jgg 

That the foregoing excellent and thorough regulations have not 
remained a dead letter in the ordinances of the government, but are 
substantially followed in the practical operations of the system, will be 
made evident from the testimony of Mr. Kay, an intelligent English 
traveler, as to the education, social position, and professional standing 
of the primary school teachers of Prussia, as well as from the accounts 
which follow of several of the best normal schools in different depart- 
ments of the kingdom : 

During my travels in different provinces of Prussia, I was in daily communica- 
tion with the teachers. I had every opportunity of observing the spirit, which 
animated the whole body, and of hearing the opinions of the poor respecting 
them. I found a great body of educated, courteous, refined, moral, and learned 
professors, laboring with real enthusiasm among the poorest classes of their coun- 
trymen. I found them wholly devoted to their duties, proud of their profession, 
united together by a strong feeling of brotherhood, and holding continual con- 
ferences together, for the purposes of debating all kinds of questions, relating to 
the management of their schools. But what gave me greater pleasure than all 
else was, to observe in what esteem and respect they were held by the peasants. 
If you tempt a Prussian peasant to find fault with the schools, he will tell you, in 
answer, how good the school is, and how learned the teachers are. I often heard 
the warmest panegyrics bestowed upon them by the peasants, shovi'ing in the 
clearest manner how well their merits and their labors were appreciated.* 

I could not but feel, how grand an institution this great body of more than 
28,000 teachers was, and how much it was capable of effecting ; and, when I 
regarded the happy condition of the Prussian peasantry, I could not but believe, I 
saw some of the fruits of the daily labors of this enlightened, respected, and 
united brotherhood. 

Upon the parochial ministers and parochial teachers depend, far more than we 
are willing to allow the intelligence, the morality, and the religion of the people. 
The cordial co-operation of these two important and honorable professions is nec- 
essary to the moral progress of a nation. The religious minister acts upon the 
adults, the teacher on the young. The co-operation of the religious ministers is nec- 
essary to secure the success of the teacher's efforts ; and, on the other hand, with- 
out the earnest aid of the teacher, the fairest hopes of the religious minister are 
often blighted in the bud. 

We must educate the child, if we would reform the man. But, alas ! this 
education is a labor, requiring a long, persevering, careful, intelligent, and most 
tender handling. It were much better left alone, than to be attempted, so as to 
create disgust, or to embitter early associations, or to render virtuous and ennobling 
pursuits disgusting throughout after-life. On the teacher depends the training of 
the poor man's child, for poor parents have, unhappily, too little spare time to 
allow them to perform the greatest duty of a parent. And thus, as the character 
of every nation mainly depends upon the training of the children, we may safely 
affirm, that, such as our teachers are, such also will be our peasantry. 

How essential is it, then, to the moral welfare, and therefore to the political 
greatness of a nation, that the profession of the teachers should be one, insuring 
the perfect satisfaction of its members, and commanding the respect of the country ! 

The teacher's station in society ought to be an honorable one, or few learned 
and able men will be found willing to remain long in the profession, even if any 
such men can be induced to enter it ; and it is much better to be without teachers 
altogether, than to leave the training of our children to men of narrow minds, 
unrestrained passions, or meagre intelligence. The Prussian government has fully 

* Since these remarks were written, the course of public events in Prussia has given a very 
remarkable proof of their correctness. To the National Assembly, which met in Berlin in 
May, 184S, the people of the provinces elected no fewer than eight teachers as representa- 
tives ; giving this striking proof of the'people's respect for the ability and high character of 
the profession. 



jYO PRUSSIAN TEACHERS. 

recognized these truths, and has, therefore, done all within its power, to raise the 
character and social position of the teachers as much as possible. As these 
efforts have been heartily seconded by the provincial governments and4.he people, 
the result has been most remarkable and satisfactory. 

The first exertions of the government were wholly devoted to the improvement 
of the intellectual and moral character of the profession, and to the increase of its 
numbers. They determined to make the name of " teacher" an honor, and in 
itself a guarantee to every parent of the character and attainments of the man 
who bore it. To attain this end, they denied all access to the ranks of the pro- 
fession to any but those who proved themselves worthy of admittance. No 
person can be a teacher in Prussia, or in any part of Germany, France Austria, 
Switzerland, or Holland, until he has passed a very severe and searching examina- 
tion, and. until he has produced testimonials from those well acquainted with him, 
of the irreproachable nature of his moral life and character. This examination, 
which includes both intellectual and moral qualifications, is conducted by able and 
impartial men, among whom are to be found the candidate's religious minister, the 
professors of the normal college at which he was brought up, and at least one of 
the educational magistrates of the county of which he is a native. He who 
passes the ordeal is allowed to be a teacher, whether he was educated at a normal 
college or not. The ranks of the profession are open to all educated and moral 
men, wherever or however they were educated ; but educated and moral they 
must prove themselves. It is not, then, to be wondered at, that the men, who are 
known to have satisfactorily passed this scrutiny, are regarded by all their fellow- 
countrymen with respect and consideration, and as men of great learning and 
of high character. 

This once attained, the next great efforts of the government were directed to 
the improvement of the social position of the teachers. The government placed 
them under the immediate protection of the county courts. They also made a 
law that no teacher, who had been once elected, whether by a parochial commitee, 
or by trustees, or by private patrons, should be dismissed, except by permission of 
the county magistrates. This protected the teachers from the effects of the mere 
personal prejudices of those in immediate connection with them. They then 
defined the minimum of the teachers' salaries, and this minimum, they have ever 
since been steadily increasing. 

It is absolutely necessary, that my readers should not connect their preconceived 
ideas of an English village schoolmaster with the learned and refined teacher of 
Prussia. They might just as well think of comparing the position and attainments 
of the vast majority of our teachers with those of the scholars of our universities, 
as of comparing those of our schoolmasters with those of the Prussian teachers. 
I felt, whenever I was in the company of a Prussian teacher, that I was with a 
gentleman, whose courteous bearing and intelligent manner of speaking must 
exert a most beneficial influence upon the peasantry, among whom whom he 
lived. It was, as if I saw one of the best of our English curates performing the 
duties of a schoolmaster. I never saw any vulgarity or coarseness, and still less 
any stupidity or incapacity for their duties, displayed by any of them. 

The Protestant teachers of Germany occupy situations of importance in connec- 
tion with the religious ministers and religious congregations. They fulfill several 
of the duties of our curates, clerks, and organists. In both Romanist and 
Protestant congregations, they lead the choir and play the organ. They act, too, 
as clerk ; and when a Protestant minister is indisposed, and unable to conduct 
public worship, the parochial teacher officiates in his stead, reads the church ser- 
vice, and sometimes also preaches. The musical part of public worship, in both 
Romanist and Protestant churches and chapels, is always directed by the parochial 
teacher. The small salary, which they receive for the performance of these 
duties, serves to increase their incomes ; but what is of much more importance is, 
that this connection of the teachers with the religious congregations and ministera 
serves to bind the religious ministers and teachers together, to lesson the labors of 
each by mutual assistance, and, above all, to raise the teacher in the estimation of 
the poor, by whom he is surrounded, and thereby materially to increase the effect 
of his advice and instructions. 

It was very curious, and pleasing, to observe the effects of the intercourse of 



PRUSSIAN TEACHERS. ji^j 

this enlightened and excellent body of men with the peasantry during the last 
twenty years. I do not hesitate to say, that, at the period of my visit to Prussia, I 
had never before seen so polite and civilized, and seemingly intelligent, a peas- 
antry as that of Prussia. ^Vere a stranger introduced into some of the lowest 
schools. I am quite convinced he would not believe he saw peasants children before 
him. They were generally so clean and neatly dressed, and their manners were 
always so good, that 1 was several times obliged to ask the teachers, if I really 
saw the children of the poor before me. The appearance of the girls was particu- 
larly gratifying ; their dress was so respectable, their manners was so good, their 
way of dressing their hair showed so much taste, and their cleanliness was so 
great, that no one, who had not been informed beforehand to what class they 
belonged, would have believed them to be the children of the poorest of the people. 
The lowest orders of Germany are so nmch more refined than our poor, tiiat the 
children of the rich very often attend the primary schools, while the chil- 
dren of the trades peojile and middle classes almost invariably do so. The 
richer parents know that their children will not come into contact with any coarse- 
ness, and tliat the teacher is certain to be an educated and refined gentleman. 
This mingling of the children of the higher and lower orders tends to civilize the 
peasantry still more, and to produce a kindly feeling between the different ranks 
of society. Eut the primary cause of the great and ever-increasing civilization 
of the Prussian peasantry is, undeniably, their contact with their refined and intel- 
ligent teachers. For, whilst the clergy are laboring among the adults, the teachers 
are daily bringing under the influences of their own high characters and intelli- 
gence ALL the younger portions of the community. 

The teachers in Prussia are men respected by the whole community, men to 
whom all classes owe the first rudiments of their education, and men in whose 
welfare, good character, and high respectability, both the government and the peo- 
ple feel themselves deeply interested. In birth, early recollections, and associa- 
tions, they are often peasants ; but in education and position they are gentlemen 
in every sense of that term, and acknowledged officers of the county govern- 
ments. There are more than 28,000 such teachers in Prussia. This great pro- 
fession offers, as I shall presently show, a means, by which an intelligent peasant 
may hope to raise himself into the higher ranks of society, as the expenses of 
preparing for admission into the profession are borne by government. But, as the 
number of candidates for admission is consequently always large, the government 
takes every passible precaution, that only such shall be chosen, as are in every 
respect qualified to reflect honor upon the profession, and carry out its objects in 
the most effective manner. And so well satisfied are the teachers with their 
position, that, although their pay is often but poor, yet it rarely happens that any 
one quits his profession to seek another situation. They are contented with their 
profession, even when it affords only a bare living, as it always confers a station of 
respectability and honor, in direct communication with the provincial govern- 
ments. I made the most careful inquiries upon this subject, and can speak with 
great confidence upon it. 1 was in daily communication with the teachers from 
the day I entered Prussia, and I tested the truth of what they told me, not only 
by comparing their statements together, but also by many inquiries, which 1 made 
of the educational counsellors and government oflScers in Berlin. Next to Dr. 
Bfuggeman, one of the head counsellors of the Minister of Education, the gen- 
tlemen to whom I am most indebted for information on this subject are Counsellor 
Stiehl, the Chief Inspector of Prussia, who is employed by the Minister on partic- 
ular missions of inspection in ftll the provinces of Prussia ; Professor Hintz, one 
of the young professors in Dr. Diesterweg's normal college ; Dr. Hennieke, the 
director of the normal college at Weissenfels ; Herr Peters, a teacher at Bonn ; 
one of the teachers at Cologne ; several of the teachers at Berlin ; and sevei-al of 
the teachers at Elberfeld. From these gentlemen, and many others, I gathered 
the following information : When a boy is intended for the teachers' profession, 
he remains in the primary school, until he has completed the whole course of 
primary instruction, i. e. until he has learned to write and read well, and until 
he knows the principal rules of arithmetic, the outlines of the geography and 
history of his native country, a little natural history, and the Scripture history. 
This knowledge he does not generally acquire before he ie fifteen years of age. 



jY2 PRUSSIAN TEACHERS. 

From the age of fifteen to the age of eighteen, before which latter age a young 
man can not be admitted into any normal college, the education of young candi- 
dates, who are the sons of towns-people, is different to the education of those, who 
are the sons of country people. 

The young candidates for admission into tne teachers' profession, who are the 
sons of towns-people, enter at fifteen into the classes of the superior public schools 
of the town, in which schools a number of endowed places are always reserved 
for poor boys, who have distinguished themselves in the primary schools. The 
education given in these schools is of a higher character, than that given in the 
primary schools. It comprehends mathematics, and the rudiments at least of the 
classics, besides lectures in history, physical geography, and drawing. They 
remain in these superior public schools until their eighteenth year, when they 
can seek admission into a normal college. The young candidates for admission 
into the teachers' profession, who are the sons of poor country people, do not en- 
joy all the advantages which the children of towns-people possess, as there is sel- 
dom a superior primary school in their neighborhood, in which they can continue 
their studies, after leaving the primary school. If the son of a peasant aspires to 
enter the teachers' profession ; after leaving the primary school, he engages the 
parochial teacher to give him instruction in the evenings, attends the teachers' 
classes in the mornings and afternoons, and assists him in the management of the 
younger children. He continues to improve himself in this manner, until he has 
attained the age, at which he can apply for admission into a normal college. 

There are, however, a great many schools in Prussia, established for the purpose 
of preparing the sons of the peasants for admission into the normal colleges. These 
preparatory schools generally belong to private persons. Every young person 
admitted into them is obliged to pay a small fee for his education there. This fee 
is generally very trifling, but is still sufficient to prevent the sons of the poorest 
peasants entering them ; and, consequently, these latter, if they live in a country 
■tillage, are obliged to content themselves with the evening lessons given by the 
village teacher, and with the practical knowledge gained by attending his classes 
in the mornings and afternoons. But it is always possible for the peasants' chil- 
dren, with industry, to prepare themselves, by the aid of the village teacher, for 
admission into a normal college. Of these latter admirable institutions for the 
education of teachers I shall hereafter speak at length ; suffice it here to say, that 
there are between forty and fifty of them in Prussia, supported entirely by the 
state, and under the direction and surveillance of the provincial committees called 
SchulooUegium. There are five or six normal colleges in each province, some of 
which are set apart for the education of the Romanist, and the others for that of 
the Protestant teachers. Each of them is generally put under the direction of a 
priest or of a protestant minister, according as it is intended for the education of 
Romanist or Protestant teachers, and is provided in the most liberal manner, with 
every thing necessary for the education of the young students. The education 
given in them is nearly gratuitous ; no young man being called upon to pay for 
any thing, but his clothes and his breakfast, whilst, in many cases, even this 
trifling charge is paid for the poor student out of the college funds. 

All young men who aspire to the office of teacher in Prussia, and who aspire to 
enter a normal college, when the yearly vacancies take place, are obliged to submit 
to an examination, conducted by the professors of these colleges, in presence of 
the educational counsellors from the county court. No young man can enter the 
examination lists, who has not produced certificates of health, and freedom from 
all chronic complaints, or who has a weak voice or any physical defect or infirmity. 
None but picked men are selected as teachei-s in Prussia. The examination is 
very severe and searching. For, as there are always a great number of candi- 
dates for admission into each college, and as the favored candidates are only 
chosen, on account of their superior abilities, the competition at the entrance 
examinations is very great. 

The subjects of this examination are, reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, 
history, singing, chanting, and the Scripture history. 

The young man, who has just obtained admission into a normal college in 
Prussia, and whose education as a teacher has only just begun, is much better 
educated, even at the commencement of his three years' education in the college, 



PRUSSIAN TEACHERS. 173 

than almost any of our teachers are, when they enter upon the performance of 
their duties in the schools, and when their education is considered to be completed ! 
How much superior, therefore, in intellectual acquirements, the Prussian teacher 
is, when he has completed his collegiate course, 1 need not observe. When the 
examination is concluded, as many of the most promising of the candidates 
are selected as there are vacancies in the college ; and, after a sti'ict exam- 
ination has been made into their characters and previous life, each successful 
candidate is required to sign an agreement, promising to officiate as a teacher, after 
leaving the college, for a number of years, equal to those during which the gov- 
ernment educates him gratuitously in the college. They are then admitted, and 
are only required to pnjvide themselves with clothes, and to pay about 3/. per 
annum. All the other expenses of their education, maintenance, &c., are, as I 
have said before, borne by the state. They remain in these colleges two or three 
years, never less than two, or more than three. Here they continue the studies 
which they had previously followed in the primary and superior schools. They 
perfect themselves in writing, arithmetic, history, geography, and Scripture his- 
tory, and receive a careful education in the physical sciences, and particularly in 
mathematics and botany. In some of the normal colleges, the young men also 
study Latin and the modern languages. Besides this, they all learn the violin, 
the organ, and piano-forte. I have seen as many as a hundred violins, three 
organs, and three piano-fortes in one normal college. They also continue the prac- 
tice of chanting and singing, which they had commenced in the village schools; 
and when the college is situated in the country, and intended for village teachers, 
the students learn gardening and agriculture. I became acquainted in Bonn, with 
the teacher of the poorest school in the town. He could speak French very tol- 
erably, as well as a little English ; he was acquainted with many of our first wri- 
ters, and knew the rudiments of the Latin language, in addition to the necessary 
attainments of a teacher. 

But the government and the people are not satisfied that, because a teacher has 
passed through one of these training establishments, he is therefore fit to under- 
take the management of a village school. Far from it. When the normal 
college course is finished, the young aspirants are obliged to submit to another 
examination, which is conducted by the professors of the college in the presence 
of a counsellor from the provincial schulcollegium, the educational counsellor of 
the county court, and a delegate from the Roman Catholic bishop, or Protestent 
superintendent of the county, according as the school is for Romanist or for Prot- 
estant students. These different .personages ought to be present, but I was assured 
that, in general, only the educational counsellor of the county court assisted at the 
examination . At its conclusion, if the directors and professors have been satisfied 
with the conduct of the young men, during their residence in the college, and 
have no reason to doubt the excellence of their moral character, and the ortho- 
doxy of their religious belief, the young candidates receive diplomas marked 
according to the manner in which they acquitted themselves in the examination, 
" 1," " 2," or " 3," and signed by the director and professors, and by the mem- 
bers of the provincial schulcollegium. 

Those who obtain the diplomas marked " 1," are legally authorized to officiate 
as teachers, without futher scrutiny, but those who only obtain those marked " 2" 
or " 3,'' are only appointed to schools for two or three years on trial, and at the end 
of that time, are obliged to return to the normal college and undergo another 
examination. 

It is not, however, necessary that a young man should pass through a normal 
college, in order to obtain a diploma enabling him to officiate as teacher. Any 
person, who has received so good an education as to enable him to pass the exam- 
ination at a normal college, can obtain one, if his character is unimpeachable. By 
far the greatest proportion, however, of the teachers of Prussia are educated in 
the normal colleges. When they have obtained these diplomas, the county courts 
present them to such school committees as require teachers ; and if these parochial 
committees are satisfied with them, they are elected. In such a numerous body 
as that of the Prussian teachers, there are always numerous vacancies. The 
number of colleges and students are so arranged, as to regularly supply that, 
•which is found to be the average number of yearly vacancies. 



^fjA PRUSSIAN TEACHERS. 

The candidates who have obtained only the diplomas marked "2," or "3," 
hold their offices, as I have said, only provisionally ; and, in order to be definitely 
appointed, are obliged, at the termination of their specified period of trial, either 
to obtain the approval of the local inspector, or to undergo another examination ; 
and I was assured, that they are sometimes obliged to return three or four times 
to be examined, ere they can obtain a definite appointment ; such care does the 
country take, that none but fit persons shall occupy this responsible position. 
When he is once appointed, however, the teacher is thenceforward a county and 
not a parochial officer. No person or set of persons in immediate connection with 
him can turn him out of his situation, without having first obtained the sanction 
of the county magistrates, After the parochial ministers and householders have 
once elected him, they have no power to deprive him of his salary or his situation. 
No one but the county magistrates of the union inspector, who, by living at a dis- 
tance, are not likely to be atieeted by personal prejudices or parochial disputes, can 
interfere directly with the teacher, and should the latter deem the interference of 
even the inspector uncalled for, he can always appeal to the superior authorities, or 
even to the minister of education himself. The parochial committees have, how- 
ever, the power of complaining of the teacher to the county magistrates, if they 
think he is acting unwisely or immorally ; and such complaints always receive 
immediate and special attention. When any such complaints are made, the county 
court dispatches an inspector to examine into the matter, and empowers him, if he 
thinks the teacher worthy of censure, fine, or expulsion, to act accordingly. If, 
however, the teacher is not blameable, the inspector explains the matter to the 
parochial authorifies, and effects a reconciliation between the parties. If the 
inspector should deern the teacher worthy of punishment, and this latter should be 
dissatisfied with the sentence, he can carry the matter before a justice of the 
peace ; and if he is not satisfied with his decision, he can appeal to the provincial 
schulcollegium, thence to the minister of instruction, and thence, if he desires, to 
tjie king himself; of so much importance docs the Prussian government deem it, 
to protect the teachers, and to raise their office in public opinion. I have men- 
tioned that a Prussian teacher seldom leaves his profession ; but that many change 
their positions. ^^ hen a good and well paid situation falls vacant in any parish, 
an experienced teacher, vv'ho already occupies some worse paid situation in another 
parish, and who has obtained credit for his excellent school-management, is pre- 
ferred by the school committee to the young adepts fresh from the normal colleges. 
On this account, the young men generally commence with an inferior position, 
and earn better ones, according as they manage the first they entered. It is evi- 
dent, how important a regulation this is, as the teachers of the poorest schools are 
saved from becoming listless and dispirited, and are rendered earnest and indus- 
trious, in the hopes of bettering their situation, The country is, however, gradually 
improving the salaries of all the teachers. No village or town is ever allow-ed to 
lessen the amount it has once given to a teacher. What it has once given, it is 
obliged to continue to give in future. It may increase it as much as it likes, and 
the county courts have the power of interfering, and saying, " You have hitherto 
paid your teachers too little; you must augment the teacher's salary." This is 
only done, however, when it is known, that the parish or town is capable of 
increasing the school salaries and is unwilling to do so. 

The importance of enabling the teachers to conunand the respect of the people, 
of rendering them independent of those in immediate connection with them, and 
of protecting them from ignorant interference and mere personal animosity, is so 
fully recognized in Prussia, that even when the school is endowed, and managed by 
trustees, these trustees, after havins: once elected a teacher, are not permitted to 
dismiss him, unless they can prove to the county court that they have sufficient 
cause for complaint. The teacher, elected by trustees, has the privilege of appeal- 
ing to the minister of education in Berlin, against the act of the trustees and 
county magistrates, just as well as all the other teachers of Prussia. 

The reasons which have induced the Prussian government to render the 
teachers, after their election, so independent of those in immediate connection with 
them appear to have been — 

1st, Because the teachers of Prussia are a very learned body, and, from their 
long study of pedagogy, have acquired greater ability than any persons in the art 



of teaching. They are, therefore, better qualified than any other persons to con- 
duct the instruction of their children ; but, if those persons who have never 
studied pedagogy could interfere with them, and say, " You shall teach it in this 
way or in that, or else leave the parish," the teachers would often be obliged to 
pursue some ridiculous, inefficient method, merely to please the whims of per- 
sons not experienced in school management, and the enlightenment of the people 
would thus be often considerably retarded. 

2d. Because, if the parishioners or the pai'ochial ministers had a right to turn 
away a teacher, whenever he olianced to displease them, the teachers would 
always be liable to, and would often suffer from, foolish personal dislikes, founded 
on no good ground. They would thus lose their independence of character, by 
being Lrced to suit their oonduct to the whims of those around them, instead of 
being able to act faithfully and conscientiously to all ; or by being exposed to the 
insults or impertinence of ignorant per.sons, who did not understand and appre- 
ciate the value and importance of their labors; or by being prevented from acting 
faithfully toward the children, from fear of offending the parents ; or by being 
forced to cringe to and flatter the ignorance, and even the vices, of those around 
them, instead of being able to combat them ; and they would thus generally, by 
one or other of tliese ways, forfeit at least some part of the respect of the parents 
of their children, and would, consequently, find their lessons and advice robbed of 
one-half their weight, and their labors of a great part of their efiiciency. 

For these reasons, the Prussian government endeavors to give as much liberty 
as possible to the teachers, and to fetter their hands as little as possible. In the 
normal colleges they receive instruction in the different methods of teaching ; and, 
out of these, each teacher is at liberty to follow whichever seems to him the best 
calculated to promote the growth of the intelligence of his scholars. It is felt, that 
without this liberty, a teacher would often work unwillingly, and that a discon- 
tented or unwilling teacher is worse than none at all. In the choice of their books 
and apparatus, the teachers are allowed an almost equal freedom. If a teacher 
finds a book, which he thinks better calculated for instruction, than the one he has 
been in the habit of using, he sends it through the inspector to the educational 
counsellor of the county court, who forward it to the schulcollegium for approval; 
and, .as soon as this is obtained, the teacher can introduce it into his school. There 
are, already, a great many books in each province, which have been thus sanc- 
tioned ; and out of these, every teacher in the province can choose whichever 
pleases him most. These school-books are, generally, written by teachers ; and, 
from what I saw of them, they seemed to evince a profound knowledge of the 
science of pedagogy. Until a book has been thus sanctioned by the schulcolle- 
gium, which has the management of the normal colleges and gymnasia of its 
province, it can not be introduced into a parochial school. 

The teachers are not assisted by monitors in Germany, as in Switzerland, 
France, and England ; and this I think a very great error. I have often been in 
schools in Prussia, where the teacher had about one hundred children of different 
degrees of proficiency to instruct in the same class-room, without any assistance 
whatever ; the consequence was, that while he was teaching one class, the others 
were in disorder, and making noise enough to distract the attention of the chil- 
dren, who were receiving instruction, as well as that of the teacher, who was 
giving it ; while the teacher, instead of being able to devote his time to the higher 
branches of instruction, and to the children, who more particularly needed his 
care, was obliged to divide it among all, and to superintend himself the verj 
lowest branches of instruction ; and this, too, at the sacrifice of the order and 
quiet of his school. When I represented this to the teachers, I w^s always 
answered, " Yes, that is true ; but then we think, that a young monitor is unable 
to educate the minds of the children under his care, and is consequently likely to 
do them much injury." This is, no doubt, the result, if the teachers leave the 
education of any of his children entirely to monitors ; but he has no need to do 
this; he ought to employ liis monitors merely in superintending the more mechan- 
ical parts of instruction, such as writing, and learning the alphabet, and also in 
preserving order ; he might then himself conduct the mental education of all the 
children. But this they will not do in Prussia ; they are so afraid of injuring the 
mental culture of the children, that they positively throw away a very important 



176 



PRUSSIAN TEACHERS. 



means for the attainment of this end. In Switzerland, a very different course is 
pursued ; the teachers are assisted in keeping order, and in teaching the more 
mechanical parts of instruction, by tnonitors. chosen from among their most 
advanced pupils. These monitors remain with the teacher, until they are of suf- 
ficient age to go to a normal college ; they are paid, 1 believe, by the parishes, and 
are instructed by the teachers in the evenings. From among them, the young 
candidates for the vacant places in the normal colleges are chosen ; so that the 
Swiss teachers have often been engaged in schools, and in school management, 
from their earliest years. Besides this advantage, the country is spared a great 
expense ; for in Prussia, where they have no monitors, they are obliged to aug- 
ment the number of their teachers very considerably ; and I have found in a small 
school, which could have been very easily managed by one teacher and some 
well trained monitors, as many as three teachers, for each of whom good salaries 
had to be provided, as well as houses and gardens. Doubtless, it is much better 
to have experienced teachers, than young monitors ; and hence it is that the town 
schools in Prussia are very much better than those of other countries, as the town 
committees can afford to engage a sufficient number of teachers ; but in the poor 
country parishes this is not the case, and there it is, where -the want of monitors 
is most severely felt, as a large school is often left entirely to the unaided care of a 
single teacher. But this very defect in the Prussian system arises from the great 
anxiety of the educational authorities, that the religious and moral education of 
the young should not suffer. Still I think it is a very great mistake ; and I am 
Bure that many schools I saw in Prussia suffer grievously from this regulation. 

But it will be asked, how are the salaries of the teacheiis provided, and what is 
their amount? The regulations on this subject are particularly deserving of 
attention. The Prussian government clearly saw, that nothing could tend more 
strongly to nullify their efforts to raise the teachers' profession in the eyes of the 
people, than to leave the salaries of the teachers dependent, either on uncertain 
payments, or on private benevolence. To have done so would have been to destroy 
the independence of the profession. 

The Prussian government, therefore, decreed that, however small and from 
whatever source the teacher's salary should be derived, its amount should 
always be fixed before his appointment, and that the payment should be certain 
and regular. 

As 1 mentioned before, each succeeding teacher must be paid, at least, as much 
his predecessor received. The county magistrates have the power of obliging 
each town or parish to increase the amount of the salaries of their teachers, when- 
ever they think the town or parish is paying too little, and can afford to pay more. 
These salaries are now wholly paid by the school or town committees, from the 
funds raised by local taxation. Before the late law, which made education gratui- 
tous, they were derived, in part, from the school fees. But the amount of the 
salary did not, in any case, depend on that of the fees, nor was the teacher ever 
placed in the invidious position of being obliged himself to collect these monthly 
payments. They were always collected by a tax-gatherer, appointed by the village 
or town magistrate ; and when they did not amount to the fixed salary, which the 
school conmiittee had agreed to pay to the teacher, they were increased by a paro- 
chial rate, levied on the householders. In many cases, however, the schools are 
endowed, and for admission into these, no school fees were ever required. But 
where fees were required, and where a parent was too poor to pay them, the parochial 
or town authorities were always obliged, by law, to pay them for him. The following 
are the regulations, which define the minimum of the salaries of the Prussians. 

Some of_ the country schools have each as many as three teachers ; but the 
number of teachers in a country school in Prussia does not, generally, exceed 
two ; and in many of these school, there is only one teacher. Where there are 
several, one is the head master, and the others are his assistants. The laws 
relating to their payment are as follows : 

" The first teacher in a country school, or, if there be only one, then the single 
teacher shall receive, as his yearly salary and the perquisites of his office, at least : 

1st. Free lodging. 

2d. The necessary fuel for the warming of the school-room, and of hii own 
dweUing-house and for his household economy. 



PRUSSIAN TEACHERS. 



177 



Sd. A piece of land, as near as possible to the school, of from one to three 
Prussian acres large ; the tillage and manui'ing of which are to be done at the 
expense of the parish. 

4th. A kitchen garden behind his house, of not less than half a Prussian acre. 

5th. The necessary building for his little farming operations. 

6th. Free summer pastm-e for at least two cows. 

7th. Twelve bushels of rye meal, two cart-loads of hay, and two cart-loads (rf 
straw. 

8th. 71. 10s. in money." [It must be remembered that 11. lOs. in Prusssia, is 
worth about as much as 121., ($60,) in England, and that this is only the sum which 
has been fixed by law as the legal minimum, and by no means gives an idea of 
the amount of salaries paid to the Prussian teachers.] 

" If the field, garden, or summer pasture for his cows can not be provided by the 
parish, the county com-t must determine what equivalent in money must be given 
hinf 

The second, third, &c., teacher in a country school must receive — 

1st. Free lodging. 

2d. The fuel necessaiy for warming his house. 

3d. 91. in money, (or about 151. in English value.) 

The teachers of the towns must receive — 

1st. Free lodging and fuel. 

2d. The first teacher should receive at least 40Z. per annum, and the other 
teachers at least 30Z. per annum," in English values. 

I found these regulations among some educational laws issued by the govern- 
ment in 1845, for one of the provinces; but Dr. Bruggeman assured me, that 
similar laws were in opei-ation for the whole of Prussia. The above emoluments 
are the lowest the teachers can receive according to law. The government is 
about to raise this minifn urn considerably, and to increase the salaries throughout 
Prussia. Hitherto many have been paid but poorly ; veiy few, however, have 
deserted their profession, or engaged in other occupations, as they are generally 
proud of their position, and satisfied with it. 

Herr Peters, a teacher of a primary school in Bonn, with whom I spent some 
time, said to me, one day, " The Prussian teachers do not receive high salaries ; 
but," he added, with emphasis, " however little the salary of a teacher may be above 
the legal minimum, it is certain, and collected for him by the parochial authorities, 
without his having to trouble himself about it." The law, as I have mentioned, 
is very strict in requiring the payments of the salaries to be made with the utmost 
regularity. 

It is easy to see how invaluable, for any country, a great privileged class, like 
that of the Prussian teachers, must be, especially when many of its members are, 
as in Prussia, chosen by the state from amongst the most highly gifted of the 
peasant class, and educated at the expense of the country. It is, in fact, for 
modern Prussia, just what the Roman Catholic Church was, for Europe in the 
middle ages ; it is a ladder, by which all the genius of the lowest orders may 
ascend into a suitable field of action. A young peasant boy of promising abili- 
ties pashed on by the restless spirit, which so often characterizes youth of real 
genius, and anxious to better his position in the world, or to gain some sphere of 
action more congenial to his taste, than the farm-j^ard, or the workshop, finds in 
Prussia, the teacher's career open to him. If he can only distinguish himself in 
his village school, and pass the entrance examination of a normal college, he* 
gains a high education at no expense, and is then sm-e (if he conducts himself 
well, and distinguishes himself in the normal college) to obtain a teacher's place, 
to put himself in immediate connection with the government, and to gain a very 
honorable situation, affording him the amplest field for the development and 
exercise of his talents. A clever peasant in Prussia, instead of becoming a 
Chartist, enters a normal college, and becomes a teacher. There is no need for 
a young peasant to despond in Prussia, and say, " Here 1 am, endowed with 
talents fitting me for another sphere, but shut out by doors, which can only be 
opened with a golden key." Far otherwise. Free places are retained in the 
gymnasia for poor boys, who wish to continue their studies ; and from these 
colleges they can enter either into the ranks of the Protestant or Romanist clergy, 

12 



1Y8 pnUrisiAN TL:A(n;.iiS 

or into those of the teachers ; and, in the last case, without having any thing to 
pay for their education. It is easy to comprehend, how tliis tends to allay political 
strife and discontent. In our country, this is often occasioned, or, at least, in- 
creased, by some one or two clever individuals, who find themselves confined within 
a sphere, too narrow for their talents and energies, and who, by their own rest- 
less murmui's, arouse the dormant passions of their neighbors, The German 
governments have been wiser in their day than our freer countries. They have 
separated the fiery spirits from the easily excited masses, and converted them into 
earnest, active, and indefatigable fosterers of the public morality, and into guar- 
dians of the common weal. 

In considering the salaries and privileges of the teachers, it must also be borne 
in mind, that they are exempt from taxation, and that they are free from all obli- 
gation to serve in the army, and to attend the yearly military exercises. 

On the installation of a new teacher, the parochial or school authorities are 
obliged, either to send conveyances for the transport of his family and goods, or 
to pay the expenses of such transport, for any distance less than fifty English 
miles. But, if the teacher leaves his situation before the expiration of five years, 
lie is obliged to repay to the local authorities the expenses of this conveyance. 

Whenever a new teacher is introduced into a parochial school, his installation 
is a public ceremony, at which all the parochial authorities assist, in order to 
impress the people with a sense of the importance of his office and his duties, 
and to encourage among them a respect for him, without which his hopes of suc- 
cess in his labors must be necessarily very small. 

The ceremony of installation generally takes place in the parochial church, 
where the new teacher is presented, by the religious minister, to the civil authori- 
ties, and to the inhabitants of the parish. The children, whose education he has 
to conduct, are always present at the ceremony. 

Tlie Prussian government feels that, unless it can render the profession 
honoi'able and worthy of men of high characters and attainments, all its attempts 
to raise the religious and moral tone of the education of the people will be ever 
unavailing. 

I have not hitherto mentioned Prussian schoolmistresses, because there are 
but few ; and because the regulations, with respect to their education, examina- 
tion, and appointment, are precisely similar to those relating to schoolmasters. 
Among the Protestants of Prussia there are scarcely any schoolmistresses 5 the 
greatest part of the Prussian female teachers are Romanists, and for their educa- 
tion there are several normal colleges established in the Romanist provinces of 
Prussia. I inquired of the Romanist counsellor in the Bureau of Public Instruc- 
tion in Berlin, whether it was not foimd difficult to retain the female teachers 
long at their posts, on account of their making such eligible wives, even for the 
farmers. But he assured me, that this was not the case, as far as their female 
teachers were concerned, as they form among themselves a body like the order 
of the Sisters of Charity, with this distinction, that instead of actually taking a 
solemn public vow of celibacy, it is generally understood among them, that they 
shall not marry, but shall devote themselves, during the remainder of their lives, 
to the duties of school management and instruction. In this respect the Roman- 
ists have a great advantage over the Piotestants ; for I found, in the Protestant 
cantons of Switzerland, just the same objection to the employment of female 
teachers, as that wliich is experienced among the Protestants of Prussia and of 
England, viz., that a young woman, who has been carefully trained in a good 
normal college, until she is twenty years of age, makes so good a wife for men, 
even in the middle classes of society, that she always married, soon after leaving 
the college ; and, consequently, that a much greater supply of students and col- 
leges are required, in order to supply the constant vacancies, which occur in 
the ranks, and that the expenses of educating a sufficient number of female 
teachers are, therefore, too great in general to be supported, imless the students 
pay for their own education, which very few of the young women, who are desir- 
ous of being teachers, are able to do. 

In the Romanist cantons of Switzerland, the Sisters of Charity conduct the 
education of the girls ; and their schools are the best and most pleasing female 
BQhools I have ever seen. Ilerr Stiehl, one of the Protestant educational coun- 



PRUSSIAN TEACHERS. I79 

setlors and chief inspector of Prussia, confirmed all that the Catholic minister had 
told me, and stated that, for the reasons above mentioned, the Prussian Pro- 
testants found it impossible to keep the female teachers long in their situations ; 
and that the expense of constantly educating ft'esh female teachers, to supply the 
places of those who married, was too great to be borne. Tlie Prussians, how- 
ever, in general, prefer male teachers for the girls, even where they can obtain 
female ; so that in nearly all the schools I visited, I found schoolmasters, and not 
schoolmistresses, instructing the girls' classes. 

The Prussians would ridicule the idea of confiding the education of the girls to 
uneducated mistresses, such as those in our dame,'and in most of our female 
schools. They can not conceive the case of a parent, who wTjuld be willing to 
commit his child to the care of a person, who had not been educated, most care- 
fully and religiously, in that most difficult of all arts, the art of teaching. They 
think, that a teacher must either improve and elevate the minds of his children, 
or else injure and debase them. They believe, that there is no such thing as 
being able to come into daily contact with a child, without doing him either good 
or harm. Tlie Prussians know, that the minds of the yomig are never stationary, 
but always in progress 5 and that this progress is always either a moral or an 
immoral one, either forward or backward ; and hence the extraordinary expen- 
diture the country is bearing, and the extraordinary pains it is taking, to support 
and improve its training establishments for teachers. 

In order to increase the feeling of union and brotherhood, which already 
exists in a high degree among the Prussian teachers, and in order to encourage 
them to renewed exertions, and to diminish as much as possible, the feeling of 
isolation which must always exist, in some degree, where an educated man finds 
himself placed in a solitary country parish, surrounded by peasantry less culti- 
vated than himself, and cut ofi:" from the literary society, to which he had been 
accustomed at the normal college, the govermnent promotes the frequent holding 
of teachers' conferences, for the purpose of mutual improvement and encourage- 
ment. These conferences are held very often, over the whole of Germany, 
Switzerland, France, and Holland, and the benefits resulting from them are very 
great indeed. In Prussia, there are three kinds of such conferences, of which I 
shall now give a short account. The fii'st is that of the province. In several of 
the provinces of Prussia, all the teachers, both Catholic and Protesttmt, assemble 
once a year, in some town, which has been agreed upon at their last meeting, 
and on a predetermined day. The duration of the meeting is different in dif- 
ferent parts ; sometirnes only for one, and sometimes for several days. Tlieir 
objects, too, are different. Sometimes it is for mutual instruction, whilst at 
others it is for pleasure. But, whatever be the nominal pm'pose of their 
assembling, the real end of it is, to produce the feeling of association and brother- 
hood, which is one of the strongest encouragements to isolated and single efforts. 

Besides these yearly provincial assemblies, there is also another meeting of - 
teachers held monthly in every kreis or union. The principal ecclesiastical 
authority or school-inspector of the union summons and presides over it. This 
meeting is more especially intended for the pm'poses of instruction, than that of 
the province. It lasts only one day ; the teachers meet early in the morning, 
and disperse again in the evening. They dine together at noon, and spend the 
morning and afternoon in conferences and mutual improvement. They assemble 
at some town or village in the union on an appointed day, of which the union 
inspector gives them each notice some weeks beforehand. In the morning, they 
all meet in one of the schools, or in some great room of the town. A class of 
children, taken from one of the schools of the t<jwn, is assembled there. One of 
the teachers, generally one of the younger ones, is chosen by his companions to 
give these children a lesson, on some subject of instruction in the primary schools. 
The teacher who is selected, gives the lesson before all the others assembled at 
the conference. When the lesson is ended, the children are dismissed, and the 
remaining teachers then begin to criticise the manner, in which the instruction was 
given, and each shows, how he thinks it might have been improved ; and then a 
debate ensues on the merits of different methods of teaching and of different 
plans of school management. 

This plan of debating at the conferences, on methods of instruction, makes the 



180 



PRUSSIAN TKACHER8. 



teachers think, and stimulates them to inquire, how they can impart instruction in 
the most efficient manner. It makes them also eager to improve their manner of 
teaching, as each one fears to exhibit any ignorance of his profession, or any un- 
skillfulness before his professional brethren, and desires to win their applause by 
his ability ; and it makes them properly attentive to all the minutia; of their pro- 
fession, as vvell as to the more interesting studies connected with it. 

I was present at one of these teachers' conferences. It was attended not only 
by the teachers from the primary schools, but also by professors from the superior 
schools and colleges, and was presided over by the director of a normal college. 
I do not think the importance of these meetings can be exaggerated. They are 
not only, as I have before said, a great encouragement to the isolated teachers; 
but they are a continual source of instruction and improvement to all in their 
most important duties. The teachers continue at these meetings the instruction 
they commenced at the normal colleges; they discuss all the new school-books 
thai have appeared, all the new regulations that have been issued, all the new 
plans that have been tried ; and they inform one another of the progress of their 
different districts. In France and South Germany, they have so strongly felt the 
importance of these meetings, that the expenses of the teachers in traveling to 
them are borne by the government ; and in Holland and the Duchy of Baden, 
the government inspectors assist at them, and join in the debates. In some parts 
of Switzerland, also, they are very well organized ; and in the canton of Keuf- 
chatel, I remember to have read a number of a very interesting periodical, which 
was published after each conference, and which contained several most instructive 
and very able papers, which had been read at the previous meeting of the village 
school professors. 

Besides those conferences, which I have already mentioned, there is still another 
kind, which is held in Prussia. This is when a parish is very large, and contains 
several schools and many teachei^. In such cases, the chief ecclesiastical author- 
ity summons a meeting of all the parochial teachers once a month, for purposes of 
mutual instruction, similar to the meetings in the unions. Sometimes the clergy- 
man himself gives them a lecture on religious instruction, and, at other times, they 
debate among themselves on questions of pedagogy, or criticise one anolher's 
methods of teaching; but in all cases the object of the meetings is the same, viz., 
mutual encouragement and improvement. As the religious ministers preside at 
these parochial and union conferences, they have an opportunity of addressing 
the teachers on their religious duties, and of giving them advice and instruction 
respecting the true end they ought to keep in view in their school lessons, and on 
the care they ought to take to keep this end constantly in sight. ^ 

The ministers also give the teachers advice and counsel respecting the manner, 
in which their religious lesson ought to be given, in order the more strongly to im- 
press the minds of their scholars with the serious import of the truths of the 
Scriptures ; and they have the opportunity of reminding the younger teachers of 
the particular parts of the Scripture, which they ought more particularly to lay 
before the different classes of their children, and of the method of religious 
instruction which they ought io pursue. But it is impossible to detail all^ the 
great and obvious advantages, which result from these meetings of the clergy' and 
the school professors, or to enumerate the different subjects of reflection, debate, 
and conversation, which are started and discussed at them. They are the sup- 
plements, so to speak, of the normal colleges, and serve, in an admirable manner, 
to carry forward the education, which the young aspirants to the teachers' profes- 
sion commenced at these institutions, and to continually revive through after-life 
the knowledge imparted in them. 

I have now shown how the government provides for the education, appoint- 
ment, payment, protection, encouragement, and continual improvement of the 
teachers. 

It remains for me to show, how the Prussian government secures the teacher 
from all fear of being disabled, by sickness or old age, from pursuing his labors 
or providing for his family. It would be a great disgrace for a profession, such 
as that of the Prussian teachers, were the fate of a superannuated teacher to be 
the same as in our country ; where there is in general no other refuge for such a 
person, than the workhouse or the hosp'tai. Doubtless, if Prussia did not feel 



PRUSSIAN TEACHERS. , «, 

more interested than we do, in the protection of this most important class of pub- 
lic servants, it would not care what became of them, when they were too old or 
too weak to attend the schools. But Prussia fully appreciates the value of the 
labors of her teachers, and has a sincere respect for them, and a lively concern 
in thsir welfare. The government has felt, that to cast off and forsake all the 
old and faithful teachers, when they could work no longer, would be to disgust 
the whole body, to break off the sympathies which unite them to their profes- 
sion, and to shut out of it many noble spirits. It has, therefore, most carefully 
guarded against these results, by the regulations, which I shall now proceed to 
describe. 

If a teacher, who has been definitely appointed, becomes unable to fulfill the 
duties of his station, either through the utter breaking up of his health, or by old 
age, the authorities who appointed him, whether they were the county court, the 
town school commission, or the parochial school committee, are obliged to pension 
him for the remainder of his life. 

This pension must, according to law, amount to at least one-third of his former 
income. Whether the committee settles more than this upon a teacher or not, 
depends upon the manner in which he has labored, whilst he was yet able to do 
so, and upon the resources which the committee finds at its disposal. Wlien, 
however, the teacher is not so far incapacitated for exertion as to be unable to do 
any thing, but only so far as to require assistance, the local committee or county 
court is not allowed to dismiss him on a pension, but is required to provide him 
an assistant, who must be chosen from among the young men, who have been 
educated in the normal colleges, and who have obtained certificates of qualifica- 
tion for their duties. 

If the school, to which a teacher has been appointed, is supported by or belongs 
to a landed proprietor, this latter is obliged to pension the teacher, when incapac- 
itated for his duties by illness or old age ; and if the school is one of royal found- 
ation, the court of the county, in which it is situated, must pension him. The 
Prussian government, although professedly a military state, has shown itself at 
least as deeply interested in the welfare of its teachers, as in that of its soldiers, 
whilst we, who disown the appellation of a military people, take greater care of 
our soldiers than of our teachers. 

Besides the provisions for the pensioning of the superannuated teachers, there 
is another law in force in Prussia, which relates to the future provision of the 
widows and orphans of deceased schoolmasters, and which is deserving of equal 
praise. 

In each union a society is formed, of which the principal ecclesiastical author- 
ity in the union is the president, the object of which is to provide for the support 
of the widows and orphans of deceased teachers. The regulations of these soci- 
eties differ a little, I believe, in the different provinces ; but it will not be neces- 
sary here to examine them so minutely, as to show what is peculiar to each. I 
shall only attempt to give a brief sketch of them, as I have collected it from the 
laws, which have been framed for some of the eastern counties of Prussia, and 
which I have now before me. 

Every definitely appointed teacher, whether in town or country, must become 
a member of the society established in his union, for the assistance of the widows 
and orphans of deceased teachers. 

Every teacher must pay a small entrance fee on his becoming a member, and 
afterward a small yearly sum. The amounts of these sums are in all cases con- 
fined within certain limits, and can neither fall below nor rise above them. On 
the amount of the yearly subscription paid by the teacher depends the value of 
the pension, which his widow or children will be entitled to receive, after his 
death, from the director of the union society. There are generally three different 
pensions, varying in value, for either of which the teacher may subscribe at his 
own discretion, but for one of which he must pay his annual subscription. If he 
pay to the first and best, his widow or children will receive the greatest pension 
given by the society, and this is always very much more than the interest of his 
money, calculated on life averages, would have entitled him to receive, as the 
societies are not commercial enterprises, but charitable institutions. To enable 
the dddeties, therefore, to meet the calls upSoti their tfeaeuries, it is oiftbn neoatf- 



, ^2 PRUSSIAN TEACHERS 

sary, that they should be assisted in some extraordinary manner, and this is done 
by collections made in the union churches by the ecclesiastical superintendent, 
and by assistance granted by the county courts. When a teacher dies, however 
soon it may be after his having commenced his subscription, leaving a wife or 
children to young to support themselves, they receive the pension for which their 
father had subscribed. The wife continues to receive it for life, and the children 
until they are old enough to earn their own subsistence, or until they attain the 
age of fourteen years ; for before this time they are not generally able to leave 
the parochial schools and commence labor. If he leaves several children, the 
pension is paid, until the youngest attains this age. But if the widow marries 
again, she loses her pension, as it is supposed, that her second husband is able to 
support her. 

By these means, the Prussian teacher is freed from all anxiety, about the fate 
of his family after his death, and is less tempted than he would be, if their after 
maintenance depended upon his own small savings, to divert his mind from his 
important duties, by the desire of making a provision, sufficient to support them, 
if he were to die before they were able to support themselves. Besides these 
great advantages, the regulations, which I have described, tend to raise the pro- 
fession in the estimation of the poor, who thus see, that the government considers 
not only the teachers themselves, but that their wives and families also, are de- 
serving of its especial protection. They also render the situation of a teacher 
more desirable for literary and clever young men, who find it an honorable station 
suited to their tiistes, and freed from those anxieties, against which a literary man 
is often the least fitted to contend. 

There is still another cause, which contributes, in a very powerftd manner, to 
foster the feeling of brotherhood between the Prussian teachers. I refer to the 
teachers' journals. 

These journals are periodicals, which appear weekly or monthly, and contain 
all the latest news and statistics, of the progress of education in all the countries 
of the world ; original articles on different questions relating to the general man- 
agement of schools, and the different methods of instruction ; accounts of par- 
ticular schools distinguished by some particular excellence or other ; biographies 
of distinguished teachers and professors ; and reviews of all the latest works on 
pedagogy. 

They are published for the whole of Germany and Switzerland •, and their 
articles are contributed by inspectors, teachers, and professors fi-om all parts of 
Germany. The stimulus they give to education is almost incalculable. By their 
means, all the most recent improvements in pedagogy are rapidly disseminated ; 
the efforts of the most able teachers are published ; the labors, the plans, and the 
success of particular teachers are described ; the character of all the new lawa 
and regulations is discussed and explained ; the honors and rewards bestowed on 
eminent and successful teachers and friends of education are made known ; and 
in this way, a feeling of generous emulation is excited among all the members of 
this great body, spread as it is over the Austrian empire, Bavaria, Wirtemberg, 
Baden, the German dukedoms. Saxony, Prussia, Hanover, and the German can- 
tons of Switzerland, which an Englishman would find it difficult to conceive. 
Each teacher, who takes in one of these journals, is reminded of the greatness of 
the brotherhood, of which he is a member ; he is told by its pages, that over the 
vast and well-loved Germany, all the members of this brotherhood are laboring 
as himself, each in his respective locality ; that their efforts are not without suc- 
cess, and not without the sympathy of their country ; that he himself participates 
in this sympathy, and is an object of interest to the whole of Germany ; and 
when he lays his paper down, after its perusal, it is with a feeling of pride in his 
profession, of exultation in the thought of his labors, and of confidence in his 
ultimate success. 

That the teachers are deeply interested in their profession, no one can doubt, 
who has had an opportunity of observing how the German press is teeming with 
works on pedagogy, published by and intended expressly for the teachers. 

I happened to be in Leipsic, during the great fair of 1846, at which time all 
the new books, which had appeared in Germany within the past year were 
exhibited ; and I was very much astonished, at the great number of works on 



PRUSSIAN TEACHEUS 



183 



pedagogy, which had appeared in that year. There were treatises on different 
questions relating to the management of schools and the instruction of the young ; 
accounts of particular schools in different parts of Germany ; obituaries of 
eminent teachers and professors, who had ceased their labors in this world ; biog- 
raphies of others still engaged in their important avocations ; and all kinds of 
school books properly so called. The tables of the publishers were literally 
covered with books issued expressly for the schools and teachers, and generally 
written by members of the profession. 

This shows, also, how much is being done at the present time in Germany to 
improve the science of pedagogy. 

Having thus described the character and social position of the great profession 
of Prussian teachers, I shall now show what education the law requires each of 
them to have received, before it allows him to Engage in the work of instruction ; 
for it must be remembered, that no person, whether he be a foreigner or a native, 
i.s allowed to act as a teacher of any public or private school in the kingdom of 
Prussia, until he has passed a very rigid examination in all the subjects of school 
instruction, and has obtained a diploma from his e.\aminers, stating that he is fit 
to be a teacher. 

In each of the different provinces of Prussia the government has established five 
or six great colleges, intended expressly for the education of the teachers. Each 
county possesses at least one, nearly all have two of them. They are all endow- 
ed, partly by the state and pai'tly by private benefactors. The education given in 
f hem is perfectly gratuitous ; at least one-half of the cost of boarding each 
student is borne by the state, or defrayed out of the ftmds of the college, on the 
most liberal scale ; and every thing is provided, which can possibly contribute to 
the perfection of the training and education of the students. 

No attempt has been made to give the education of the teachers any political 
bias. The normal colleges are widely dispersed throughout the country. They 
are situated close to the homes of the students, and at gi'eat distances from the 
c 'ntor of government ; so that the patriotic sentiments naturally resulting from 
the humble origin of the young teachers are not weakened ; nor are their local 
sympathies eVer interrupted by the young men being removed, during the period of 
their education, into a distant and uncongenial political atmosphere. Neither 
docs the government undertake the actual direction of these great and important 
establishments. Each of them, with only two or three exceptions, is put under 
the care of a religious minister of the sect, for the education of whose teachers it 
is destined. 

In each province, there are, as I have before stated, five or six of these insti- 
tutions. In each coimty, there are generally two. If the inhabitants of a county 
are composed of Romanists and Protestants in pretty equal proportions, one of 
these colleges is devoted to the education of the Romanist teachers, the other to 
that of the Protestant. If nearly all the inhabitants of a county are of one faith, 
both of the normal colleges are devoted to the education of the teachers of this 
faith ; and the teachers of the minority are educated in one of the colleges of a 
neighboring county. There are only two normal colleges in Prussia, where 
Romanist and Protestant teachers are professedly educated together. The direc- 
tors of these great institutions are chosen from among the clergy. The director 
of a Romanist college is chosen by the Romanist bishop of the province, in which 
the college is situated 5 and the director of a Pi'otestant college is chosen by the 
ecclesiastical authorities of the province, in which the college is situated ; subject, 
however, in both cases, to the approbation of the Minister of Education in Berlin, 
who has the power of objecting, if an unsuitable or injudicious choice is made. 

The normal colleges are thus put under the supervision of the religious bodies. 
The government itself directs their management. It recognizes the importance 
of these colleges having a decidedly religious character ; and, at the same time, 
of the education given in them being of the most liberal kind. On the one hand, 
therefore, it intrusts the direction of them to the clergy ; and, on the other hand, 
it reserves the right of examining them, so as to have the power of inteifering, 
in case the secular education of the students should be .injudiciously curtailed. 
The director of each C()ll",";e appoints all the professors and teachers. The relig- 
ious ministers have, thcr^ lore. 1. eon i-leribl.' share of the direction of thefle 



184 



PRUSSIA?*- ti:achers. 



institutions. Their eharacter is decidedly religious, and a union between the 
clergy and the teachers is effected, which is productive of the best possible 
results. 

The students remain in these colleges about three years. They live in the 
institution. Almost the whole of the expenses of their education, and of their 
board, are paid out of the funds of the college. 

If a young man wishes to enter into one of these normal colleges, he need not 
travel far from home. Within a day's journey of his own village, is to be found 
one of the normalco lieges of his country. If he is able to pass the preparatory 
examination, and to procui-e carefully attested certificates of character, he is 
received as an inmate of the college on a vacancy occurring. During the time 
of his sojourn there, and during the continuance of his arduous studies, he is in 
constant communication with alLhis old associates and friends, and constantly 
revisits the scenes of his boyhood ' His sympathies with his people are thus pre- 
served intact. None of his old connections with his village are broken ; he 
remains the son, the brother, and the companion of the peasants. His life in the 
normal college is very simple and laborious ; the change from its arduous disci- 
pline and duties, to those of a village teacher, is a change for the better. The 
teacher is not rendered discontented with his simple village Hfe, by being pam- 
pered in the college ; the laborious and self-denying discipline of the college 
teaches him, how to combine the simplicity of the peasant, with the learning of 
the scholar. It is the design of these Prussian colleges to send forth simple- 
minded, industrious, religious, and highly educated peasant teachers ; and not 
affected pedagogues, or mere conceited and discontented gentlemen. Nobly, 
most nobly, have they fulfilled their mission ! Prussia may well be proud of her 
30,000 teachers. 

Each one in his village, and in his district, is laboring among the poor, not so 
much to teach them their A, B, C, and mere school-room learning, as to enable 
them to think ; to show them the present, as well as the future advantages of 
manly virtue, and to explain to them, how much their own prosperity in life 
depends upon their own exertions. This is education. 

Oh ! if we could once be taught to recognize the vast benefits, which education 
must confer upon the people, if we could once be taught to understand, the 
meaning of the term, and the nature of the undertaking, it would not be long, 
ere each one of our counties would possess its two normal colleges, and each one 
of our villages its educated teachers and its school. We have the power, but not 
the will. We do not understand the vast importance of education to the people. 

It has been said, by persons desirous of screening our own shameful neglect of 
the people's education, by the abuse of the great efforts of our neighbors, that the 
teachers of Prussia have been, in reality, nothing more than the paid servants of 
an absolute power, intended to prepare the minds of the people to passivfti^ sub- 
mission to a despotic government. Nothing can be more shamefully and igno- 
rantly false than this assertion. 

I have a right to speak on this subject, as I have seen more, perhaps, of the 
Prussian teachers, than any of my countrymen ; and of this I am certain, that 
the sympathies of the Prussian teachers have always been notoriously with the 
people, and not with the government. The Prussian government has always, in 
fact, bitterly complained of the too liberal spirit which actuates the teacher's pro- 
fession, but without effect ; the body is popular in its origin, its position, its educa- 
tion, and its sympathies. Many of the warmest friends of constitutional progress 
in Prussia have always been found among the teachers ; and, it is a fact, well 
worthy of consideration, that liberal and constitutional ideas never made so rapid 
a progress in Prussia, at any period of its history, as they have done since the 
establishment of the present system of education. I believe, that the teachers 
and the schools of Prussia have been the means of awakening in that country 
that spirit of inquiry and that love of freedom, which forced the government tc 
grant a bona fide constitution to the country. 

An evidence of the free spirit, which has pervaded the Prussian teachers, may 
be derived fi-om the fiict, that the Prussian government found itself compelled, in 
1831, to address a circular order to the teachers, in which, after reciting that the 
government had been inf<>rm''d, that somo of the teuchers had converted their 



PRUSSIAN TEACHER? 



185 



class-rooms into political lecture rooms, and had selected the political topics of the 
day as the subject of remark, if not of instruction, it prohibitL^d such subjects 
being introduced into the lessons by the teachers, and ordered the inspectors to 
prevent the teachers perverting their schools to such objects as these. 

The very fact, that such a prohibition was found necessaiy, proves that my 
own observations were correct. If further proof were needed, it might be told, 
that the people have elected many teachers as their representcitives in the difl'er- 
ent Diets ; thus proving their esteem and respect for the able instructors of their 
children. 

As nearly all the expenses of the young teacher's education in the normal 
colleges, are borne by the country at large, and not by himself, it has been thought 
advisable to require some kind of guarantee, that those, who are educated in the 
colleges, will really, when their education is completed, labor as teachers in the 
village schools, ami not merely use their college education as a preparation for 
other more lucrative situations. 

In order, therefore, to secure an adequate return for the expenditure of the_ 
country, it has been decreed by the government : 

" 1st. That every young man, who is received into a normal college, ghall bind 
himself, by an agreement, to remain for three years, after leaving the college, at 
the d.sposition of the government ; and during such three years, to take any 
situation, which the authorities of the district, in which the normal college is 
situated, should offer him, or to which they should wish to translate him. 

" 2d. That if he does not comply with this condition as soon as required to do 
so, he shall repay to the normal college the cost of the education and mainte- 
nance, which had been gratuitously given to him." 

Every year, at a fixed perioil, of which public notice has been previously given 
in the local papers, the directors and pi'ofessors of each of the normal colleg(,'s 
hold a public meeting, at which the magistrates of the county and the religious 
min sters are present, for the purpo.se of examining all young men, who are desir- 
ous of obtaining admission into the normal college for the purpose of being I 
etiucated as teachers. 

These examinations are open to all young men, even of the poorest classes, many 
of whom enter the lists, as almost all the expenses of the collegiate course are, as 
I have said, borne by the state, or defrayed out of the funds of the college. 

Every competitor at one of these examinations must forward to the director of 
the college, a fortnight before the examination takes place — 

1. A certificate signed by his religious minister, and certifying that his charac- 
ter and past life have been moral and blameless. 

2. A certificate from a physician, cei'tifying his freedom from chi'onic com- 
plaints, and the soundness of his constitution and health. 

3. A certificate of his having been vaccinated within the last two years. 

4. A certificate of his baptism, (if a Christian.) 

5. A certificate, signed by two or more teachers, of his previous industrious 
and moral habits, and sufficient abihties for the teacher's profession. 

On the day appointed, all the young candidates, who have complied with the 
preceding regulations, and who have attained the age of seventeen, are examined 
at the college, in the presence of the county magistrates, and of the religious 
ministers, by the directors and professors of the college, in all the subjects of 
instruction given in the highest classes of the primary schools ; i. e., 



Geography, 

German history, 

Natural history. 

The fir.st principles of the physical sciences, 

Sinjjing, 

The violin. 



Biblical history. 

The history of Christianity, 

Luther's catechism, 

Writing, 

Reading, 

Arithmetic, (mental and common,) 

Grammar, I 

Wlien the examination is concluded, a list is made out, in which the names of 
the young men are inscribed in order, according to the profieiency and ability 
they have displayed in their examination. As many of the highest in the list are 
then elected, as -students of the college, as there are vacancies that year, occasioned 
by the departure of those who have left the college to take the chai'ge of village 
schools. 



186 I'llDSSIAN TEACHERS 

Those who are elected, as well as their parents or guardians, are then required 
to subscribe the agreements I have before mentioned ; and the successful candi- 
dates are then admitted as residents of the college for two or three years, 
according to the length of residence required by the rules of the college. 

The time of residence in Prussia is generally three, and never less than two 
years. The time of residence in the normal colleges in the neighboring kingdom 
of Saxony is always four years. When the young men have been once admitted 
into the normal college, their education as teachers commences. It must how- 
ever, be borne in mind, that the Prussian teacher, when he first enters a normal 
college, has generally before that period enjoyed a much better education, and 
knows much more then, than an English teacher does when he undertakes the 
management of a school. Unless he did, he would not be able to obtain ad- 
mission into a normal college. When he leaves the normal college, he has 
had a better general education, than nine out of every ten men who leave our 
Universities. 

The education of a good teacher is a very difficult matter, and, principally, for 
this reason : Nothing, but a very high education can fit an individual for the 
proper pciformance of that most delicate, difficult, and important duty, the educa- 
tion of a child. Great learning, even when accompanied with good principles, is 
often apt to unfit its possessor for the himible duties of a teacher's life ; the 
mingling, living, and conversing with, and the advising the peasants; the labori- 
ous and often unnoticed and unrequited labors of the school-room ; the constant 
ami wearying struggle with sloth, ignorance, filth, bad habits, and immorality ; 
with the opposition of the prejudiced, and the ignorance of the uneducated 
parents ; with the misrepresentations of his scholars ; and with the neglect of the 
community. The learned teacher has all this, and more than this, to contend 
with. lie finds himself in such a situation, having received an education fitting 
him for a very different sphere of action, deserving much higher emolument, and 
inclining him to seek a very ditYerent kind of employment. Such a man, if he 
has received only an intellectual training, is sure, sooner or later, to fly fi-om his 
profession, and seek out an employment more congenial to his newly acquired 
tjistes, or, if he remains at his post, he remains discontented, and, by discontent, 
totally unfitted to perform his duties aright. 

Now the Prussian and the German normal colleges have avoided this difficulty 
in the following manner : They give the teachers a very high intellectual educa- 
tion, but they give them something more : they educate their habits also ; they 
accustom the yoUng men, whilst they are in the colleges, to the most laborious 
and most menial duties ; to combine high intellectual endowments with the per- 
formance of the humblest duties of a peasant's life ; and to acquire high literary 
attainments whilst living on a peasant's diet, wearing a peasant's dress, and labor- 
ing harder than any peasant is ever called upon to do. When, therefore, the 
students leave the colleges, they find their positions, as village teachers, situations 
of less labor, of less real drudgery, and of more comfort, than those which they 
formerly occupied in the colleges. By these means, their sympathies for the labors 
and simplicity of the class, from which they sprung are cherished, whilst the 
labors of the class-room are rendered light and easy by comparison with the 
labors and daily duties of the normal college. Thus, the college does not engen- 
der discontent, but braces the young teacher to his work, and prepares him to 
encounter it with pleasure. 

The education given in the normal colleges of Germany and Switzerland may 
then be said to consist of two distinct parts : 

1st. The intellectual training. 

2d. The industrial training. 

1st. The Intellectual Training. — This, I have before said, is of a very high 
character. I have shown what knowledge a young man must have acquired, 
before he can gain admittance into a normal college. This is only the ground- 
work of his education in the college. During his three year's residence he con- 
tinues his studies in — 

Biblical history, I Luther's catechism, 

The history of Christianity, | RcaiJiug, writing, aritlimetic, and grammar. 



PRUSSIAN TEACHERS. , |gY 

lie furthei" enters upon a new and regular course of study in — 



Pedagogy, 

Singing and chanting, 

Drawing, 

The violin, piano-forte, and organ. 



Geography, 

History, 

Natural history, 

Botany, 

The physical sciences, 

Besides these subjects of study, the young men generally learn the Latin and 
French languages, and very often the English also. I met several teachers who 
knew all three. These latter acquirements are not, howevei', required ; but with- 
out the former, a yoimg man could not obtain a teachers diploma, or officiate in 
any school as a teacher, nor would he be accepted by the inhabitants of a parish. 

The first two years of a teacher's residence in the normal college are devoted 
almost exclusively to these studies-, the third year is divided between them and 
the daily practice of teaching in the model schools, connected with the college. 
Here they first practice as teachers, under the eye and direction of an experi- 
enced professor, who is able to sliow them how to impart knowledge in the best 
manner, an.l how to manage and direct all the minutite of school discipline. Those 
wlio imagine, that any one is fit for the performance of these duties without any 
preparation, show themselves as ignorant of the duties of a teacher, as they are 
careless about the improvement and happiness of the people. 

Besides the subjects of instruction I have noticed, the law requires, that each 
student shall be taught how to distinguish poisonous herbs ; what are, and how 
to use, the antitodes of different poisons ; how to treat the more common acci- 
dents which laborers are liable to meet with ; au'l what remedies and treatment 
to make use of in cases of scalds, burns, and bites of mad dogs. The teachers 
are required to impart this instruction to the scholars of the primary schools, so 
that every person n)ay be capable of acting for himself and without delay, in 
cases of such daily occurrence, and where a short delay in administering a simple 
and necessary remedy often proves fatal. 

The teacher is thus qualified in simple cases to act as the village doctor ; and in 
country villages, where no surgeon or medical adviser lives wi#iin many miles, 
the teacher's medical knowledge proves invaluable, both to himself and to the 
people, among whom he dwells. As the uneducated always esteem a man much 
more if he exhibits a knowledge of the practical arts and appliances of life, the 
benefit and use of which they can understiind, than for any reputation he may 
have of learning, of the use of which they have generally but a vague idea ; so 
this practical knowledge of the teachers tends greatly to raise them in the estima- 
tion and respect of their poorer neighbors, and by this means to give greater 
infiuence and effect to their advice and teachings. 

2d. The Industrial Training.— This consists, generally, of the performance 
of all the ordinary household work, preparing the meals, taking care of the 
sleeping apartments, pruning the fruit-trees, and cultivating, in the lands always 
attached to the colleges, the vegetables necessary for the use of the household. 

The students are required to rise at five o'clock, and to retire to rest by ten at 
the latest ; and in turn to wait upon the professors and on one another ; to ring 
the bell for classes, &c. ; to puinp the water required for the daily use of the 
establishment ; to go to the post-office for letters ; and to teach in the class-rooms 
of the village school attached to the college. 

The whole of every day is occupied by the regular routine of these duties, and 
by attendance at the lectures of the principal and the professors. There is no 
unoccupied time, and therefore, no time for the formation of idle or immoral 
habits. The college course is a laborious, severe, but healthy course of life ; 
bracing up the mind, the body, and the habits, to the exertions of the future 
career. It is a more than Spartan discipline. 

Every year, during its continuance, the young men are rigorously examined, to 
see whether they are making such progress in their studies, as to afford satisfac- 
tory reason for hoping that, at the end of their course of study, they will be able 
to succeed in gaining a diploma or certificate of competence. AVhen it is found 
that a young man is incapable, or idle, and that his progress is not such as to insure 
his probable success in the iiiial examination fur diplomas, he is removed from the 
college, to make room for some more worthy recipient of the national bounty, 
and of some more worthy candidate for the teacher*' pvofeesion. 



IQQ PRUSSIAN TEACHERS. 

This training continues, as I have said before, for three years in most of the 
Prussian colleges. During the whole of this time the young men are urged and 
stimulated to the greatest exertion, by the knowledge that, at the end of it, they 
will have to submit to a severe and searching public examination, conducted in 
the presence of the educational magistrates of the county, of the religious min- 
isters, and of the professors of the college ; and that on the results of that exam- 
ination, and on the manner in which they succeed in it, their admission into the 
teachers' profession, and their future course of life, entirely depend. 

Unless they can pass this final examination creditably, they can not become 
teachers ; and even if they do pass it, the value of the situation, to which they 
may be afterward appointed, depends entirely on the degree of efficiency and 
diligence which they display at the examination. 

Every year at a certain period, fixed and publicly announced beforehand, a meet- 
ing is held in each normal college, by the director and professors of the college, 
and by the religious ministers and the educational magistrates of the country, at 
which all the young men, who have been three years in the college, are sum- 
moned to attend, for the purpose of being e.xamined in all the subjects, in which 
they have received instruction, during their residence in the college. This exam- 
ination generally lasts two days. 

The young men who have completed their third years' residence in the college 
are then examined in — 

1. Biblical history, I 8. Natural history, 

2. The history of Christianity, 9. IJolany, 

3. Luther's Catechism, j 10. The physical sciences, 

4. Rt^arlins, writing, and arithmetic, | 11. Pedajiogy, and class management, 

5. Grammar, . 12. Siiifring and chanting, 

6. Geography, local and physical, 13. Drawing, 

7. History, | 14. The organ, the piano-forte, and the violin. 

According to the manner, in which each student acquits himself in this examin-^ 
ation, he I'eceives, as I have before shown, a diploma marked '' 1," "2," or "3," 
or else is rejeoted, i. e. refused admittance into the teachers" profession, on the 
ground of incompetency. 

Jf a student has succeeded so well in his examination, as to gain a diploma 
marked " 1," he is qualified to take a situation in any school as principal teacher, 
and to enter at once into the highest and most lucrative situations in the country. 
This diploma is a guarantee to all to whom he shows it, that he is a young man of 
good ability, high character and great attainments, and fit to be intrusted with the 
education of any children of any class in the comnmnity. 

If a student obtains a diploma marked " 2," or " 3," he can not, as I have before 
shown, for the first two or three years, take any situation as principal teacher in a 
school, but can only officiate as assistant teacher until, by further study and 
diligent application, he has qualified himself to attend another of the general 
annual examinations, and has there succeeded in obtaining one of the first diplo- 
mas. Those students who obtain the diplomas marked " 3," are obliged to return 
the following year, to the college examination, and, if they do not give proofs of 
having improved themselves, in the interim, in the branches of education in which 
they were deficient, they are generally, deprived of tlieii; diplomas altogether. 

Any person, whether he has been educated at a normal college or not, may pre- 
sent himself at one of them, at the time when the great annual examinaticm is held, 
and may demand to be examined for a diploma. If he shows a requisite amount 
of knowledge, and can produce all the certificates of character, health, &c., which are 
required of the other students at their entrance into the normal college, he may, 
equally with the rest, obtain his diploma, and afterward officiate as a teacher. 

But no person without a diploma, i. e., without having given to the country un- 
deniable proofs of high character, well regulated temper, high attainments, and a 
thorough knowledge of the science of pedagogy, is permitted to officiate as teacher 
in Prussia. 

The connecfion of a German teacher with the normal college does not, however, 
close when he has obtained a diploma marked " 1," and when he has entered 
upon his duties as a parochial teacher. 

The principal of the normal college is commanded by the laws, to pay at least, 
one yearly visit of inspfection to each of the teachers, who have been educated in 



PRUSSIAN TEACHERS. ] gg 

his colleges. The expense of these journeys of inspection, advice and encourage- 
ment is borne by the state, or rather, as indet-d a great part of the expenses of 
the normal college itself, by the provincial magis^trates. If on these tours of in- 
spection, he perceives that any one or more of the teachers requires some further 
instruction or practice in any department of school instruction ; if he perceives, 
that a teacher, has allowed his knowledffe of any branch of instruction to lag 
behind the progress of the science of pedagogy, or to grow dull from want of 
exercise ; or if the teacher should himself require it, the principal is empowered 
to remove the teacher for a few months to the normal college, and during the 
interim, to fill up his place with a young student, or with some young teacher, who 
has not yet obtained a situation. All the extra expenses, attendant upon this re- 
moval, as, for instance, the payment of the young substitute, as well as the keeping 
of the teacher himself during his renewed sojourn in the college, are defrayed by 
the provincial government. The teacher's salary continues to be paid by the 
school committee, and serves to support his family during his absence. 

The normal college in Prussia is, so to speak, the home of all the teachers of 
the district, in which it is situated. They know they can always apply there for 
advice ; that they will always find friends there, ready to sympathi7.e with them 
and to render them assistance ; and that the director and professors understand 
all their difficulties, and are always able and willing to aid them in obtaining a 
remedy from the superior authorities. The college is thus the protector and the 
adviser of the teachers ; it is their refuge in all troubles ; it is the central point 
for their meetings and reunions ; and it is the place, from which they can, at all 
times, gain every kind of necessary information, respecting the various objects 
connected with their profession. They can see there all the best and newest 
works on the different branches of pedagogy ; all the lately improved apparatus 
and materials for school instruction ; and all the more recently adopted methods 
of teaching. They can obtain information there about the general progress of 
education in general, and of the different arts and sciences in particular ; about 
their old friends and associates ; and about the character and efliciency of partic- 
ular books, schools, and methods of instruction. 

I can not speak too highly of these great and liberal institutions. Tlie spirit in 
which they have been conceived, is so liberal ; the way in which they have been 
endowed, is so munificent ; their tone and teaching are so truly healthy and patri- 
otic ; they are so free fi-om the ignorant cant of dogmatism and from the narrow 
minded feeling of pedantry ; their discipline is so severely moral and so invigor- 
ating ; their domestic life is so simple, laborious, and happy in its arrangements ; 
and they are so entirely in unison with the religious institutions of the country, 
that no one can visit them without profound satisfaction. 

Normal schools or teachers' seminaries in Prussia, are divided into 
pubhc or private, superior or chief seminaries, {Hanpt Seminaire,) and 
secondary, or small seminaries, (Neber, ornebeusen Seminaire.) By a 
chief seminary was originally understood such seminaries as were com- 
pletely organized according to the requirements of the laws. After- 
wards they were distinguished by the fact, that a special commission of 
examination was appointed for them, to which commission the director 
and head teacher belonged. But by recent regulation, a commission for 
this purpose is appointed to the small, and even the private, as well as 
to the superior seminaries. They differ pow only by the number of 
pupils ; and in a few instances, the smaller seminaries require a shorter 
residence, and train teachers exclusively for country schools. Private 
seminaries are encouraged, because the annual graduates of the public 
institutions can not yet supply the annual vacancies in the schools created 
by deaths, withdrawal, and dismission. In addition to the seminaries in- 
cluded in the following table, there are five institutions for female teachers, 
viz. : at Berlin, Kaieersworth, Munster, Paderborn and Marienweider. 



190 NORMAL SCHOOLS IN PRUSSIA. 

Table n. — location and number of pcpils of normal schools, in 1846. 



Province. 


Regency District, 


Place where located. 


E 
■5, 

CM 

d 
Z 




"■3 


•3 

-a 

J 
1 

1 




13 
1 

c 
d 


Prussia, 


Konigsberg, 


K.6nigsbeig, 
Braunsberg, 
Eylau. 


28 
53 
70 


4 
5 


P. 

c. 


1809 
1810 


30 
20 


10 




Gumbinnen, 


Angetberg, 
Karalene, 


38 
70 


3 



p. 
p. 


1829 
1811 


25 






Danzig, 
Marienwerder, 


Marienburg, 
Graudenz, 


53 

96 


6 


C.6£F. 
C, &P. 


1814 
1816 




46 
59 


Posen, 


Posen, 


Posen, 
Paradies, 


100 

78 


10 


C. 


1804 

1838 


18 


70 




Bromberg, 


Bromberg, 
Trzemessno, 


30 
15 


4 

2 


P, 
P. 


1819 
1829 




30 


Brandenburg, 


Potsdam, 


Berlin, 
Potsdam, 


34 

98 


3 

1 


P, 
P, 


1830 
1748 








Frankfort, 


Neuzelle, 
Alt-Dobern, 


120 
104 


10 

8 


P. 
P. 


1817 


10 
22 


88 
24 


Pomerania, 


Stettin, 


Stettin. 

Kammin, 

Pyritz, 


50 
18 
15 


4 
2 
2 


P. 
C, 
P, 


1735 

1840 

1827 




50 




Coslin, 
Stralsund, 


Coslin, 
Stralsund, 


60 
31 


5 


P, 


1806 




60 


Silesia, 


Breslau, 


Breslau, 


195 




C, 


1765 




58 




Oppeln, 
Liegnitz, 


Ober-Glogau, 
Buntzlau, 


150 
135 


10 

8 


C. 
P. 


1815 
1816 






Saxony, 


Magdeburg, 


Magdeburg, 
Halberstadt, 
Gardelegen, 


65 
49 

27 


5 

4 


P. 
P, 


1790 

1778 
1821 




24 
12 




Merseburg, 


Eisleben, 

Weissenfels, 

Zeitz, 


20 

68 

8 


3 

4 


C. 
P, 


1836 
1794 




23 




Erfurt, 


Erfurt, 

Mtxhlhausen, 

Heiligenstadt, 


103 

6 

32 




C. &P, 


1820 






Westphalia, 


Munster, 
Minden, 


Langenhorst. 
Petershagen, 
Btiren, 


36 
34 

80 


3 
3 
5 


P, 
P. 
C. 


1830 
1831 
1825 






Rhine, 


Amsberg, 
Cologne, 


Soest, 
Briihl, 


42 
100 


4 

7 


P. 
C. 


1818 
1823 




36 

87 




Diisseldort, 


Kempen, 
Meurs, 


101 
96 


7 
8 


P. 
P. 


1840 
1820 




30 


i 


Coblentz, 

Trier, 

Aix-la-Chapelle, 


Neuwied, 
Treves, 


36 


4 


P. 
C. 


1816 




30 



Prior to 1846 there were two seminaries at Breslau ; in that year the Protes- 
tant seminary, with 130 pupils, was closed, and the pupils were provided for 
in two new institutions, one at Lowen, and the other at Heinau. The Small 
Seminary at Zeitz, was abolished in 1846, and those at Stettin, Pyritz and Kam- 
min, were consolidated into a Chief Seminary at Stettin. The Seminary at 
Potsdam, is to be transferred (in 1849) to Kopnick, in the neighborhood of 
Berlin, 



REGULATIONS 

OF THE NORMAL SCHOOLS OF LASTADtE AND PYRITZ, 

IN PRUSSIA. 



The following Regulations of two of the best small (nebeusen) Normal 
Schools are taken from M, Cousin's " Report on the State of Public Instruc- 
tion in some of the Stales of Germany, and especially of Prussia.''^ The author 
introduces them with some remarks on this class of Normal Schools in 
Prussia. It is no longer true that all of the smaller seminaries are private 
establishments. 

The small Normal Schools are almost all private establishments, but the 
government aids and watches over them, without subjecting them to the 
same publicity it requires of its great schools. 

The small Normal Schools differ, generally, from the large, not only in 
the number of pupils, which is much smaller, but above all as being nurser- 
ies of village schoolmasters for the very poorest parishes. This is their 
proper object ; this it is wiiich gives them so peculiar a character, so pro- 
found a utility. The great schools, it is true, furnish masters for the coun- 
try as well as for the towns ; and their pupils, — those at least who receive 
the stipendia, or exhibitions, — are for many years at the disposal of the gov- 
ernment, which sends them where it likes ; a right whicli, from the well- 
known rigor of the Prussian government in making all public servants work, 
we may be sure it exercises. But in every country there are parishes so 
poor, that one would hesitate to send a schoolmaster of any eminence to 
live in them ; and yet it is precisely these miserable villages which stand in 
the greatest need of instruction to improve their condition. This need, 
then, the small Normal Schools are destined to supply. They labor for 
these poor and backward villages. To this their whole organization, their 
studies, their discipline, are to be directed. Unquestionably, the great Nor- 
mal Schools of Prussia are entitled to the highest respect ; but never can 
there be veneration enough for these humble laborers in the field of public 
instruction, whof as I have said, seek obscurity rather than fome; who de- 
vote themselves to the service of poverty with as much zeal as others to the 
pursuit of riches, since they toil for the poor alone ; and who impose re- 
straints on every personal desire and feeling, while others are excited by all 
the stimulants of competition. They cost scarcely any thing, and they do 
infinite good. Nothing is easier to establish, — but on one condition, that we 
find directors and pupils capable of the most disinterested, and, what is more, 
the most obscure devotion to the cause. Such devotion, however, can be 
inspired and kept alive by religion alone. Those who can consent to live 
for the service of men who neither know nor can appreciate them, must keep 
their eyes steadfastly fixed on Heaven : that witness is necessary to those 
who have no other. And, accordingly, we find that the authors and direct- 
ors of these small schools are almost all ministers of religion, inspired by 
the spirit of Christian love, or men of singular virtue, fervent in the cause 
of popular education. In these humble institutions, every thing breathes 
Christian charity, ardor for the good of the people, and poverty. I shall lay 
before you a description of two ; — one hidden in a suburb of Stettin, and 
the other in the village of Pyritz in Pomeraiiia. 

Stettin has a large Normal School, instituted for the training of raasteri 



jr.j SMALL NoU.MAL SCHOOLS IN PRUSSIA. 

for the burgher schools. An excellent man, Mr. Bernhardt, school-councilor 
(Schulralh) in the council of the department, was the more powerfully struck 
by ihe necessity of providing for the wants of the country schools. He 
founded a small Normal School for this sole purpose, and placed it not in 
the town, but in a suburb called Lastadie; he laid down regulations for its 
government, which I annex nearly entire. 

Small Primary Normal School of Lastadie, near Stettin. 

1. This school is specially designed for poor young men who intend to become 
country schoolmasters, and who may, in case of need, gain a part of their subsist- 
ence by the labor of their hands. 

2. Nothing is taught here but those tilings necessary for small and poor country 
parishes, whicli require schoolmasters who are Christians and useful men, and can 
afford them but a very slender recompense for their toils. 

3. This school is mtended to be a Christian school, founded in the spirit of the 
gospel. It aspires only to resemble a village househdid of the simplest kind, and 
to unite all its members into one family. To this end, all the pupils iiaiabit the 
same house, and eat at the same table with the masters. 

4. The young men who will be admitted in preference, are such as are born 
and bred in the country ; who know the elements of what ought to be taught in 
a good country school ; who have»a sound, straightforward understanding, and 
a kindly, cheerful temper. If, withal, they know any handcraft, or imderstand 
gardening, they will find opportunities for practice and improvement in it in odd 
hours. 

5. The school of Lastadie neither can nor will enter into any competition with 
the great Normal Schools completely organized ; on the contrary, it will strive 
always to keep itself within the narrow limits assigned to it. 

t). Tile utmost simplicity ought to prevail in all the habits of the school, and, 
if possible, manual labor should be combined with those studies which are the 
main object, and which ought to occupy the greater portion of the time. 

7. Tlie course of instruction is designed to teach young people to reflect, and 
by exercising them in reading, writing, arithmetic, and singing, to put it in their 
power to instruct themselves, and to form their own minds. For the humblest 
peasant ought to be taught to think ; but to enlighten him, to make bim a ra- 
ti iullI and intelligent being, does not mean to make him learned. "God willeth 
tha't all men be enlightened, and that they come to the knowledge of the truth." 

8. The instruction ought to have a direct connection with the vocation of the 
students, and to include only the most essential part of the instruction given in 
tlie great Normal Schools. 

9. The objects of instruction are — religion, the German language, reading, 
writing, arithmetic, and singing. To these are joined the first elements of geom- 
etry, easy lessons in natural history, narratives drawn from national history (par- 
ticularly that of Pomerania), and geographical descriptions. The principal object, 
and the foundation of all education, is religion, as learned from history and the 
Bible. The principal books are the Bible, the psalter, and the catechism. The 
school of Lastadie will also strive to excite and cherish in its pupils a love of 
nature, and to that end will cultivate a taste for gardening and planting. 

lU. In treating of all these subjects, the pupils must be trained to speak in 
pure and accurate language ; for after the knowledge of religion and of nature, 
there is nothing of which the children of peasants stand so much in need, as to 
learn to express what they know with simplicity, truth, and accuracy. 

IL The students know enough, when they speak, read, and write well; when 
they can produce a good composition in the German tongue ; when they can cal- 
culate with facility and with reflection, and when they sing well ; they know 
enough when they are thoroughly versed in the Bible, when they possess the 
most essential notions of the system of that universe which they have constantly 
before their eyes, of that nature in the midst of which they live : they have at- 
tained much, when they are Christian, rational, and virtuous men. 

12. The period of study is fixed at two years. The first year the pupils learn 
what they are hereafter to teach to others ; besides which, they assist at the les- 
sons the masters give to the children of the school annexed to this small Normal 



NORMAL SCHOOL OP LASTADIE. 293 

SchooL In the second year the future teacher appears more distinctly, and from 
that time every thing is more and more appUed to practice. They continue the 
whole year to practice teaching, and at the end they receive a set of rules, short 
and easy to understand, for the management of a school of poor country children. 

13. To the school of Lastadie is joined a school of poor children, in which the 
young men have an opportunity of going over what they have learned, by teach- 
ing it to others, and of exercising themselves in tuition according to a fixed plan. 
This school consists of a single class, in order that the students may see how a 
good school for poor childi-en should be composed and conducted, and how aU the 
children may be kept employed at once. 

14. The number of pupils is fixed at twelve. The pecuniary assistance they 
receive will depend on circumstances. The instruction is gratuitous. Six pupils 
inhabit each room. The master lives on the same floor. They take their simple 
but wholesome meals together. Servants are not wanted. The pupils do the 
work of the house. 

15. The daily lessons begin and end with prayers and psalmody. It rests with 
the master to fix the hours of devotion (founded chiefly on the Bible and the book 
of Psalms), as well as their number. So long as the true spirit of Christianity — 
faith quickened by charity — shall pervade the establishment, and fill the hearts 
of masters and of pupils, the school wiU be Christian, and will form Christian 
teachers ; and this spkit of faith and of charity will be productive of blessings to 
the poor and to the mass of the nation. 

16. It will not, therefore, be necessary to lay down minute regulations ; but 
practical moral training must be combined asftnuch ha possible with instruction. 
" The letter kiUeth, the spirit quickeneth." But what wiU it not require to im- 
bue the whole establishment with the true spirit of Christianity, so that masters 
and pupils may devote themselves with their whole hearts, and for the love of 
God, to the cliildren of the poor ? 

17. \Yhoever wishes to be admitted into this estabUshment must not be un- 
der eighteen nor above twenty years of age. He must bring the certificates of 
his pastor, of the authorities of his parish, and of the physician of the circle, as 
to his previous conduct and the state of his health. He must, moreover, have 
such preUminary knowledge as is to be acquired in a well-conducted country school, 
on Biblical history, reading, writing, arithmetic, and singing. Those who join to 
these acquirements the principles of piano-forte or viohn playing, wiU be pre- 
ferred. The candidates for admission give notice to the director, and are exam- 
ined by the members of the departmental authorities who have the care of the 
people's schools. 

18. There is no public examination. The examination on quitting is likewise 
coi^ducted by the school-councilors of the department, and the certificates of 
capacity are founded on tliis examination, according to the gradations 1, 2, 3, and 
are delivered by the departmental authorities. 

19. As to the placing of the pupils, it is desirable that they should work some 
years as assistant masters, in order that they may gradually acquire the neces- 
sary experience and confidence, and may become well acquainted with children, 
and with the inhabitants of villages. tJnder this supposition, the age of admis- 
sion might be conveniently fixed at sixteen ; and this arrangement would be a 
great relief to aged schoolmasters who are become burdensome to themselves 
and to their parishes. 

20. Particular attention is paid to singing and to horticulture ; as means of 
ennobling and animating the public worsliip of God, and the general course of a 
country life ; of providing the pupils with an agreeable recreation, and, at the 
same time, a useful occupation ; and, further, of combating the grossness of mind 
and the obstinate prejudices to which uneducated husbandmen are prone. 

21. All the students attend divine service in the church of Lastadie on Sun- 
days. 

22. The vacations must not exceed four weeks for the whole year: they are, 
at Easter, in the autumn, and at Christmas. 

23. The establishment has no other revenues than what it owes to the bounty 
of the minister of public instruction. Tliese funds are employed, — 

1. In maintaining the poorest students. 

2. In indemnifying the assistant masters of singing and gardening. 

13 



194 SMALL NORMAL SCHOOLS IN PRUSSIA. 

3. In paying for the school tuition. 

4. In paying the expenses of lodging the students. 

5. In lighting and warming the school-room and the two lodging-rooms. 

6. In extraordinary expenses. 

The expense of the meals taken at noon and evening, in common, is also chief- 
ly defrayed from these grants ; the students, however, contribute a Uttle from 
their own means. 

The school of Lastadie pays the head master from its own resources. 

May this establishment (concludes Mr. Bernliardt), which owes its existence to 
such fervent charity, not be deprived of that blessing, without which it can do 
nothing ! 

Assuredly there is not a virtuous heart which does not unite its prayers 
with those of the worthy and benevolent councilor. 

The second small Normal School of this description was founded in 1824, 
in honor of Otto, bishop of Bamberg, who introduced Christianity into Pom- 
erania, having baptized 4000 Pomeranians in 1124, near the fountain of Py- 
ritz. When the minister of public instruction granted the license for its 
establishment, he made it a condition that the students should be instructed 
in agriculture, not merely as a recreation, but as essential to their destina- 
tion ; that they should be bound to study gardening, the cultivation of fruit- 
trees, and of silk-worms. Th'e special superintendence of this house is 
intrusted to the pastor of the place. The regulations are as follows : — they 
resemble those of Lastadie in m^y respects, but go into great detail, and 
are perhaps still more austere as to discipline. 

Rules of the small Normal School of Pyritz, in Pomerania, 
I. 

1. The purpose of this endowment is to give to every pupil the training and 
instruction suitable for a good and useful country schoolmaster : this, however, 
can only be done by the union of Christian piety with a fundamental knowledge 
of his vocation, and with good conduct in the household and in the schooL 

2. Piety is known — 
By purity of manners ; 

By sincerity in word and deed ; 

By love of God and of his word ; 

By love of our neighbor ; 

By wilHng obedience to superiors and masters ; 

By brotherly harmony among the pupils ; 

By active participation in the pious exercises of the house, and of public wor- 
ship; 

By respect for the king, our sovereign, by unshaken fidelity to our country, by 
uprightness of heart and of conduct. 

3. A thorough knowledge of the duties of a teacher are acquired — 
By long study of the principles and elements ; 

By learning what is necessary and really useful in that vocation ; 
By habits of reflection and of voluntary labor ; 
By constant application to lessons ; 
By incessant repetition and practice ; 

By regular industry and well-ordered activity ; according to this command- 
ment, " Pray and work " 

4. Good conduct in the house and the school requires — 
A good distribution and employment of time ; 

Inflexible order, even in what appears petty and insignificant ; 

Silence in hours of study and work ; 

Quietness in the general demeanor ; 

Care and punctuahty in the completion of aU works commanded ; 

Decent manners toward every person and in every place : decorum at meals ; 

Respect for the property of the school, and for all property of others ; 

The utmost caution with regard to fire and light ; 



NORMAL SCHOOL OF PYRITZ. 



195 



Cleanliness of person and of clothing ; 

Simplicity in dress, and in the manner of living ; according to the golden rule, 
" Every thing in its time and place. Let things have their com-se. Provide 
things honest in the sight of all men." — Rom. xii. 16, 17.* 

II. 

1. All the pupils inhabit one house and one room ; for they must hve in unioD, 
and form one family of brothers, loving one another. 

2. The whole order of the house rests on the master of the school ; he lives in 
the midst of the pupils ; he has the immediate superintendence of them, of their 
conduct, and of their labors. He ought to be to those under his care what a 
father of a Christian family is in liis household. 

He is responsible for the accounts of the establishment, the registers, the re- 
sult of the quarterly examinations, and for the formation of the necessary lists. 
He has the special care of the provisions, the rooms, the library, the furniture. 
He is responsible to the school-administration for good order in every department, 

3. The oldest and most intelligent of the students assists the master. He is 
called the master's assistant. He must take care — 

That every one in the room under his care rises and goes to bed at the ap- 
pointed moment ; 

That nobody, without the master's permission, leave the house, smoke, or carry 
candles into the passages or the loft ; 

That no one wantonly injure the windows, doors, or furniture, or thi-ow any 
thing out of the windows ; 

That the utmost cleanhness be observed in the sitting-room, the passage, and 
the sleeping-room ; 

That all clothes, linen, books, &c., be in their places ; 

That no noise be made in going up and down stairs, or in going to the chil- 
dren's school. 

It is his especial business to help his companions in the preparation of their 
lessons, to liear them repeat, to prepare the exercises for the master, and to as- 
sist him as far as he can in all his business. He ought to be to his fellow-students 
what a good elder brother is to his younger brothers and sisters. He is chosen, 
on the master's recommendation, by the school-committee. 

4. The humbler sort of household work, such as cleaning and putting in order 
the rooms, dusting the furniture, fetching water, cleaving wood, &c., is done by 
the pupils, who serve a week in rotation. The time of service is prolonged by 
order of the master, in case of negligence. 

5. The order of the day is as follows : — 

In winter at five, in summer at half past four in the morning, at a given signal, 
all the pupils must rise, make their beds, and dress. 

Half an hour after rising, that is, at half past five in winter, and five in summer, 
all the pupils must be assembled in the school-room. The assistant first pro- 
nounces the morning benediction, and each pupil then occupies himself in silence 
till six. If any repetitious stand over from the preceding day, they must be 
heard now. After this, breakfast. 

In whiter, as well as in summer, the lessons begin at six o'clock, and last till a 
quarter before eight. Then the students go with their master to the children's 
school, attached to the Normal School, where they remain till ten, either listen- 
ing, or assisting in teaching some small classes ; or they may be employed in their 
own studies at home. 

To these employments succeeds an hour of recreation, and then an hour's les- 
son in the estabUshment. 

At noon, the students assemble in the master's room, where they find a frugal 
but wholesome meal, consisting of vegetables, meat, and fish, at the rate of two 
thalers (six shillings) a month. 

The time which remains, till one o'clock, may be passed in music, gardening, 
and walking. 

• I do not happen to have the French version of the Bible. The texts as quoted by M. Cousin 
do not agree with those in our version. Ver. 11, is rendered by Luther, Schichet euch in die Zeit, 
Adapt yourselves to the time ; which is not given in our version. The next clause above, I find 
neither in his version nor in ours. 



196 SMALL NORMAL SCHOOLS IN PRUSSIA. 

In the afternoon, from one till three, while the master is teaching in the to-mn 
school, the pupils accompany liim, as in the morning. From three till five, lessons. 

The succeeding hours, from five till seven, are, according to the seasons, em- 
ployed in bodily exercises, or in the school-room in quiet occupations. At seven 
they assemble at a simple cold supper. 

From seven to eight they practice singing and the viohn ; then repetitions or 
silent study till ten, when all go to bed. 

Two afternoons of each week are free, and are usually spent in long walks. 
The time from four to six, or from five to seven, is devoted to the practice of 
music. 

On Sundays or holidays all the pupils must attend divine service in the church 
of the town, and assist in the choir. The remainder of these days may be passed 
by every one as he pleases : in the course of the morning, however, the students 
must write down the heads of the sermon (the text, the main subject, the distri- 
bution), and in the evening must give an account of the manner in which they 
have spent the day. 

Every evening, as well as on the mornings of Sundays and holidays, a portion 
of time is spent in meditation in common. 

A few Sundays after the setting in of winter, and after the festival of St. John 
(May 6th), the students partake of the Lord's Supper, in company with their 
masters. 

Every student, from the time of his admission, must solemnly engage (in token 
of wliich he gives liis hand to the master and signs his name) to follow the rules 
of the house, which may be summed up in these three principal maxims : — 

1. Order in behavior and in work, combined with the utmost simplicity in all 
things ; to the end that the students who belong to the poorer classes, and whose 
destiny it is to be teachers of the poor, may willingly continue in tliat condition, 
and may not learn to know wants and wishes whicli they will not, and ought not 
to have the power of satisfying. For this reason, they must be their own servants. 

2. As to the course of instruction, the repetitions must always be heard by the 
forwardest pupUs. Tlie pupils must be made, as much as possible, to teach each 
other what they have learned of the master, in order that they may perfect them- 
selves in the art of teacliing. 

3. Piety and the fear of God should be the soul of their little commimity, but 
a true Christian piety, a fear of God according to knowledge and Ught, so that 
the pupils may do all to the glory of God, and may lead a simple, humble, and 
serene Ufe, resigned and contented in labor and travail, according to the exhorta- 
tion of the Apostle : 

" Fulfill ye my joy, that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one 
accord, of one mind. Let nothuig be done through strife or vain-glory ; but in 
lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves." — Philip, ii. 2, 3. 

" And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercyj" 
—Oalat. vi. 16. 

( 

I abstain from all comment on these two sets of regulations, which seem 
to have been dictated by the spirit of St. Vincent de Paule. The greater 
number of the small Normal Schools of Prussia are founded and governed 
in the same spirit. All rest on the sacred basis of Christianity. But be- 
neath their simple lowly exterior we trace a taste for instruction, a feeling 
for nature, a love of music, which take away every vestige of coarseness, and 
give these modest institutions a character of liberality. Undoubtedly all this 
is the offspring of the national manners, and of the genius of Germany ; 
yet Christian charity might transplant a good deal of it into our France ; 
and I should esteem myself happy, if the regulations of the little schools 
of Lastadie and of Pyritz were to fall into the hands of some worthy eccle- 
siastic, some good curate or village pastor, who would undertake such an 
apostolic mission as this. 



PRIMARY NORMAL SCHOOL 

AT POTSDAM. 



The following account of one of the best primary Normal Schools of 
Prussia is abridged from the report of M. Stintz, the director of the 
establishment. 

1. DIRECTION AND INSPECTION. 

The Normal School and its annexed school are placed under a director 
or principal, subordinate to the royal school board of the province of Bran- 
denburg, at Berlin, and to the minister of public instruction and ecclesias- 
tical and medical affairs. 

The last named authority lays down the principles to be followed in 
this school, as in all other public schools ; exacts an account of all impor- 
tant matters, such as the examination of the masters, and any change in 
the fundamental plan of the studies ; and receives every year, through 
the medium of the royal school board, a detailed report, prepared by the 
director of the school. 

The school board is charged with the special inspection of the Normal 
School : it must watch its progress, and from time to time send commis- 
sioners to make inquiries on the spot. It examines also and approves the 
plan of studies presented every half year, and decides on all questions 
submitted to the consistory. 

The director should superintend the whole establishment, observe and 
direct the master and servants, make reports to the superior authorities, 
carry on the correspondence, &c. 

2. BDILDING. 

The Normal School, situated near the canal and the Berlin gate, is a 
large edifice two stories high, with a frontage of 127 feet, and considera- 
ble back buildings, which, joined to the main building, form a square 
within which is a tolerably spacious court. The whole comprehends : 

1. A family residence for the director or principal, and another for a 
master ; 

2. Three apartments for three unmarried masters 

3. An apartment for the steward and his servants, and sufficient con- 
venience for household business and stowage ; 

4. A dining-room for the pupils, which serves also for the writing and 
drawing class ; 

5. An organ-room, in which the music lessons are given, the examina- 
tions take place, and the morning and evening prayers are said ; 

6. Two rooms for the scientific instruction of the pupils ; 

7. Four rooms for the classes of the annexed school; 

8. Five rooms of different sizes, and two dormitories for the pupils ; 

9. Two infirmaries; 

10. A wash-house ; 

11. Two cabinets of natural history ; 
13. Granaries, cellars, wood-houses, &c. 

3. REVEN0ES. 

The annual income of this establishment amounts to $6000, which is 



198 



PRIMARY NORMAL SCHOOL AT POTSDAM 



derived from the state fund and the tuition of the pupils, both of the Nor- 
mal School, and the annexed primary model school. 

4. INVENTORY. 

The establishment contains the following articles : 

1. Things required in the economy of the house, kitchen utensils, 
tables, forms, &c. ; 

2. Sufficient and suitable furniture, consisting of chests of drawers, 
tables, forms, chairs and boxes, for the class of the Normal School, and 
the school for practice, and for the masters' rooms, &c. There is also for 
the poorer pupils, a certain number of bedsteads with bedding ; 

3. A considerable library for the masters and pupils, as well as a good 
collection of maps and globes for the teaching of geography; 

4. A tolerably complete collection of philosophical instruments ; 

5. A collection of minerals, presented to the establishment by Council- 
lor Von Turck ; 

6. A collection of stuffed birds, and other objects in natural history 3 

7. The instruments most required in mathematical instruction; 

8. Complete drawing apparatus ; 

9. A very considerable collection of music; 

10. A very good organ, a piano forte, seven harpsichords, and many 
wind and string instruments. 

5. DOMESTIC ECONOMY AND MAINTENAN yE OF THE PUPILS. 

To support about eighty pupils, and to preserve cleanliness in the 
house, a steward has been appointed, whose duties are specified in a con- 
tract renewable every year. 

The food of the pupils is good and wholesome, which is proved by the 
state of their health. Some parents think it needful to send their chil- 
dren eatables, or money to purchase them. They are wrong, for the 
children have no such want ; on the contrary, so far from being advan- 
tageous, these presents only serve to take away their appetite at meals, 
and to make them dainty and gluttonous. The orphans, and those whose 
parents are too poor to send them any thing, are exactly those who are 
the strongest and healthiest. 

The director is almost always present at meals, to be sure of the good- 
ness of the food, and to prevent any irregularity in the serving up. 

Sick pupils are sent to the infirmary, and are attended by the physician 
or surgeon of the establishment. 

6. MASTERS. 

There are six masters attached to this establishment in which they 
live, besides the director, who instructs in religion, in the principles of edu- 
cation, of training, of the art of teaching, and of the methods of study. 

7. NUMBER OF PUPILS. 

The number of pupils is fixed by the regulation at from seventy to 
eighty, and is now seventy-eight, of whom seventy-two live in the estab- 
lishment; the other six have obtained a license to remain with their 
parents in order to lessen the expense of their maintenance. 

This number is determined not only by the building, but also by the 
wants of the province. Brandenburg contains about 1300 masterships of 
primary schools, in town and country. Supposing that out of a hundred 
places, two become vacant every year, there will be at least thirty mas- 
ters required for this province ; but these places for the most part pay so 
badly, that they are compelled to be content with but moderately qualified 
masters, who, perhaps, have not been educated at a Normal School, and 
who sometimes follow some trade or handicraft. If then, the Normal 
School contains seventy-eight pupils who form three classes, one of which 



PRIMARY NORMAL SCHOOL AT POTSDAM. jgg 

quits annually, it will furnish each year twenty-six candidates, which 
about meets the wants of tlie country. 

/ 8. WHAT IS REQ0IRED OF APPLICANTS FOR ADMISSION. 

/Once a year, at Michaelmas, twenty-six pupils are admitted. Of these 
are required — 

1. Good health and freedom from all bodily infirmity. (Obstacles to 
admission would be, exceeding smallness of stature, short-sightedness, or 
a delicate chest ;) 

2. The age of seventeen complete ; 

3. The evangelical religion; 

4. A moral and religious .spirit, and a conduct hitherto blameless ; 

5. A good disposition and talents, among which are a good voice and a 
musical ear ; 

6. To be prepared for the studies of the Normal School by the culture 
of the heart and mind; to have received a good religious education 
(which shall include a knowledge of the Bible and biblical history ;) to be 
able to read ; to know the grammar of the German language, of compo- 
sition, arithmetic, the principles of singing, the piano forte and violin. 

A written request for admission must be sent to the director, by June at 
the latest, accompanied with — 

1. A certificate of birth and baptism ; 

2. A school certificate, and one of good conduct; 

3. A police certificate, stating the condition of the young man or his 
father, or else a written declaration from the father or guardian, stating 
the time within which he can and will pay the annual sum fixed by law ; 
i.e. 48 thaler (61. 16s.) 

The director enters the petitioners on a list, and in the month of June 
or July invites them, by letter, to present themselves at the examination 
which takes place in July or August. . 

The examination is conducted partly in writing, and partly viva voce J ^">' 

As a means of ascertaining the acquirements of the candidates, and of 
judging of their memory, their style, and their moral dispositions, an an- 
ecdote or parable is related in a clear and detailed manner, summing up 
and repeating the principal points, after which they produce it in writing, 
with observations and reflections. 

The oral examination usually includes only rehgion, reading, grammar, 
logical exercises, and arithmetic. 

They are also examined in singing, the piano forte and the violin. 

After the examination, the talents and merits of the respective candid- 
ates are conscientiously weighed and compared, in a conference of the 
masters. The choice being made, it is submitted to the sanction of the 
royal school board, with a detailed report of the result of the examination. 

At the end of some weeks the candidates are informed of the decision ; 
their admission is announced, or the reasons which prevent it stated ; with 
either advice to give up their project entirely, or suggestions relative to 
their further preparation. 

The admitted candidate is bound to bring, besides his clothes and 
books, among which must be the Bible and the prayer-book used in the 
establishment, half a dozen shirts, six pair of stockings, a knife and fork, 
and, generally, a bedstead with all requisite bedding. 
.^' He is also bound to sign, on his entrance, the following engagement to 
the director, with the consent of his father or guardian. 

COPY OP THE ENGAGEMENT WITH THE DIRECTOR TO BE SIGNED BY THE 
PUPIL ON HIS ENTRANCE. 

"I, the undersigned, N of N , by these presents, Wnd my- 
self, conformably with the ordinance of the royal minister ol' public in- 



200 



PRIMARY NORMAL SCHOOL AT POTSDAM. 



Btruction, and ecclesiastical and medical affairs, dated February 28th, 
1825, with the consent of my father (or guardian) who signs this witli 

me, to place myself during three years after my 

leaving the Normal School, at the disposal of the king's government ; 
and consequently not to subscribe any thing contrary to this engagement; 
or, in such case, to refund to the Normal School the expenses incurred by 
the state for my instruction, namely : 

'1. Ten thaler for each half y^ar passed in the Normal School, and for 
the instruction received in this period of time ; 

' 2. The whole amount of the grants and exhibitions I may have re- 
ceived ; 
' Potsdam, the &c." 

The applicant rejected, but not advise'd to choose another course, is 
summoned to a fresh examination the following year. 

The number of applicants having been lor some time past very great, 
the author of this report thinks it his duty to warn parents, (especially 
schoolmasters,) whose children do not evince talent and have not a deci- 
ded taste for teaching, not to suffer them to lose the precious time which 
they might employ with much more success in some other career. 

This respects chiefly the poor youths who can have no claim to the ex- 
hibitions, unless they give proofs of an extraordinary capacity, from which 
the state and society may derive a real advantage. 

The Normal School is by no means designed for those who are unfit for 
any business, and think, if they can read and write, they are capable of 
becoming schoolmasters. This notion is so deeply rooted, that you hear 
fathers declare with all the simplicity in the world — " My son is too deli- 
cate to learn a business," or "I don't know what to make of my son, but I 
think of getting him into the Normal School." We reply to such, that 
the pupils of the Normal School must, on the contrary, be sound both in 
body and mind, and able to brave the toils and troubles of a career as 
laborious as it is honorable. 

Much neglect unfortunately still exists on a subject which is of the 
highest importance, — the methodical preparation of these young men for 
the calling it is desired they should embrace. 

A false direction is often given to their preliminary studies. A young 
man is believed to be well prepared for the Normal School, if he have 
passed the limits of elementary instruction, and if he have acquired a 
greater mass of knowledge than other pupils. It frequently happens, 
however, that candidates who come strongly recommended from school, 
pass the examination without credit, or are even rejected. 

The most immediate and the most important aim of all instruction, is 
to train up and complete the Man ; to ennoble his heart and character ; 
to awaken the energies of his soul, and to render him not only disposed, 
but able, to fulfil his duties. In this view alone can knowledge and 
talents profit a man ; otherwise, instruction, working upon sterile memory 
and talents purely mechanical, can be of no high utility. In order that 
the teacher, and particularly the master of the primary school, may make 
his pupils virtuous and enlightened men, it is necessary he should be so 
himself Thus, that the education of a Normal School, essentially practi- 
cal, may completely succeed, the young candidate must possess nobleness 
and purity of character in the highest possible degree, the love of the true 
and the beautiful, an active and penetrating mind, the utmost precision 
and clearness in narration and style. 

Such above all things are the qualities we require of young men. If 
they have reached this state of moral and intellectual advancement by 
the study of history, geography, mathematics, &c., and if they have ac- 
quired additional knowledge on these various branches, we can not but 
give them applause ; but, we frankly repeat, we dispense with all these 



PRIMARY NORiMAL SCHOOL AT POTSDAM. 



201 



acquirements, provided they possess that formal instruction of which we 
have just spoken, since it is very easy for them to obtain in the Normal 
School that material instruction in which they are deficient. 

It is nevertheless necessary to have some preliminary notions, seeing 
that the courses at the Normal School are often a continuation of foregone 
studies, and that certain branches could not be there treated in their whole 
extent, if ihey were wholly unknown to the young men when they enter- 
ed. We have already mentioned the branches they should be most par- 
ticularly prepared in; but this subject being of the greatest interest, we 
shall conclude this chapter with some suggestions on the plan to be fol- 
lowed. 

I. Religion. To awaken and fortify the religious spirit and the moral 
sentiments. For this purpose the histories and parables of the Bible are 
very useful. Frequent reading and accurate explanation of the Bible are 
necessary. The pupils should be able to explain the articles of faith, and 
the most important duties, as laid dowfi in the catechism. Many sen- 
tences, whole chapters and parables from the Holy Scriptures, hymns and 
verses, should be known by heart ; they should be able to give answers 
on the most interesting points of the history of the church and the Reform- 
ation. 

II. As to general history, there ia no need of its being circumstantially 
or profoundly known ; but the young men should be able to refer with 
exactness to those historical facts wiiich may be profitably used to form 
the heart, to exercise and rectify the judgment, to infuse a taste for all 
that is grand and noble, true and beautiful. 

III. Geometry (the study of forms) combined with elementary drawing., 
the one as a basis for instruction in writing and drawing, and as a pre- 
paration for the mathematics ; the other to exercise the hand, the eye and 
the taste. 

IV. Writing. The copies by Henrich and Henning only ought to be 
used, which, after long practice, give and preserve abeautitul hand, even 
when writing fast and much. 

V. Logical Exercises. These ought to tend to produce in young 
minds clearness and accuracy of ideas, justness of judgment, and, by con- 
sequence, precision and lacility in oral and written explanations. 

VI. Reading. When once the pupil can read fluently, he must be 
taught to give emphasis to his reading, and to feel what he reads. He 
should be habituated to recite, and even gradually to analyze the phrases 
and periods he has just read, to change the order, and express the same 
idea in different words, — to put, for example, poetry into prose, &c. Thus 
these exercises serve at the same time to teach him to think, and to speak. 
We advise also that he be made to declaim pieces he has learnt by heart. 

VII. German language and composition. Language should be re- 
garded and treated on the one hand as a means o? formal instruction. — 
as practical logic ; and on the other as an indispensable object of material 
instruction. 

VIII. Arithmetic. This does not include either methods of abstruse 
calculation or practical arithmetic. Nothing more is required of the pupil 
than to use figures without difficulty, and to calculate in his head. 

IX. Singing, pianoforte, violin. The formation of the voice and ear. 
Skill and firmness in producing sounds. Exercises in elementary sing- 
ing. Psalmody. ° 

For the piano forte and violin, as much dexterity as can be expected, 
and a good fingering for the former instrument. 

If these suggestions have the effect of inducing a conscientious master 
to train well even a few young candidates, they will have attained their 
object. 



202 



PRIMARY NORiMAL SCHOOL AT POTSDAM. 



The enumeration of a great number of works from which assistance 
may be derived, at least facilitates the choice. 

9. OUTWARD CONDITION OF THE PUPILS; AND THE NATURE OF THEIR CON- 
NECTION WITH THE NORMAL SCHOOL, 

If the young men have no relations at Potsdam who can answer for their 
good conduct and application, they are all, without exception, bound to 
live in the Normal School, and to take their food there, paying to the 
director the sum of twelve thaler (1/. 16s.) per quarter. 

Each pupil costs the establishment 100 thaler a year. In paying, 
therefore, the yearly sum of forty-eight thaler, required by law, he defrays 
only halt' his expenses. A bursar is entitled to lodging, firing, board, 
candles, and instruction. A half bursar pays only twenty-four thaler a 
year. He has then only to buy his clothes, to pay for his washing, his 
books, paper, pens, ink, and whatever is wanted for music and drawing. 

With respect to lodging, they are distributed into five large rooms, with 
stoves, appropriated to the pupils ; and they live and work, to the number 
of eight, twelve, or sixteen, in one of these rooms, which is furnished with 
tables, chairs, drawers, book-cases, bureaus, and piano fortes. Their 
beds and chests are put in two dormitories. Each sitting-room, each 
bed-room, has its inspector, chosen from among the pupils, who is respon- 
sible for its order. It is the duty of one of the pupils belonging to the 
chamber to arrange and dust the furniture every day. Neglect in the 
fulfilment of liis otfice is punished by the continuance of it. 

So long as the pupils remain at the Normal School, and behave with 
propriety, they are exempt from military service. 

AH the pupils are bound to pursue the course of the Normal School for 
three years ; their acquirements and instruction would be incomplete if 
they did not conform to this regulation. 

10. EDUCATION OF THE PUPILS BY MEANS OF DISCIPLINE AND OF IN- 
STRUCTION. 

In the education of the masters of primary schools the wants of the 
people must be consulted. 

A religious and moral education is the first want of a people. Without 
this, every other education is not only without real utility, but in some 
respects dangerous. If, on the contrary, religious education has taken 
firm root, intellectual education will have complete success, and ought on 
no account to be withheld from the people, since God has endowed them 
with all the faculties for acquiring it, and since the cultivation of all the 
powers of man, secures to him the means of reaching perfection, and, 
through that, supreme happiness. 

To sustain and confirm the religious and moral spirit of our pupils, we 
adopt various means. We take particular care that they go to church 
every Sunday: they are not compelled to attend exclusively the parish 
church of the Normal School ; but on the Monday they are required to 
name the church they went to, and to give an account of the sermon. 
Every Sunday, at six o'clock in the morning, one of the oldest pupils 
reads, in turn, a sermon, in the presence of all the pupils and one master. 
At the beginning and end they sing a verse of a psalm, accompanied on 
the organ. A prayer, about ten or fifteen minutes long, is offered up 
every morning and night, by one of the masters. They begin with sing- 
ing one or two verses ; then follows a religious address, or the reading of 
a chapter from the Bible, and, in conclusion, another verse. 

To obtain amoral influence over the pupils, we consider their individual 
position, their wants, and their conduct. Much aid in this respect is de- 
rived from the weekly conferences of the masters, and particularly trom 
the quarterly report ( Censur) of the pupils, or judgment on the applica- 



PRIMARY NORMAL SCHOOL AT POTSDAM. 203 

tion, progress, and conduct of each. This is written in a particular book, 
called the report-book ( Cerisurbuch,) and forms the basis of the certificates 
delivered to the pupils on their leaving the establishment ; as well as of 
private advice given at the time. 

The means of correction adopted, are, warnings, exhortations, repri- 
mands ; at first privately, then at the conference of the masters ; lastly, 
before all the pupils. If these means do not suffice, recourse is had to 
confinement, to withdrawing the stipendia or exhibitions, and in the last 
resort, to expulsion. But we endeavor, as much as possible, to prevent 
these punishments, by keeping up a friendly intercourse with the pupils, 
by distinguishing the meritorious, by striving to arouse a noble emula- 
tion, and to stir up in their hearts the desire of gaining esteem and respect 
by irreproachable conduct. 

It is on the interest given to the lessons that especially depends the 
application of study out of class. Certain hours of the day are consecra- 
ted to private study, and each master by turns takes upon himself to see 
that quiet is maintained in the rooms, and that all are properly occupied. 

At the end of each month, the last lesson, whatever the branch of in- 
struction, is a recapitulation, in the form of an examination, on the sub- 
jects treated of in the course of the month. 

As to the branches of knowledge taught, and the course of study, the 
following is the fundamental plan : 

In the first year for inal instruction predominates : in the second, mate- 
rial instruction ; in the third, practical instruction* The pupils iiaving 
then about ten lessons a week to give in the annexed school, (lessons for 
which they must be well prepared,) follow fewer courses in the school. 

Our principal aim, in each kind of instruction, is to induce the young 
men to think and judge for themselves. We are opposed to all mechani- 
cal study and servile transcripts. The masters of our primary- schools 
must po.ssess intelligence themselves, in order to be able to awaken it in 
their pupils; otherwise, the state would doubtless prefer the less expen- 
sive schools of Bell and Lancaster. 

We always begin with the elements, because we are compelled to ad- 
mit, at least at present, pupils whose studies have been neglected ; and 
because we wish to organize the instruction in every branch, so as to 
afford the pupils a model and guide in the lessons wliich they will one 
day be called upon to give. ^ 

With respect to material instruction, we regard much more the solidity, 
than the extent, of the acquirements. This not only accords with the in- 
tentions of the higher authorities, but reason itself declares that solidity of 
knowledge alone can enable a master to teach with efficacy, and carry 
forward his own studies with success. Thus, young men of delicate 
health are sometimes exempted from certain branches of study, such as 
the mathematics, thorough bass, and natural philosophy. 

Gardening is taught in a piece of ground before the Nauen gate; and 
swimming, in the swimming-school established before the Berlin gate, 
during the proper season, from seven to nine in the evening. 

Practical instruction we consider of the greatest importance. 

All the studies and all the knowledge of our pupils would be fruitless, 
and the Normal School would not fulfil the design of its institution, if the 
young teachers were to quit the establishment without having already 
methodically applied what they had learned, and without knowing by 
experience what they have to do, and how to set about it. 

* Formal instruction consists of studies calculated to open the mind, and to inculcate on the pu- 
pils good methods in every branch, and the feeling of what is the true vocation of a primary teacher. 
Material instruction, or more positive instruction, occupies the second year, in which the pupils go 
through the special studies of every solid kind, much of which they may never he called upou to 
teach. Practical instruction, or instruction in the art of teaching, occupies the third year. 



204 PRIMARY NORMAL SCHOOL AT POTSDAM. 

To obtain this result, it is not sufficient that the younger men should 
see the course gone through under skillful masters, or that they should 
themselves occasionally give lessons to their school-fellows; they must 
have taught the cliildren in the annexed school for a long time, under the 
direction of the masters of the Normal School. It is only by familiarizing 
themselves with the plan of instruction for each particular branch, and by 
teaching each for a certain time themselves, that they can acquire the 
habit of treating it with method. 

11. ANNEXED SCHOOL. 

The annexed school was founded in 1825, and received gratuitously 
from 160 to 170 boys. The higher authorities, in granting considerable 
funds for the establishment of this school, have been especially impelled 
by the benevolent desire of securing to the great mass ot"poor children in 
this town the means of instruction, and of relieving the town from the 
charge of their education. 

The town authorities agreed, on their part, to pay the establishment 
one thaler and five silber-groschen (3s. 6c/.) a year for each child. On 
this condition we supply the children gratuitously with the books, slates, 
&c. which they want. 

The annexed school is a primary school, which is divided into four 
classes, but reckons only three degrees: the second and third classes are 
separated from each other only tor the good of the pupils, and for the 
purpose of affording more practice to the young masters. 

The first class, with the two above it, forms a good and complete ele- 
mentary school ; while the highest presents a class of a burgher school, 
where the most advanced pupils of the Normal School, who will probably 
be one day employed in the town schools, give instruction to the cleverest 
boys of the annexed school. 

The most advanced class of the students of the Normal School to be 
employed in the school for practice, is divided into five cxBtus, or divisions, 
each composed of five or six pupils. Each division teaches two subjects 
only during two months and a half, and then passes on to two other sub- 
jects ; so that each has practical exercise in all the matters taught, in 
succession. 

As far as possible, all the classes of the school for practice attend to the 
same subject at the same hour. The master of the Normal School, who 
has prepared the young masters beforehand, is present during the lesson. 
He listens, observes, and guides them during the lessons, and afterward 
communicates his observations and his opinion of the manner in which 
the lesson was given. Each class has a journal for each branch of in- 
struction, in which what has been taught is entered after the lesson. As 
far as possible, the young master who is to give the next lesson, witnesses 
that of his predecessor. By this means, and particularly through the 
special direction of the whole practical instruction by a master of the 
Normal School, the connection and gradation of the lessons is completely 
secured. 

It is requisite that every pupil of the Normal School should teach all the 
branches in the lowest class in succession ; for the master of a primary 
school, however learned he may be, is ignorant of the most indispensable 
part of his calling, if he can not teach the elements. 

12. DEPARTURE FROM THE NORMAL SCHOOL ; EXAMINATIONS ; CERTIFI- 
CATE AND APPOINTMENT. 

The pupils quit the Normal School after having pursued the course for 
three years ; for the lengthening of their stay would be an obstacle to the 
reception of new pupils. 

But they must first go through an examination in writing and viva voce, 



PRIMARY NORMAL SCHOOL AT POTSDAM. 



205 



as decreed by the ordinance of the minister of public instruction and ec- 
clesiastical and medical affairs, of which we give an abstract: 

" 1. All the pupils of the primary Normal Schools in the kingdom shall 
go through an examination on leaving. 

2. The examinations shall be conducted by all the masters of the 
Normal School, on all the subjects taught in the house, i-n the presence 
and under the direction of one or more commissioners delegated by the 
provincial school board. 

3. Every pupil, before leaving, shall give a probationary lesson, to 
show to what degree he possesses the art of teaching. 

4. After the examination Is over, and exact accounts of the pupils 
leaving are given by the director and all the masters, a certificate shall 
be delivered to each pupil, signed by the director, the masters and the 
commissioners. 

5. This certificate shall specify the knowledge and talents of the pupil ; 
it shall state whether he possesses the art of teaching, and whether his 
moral character renders him fit for the office of primary schoolmaster. It 
shall include, besides, a general opinion of his character and attainments, 
expressed by one of the terms, 'excellent,' 'good," passable,' and answer- 
ing to the numbers 1, 2, 3. 

6. This certificate only gives the pupil a provisional power of receiv- 
ing an appointment for three years. After that time he must undergo a 
new examination at the Normal School. But any pupil who, on leaving 
the establishment, obtained number 1, and has, in the course of the three 
first years, been teacher in a public school, shall not have to pass another 
examination. No others can take a situation, except provisionally. 

7. These new examinations shall not take place at the same time as 
those of the pupils who are leaving ; but, like those, always in the pres- 
ence and under the direction of the commissioners of the school board. 

8. In the first examinations the principal object is, to ascertain if the 
pupils have well understood the lessons of the Normal School, and learn- 
ed to apply them ; in the last, the only object of inquiry is the practical 
skill of the candidate. 

9. .The result of this new examination shall likewise be expressed in 
a certificate, appended to the first, and care shall be taken to specify 
therein the fitness of the candidate for the profession of schoolmaster." 

For which reason, the pupils on their departure receive a certificate, the 
first page of which describes their talents, character and morality, and the 
two following contain an exact account of the result of the examination 
on all branches of study. 

Those who have not obtained appointments in the interval between the 
two examinations, shall present this certificate to the superintendents and 
school-inspectors of the places where they live, and, on leaving that place, 
shall demand a certificate of conduct, which_they shall produce at the 
time of the second examination. Those who have been in situations 
during the three first years, shall produce certificates from their immedi- 
ate superiors. 

All the pupils can not be appointed immediately on their leaving the 
school : but a great number of them are proposed by the director for va- 
cant places, and are sought after by the royal government, by superin- 
tendents, magistrates, &c. ; so that at the end of a year we may calculate 
that they are all established. 

M. Cousin, in his '■^Report on Public Instruction in Prussia" after 
publishing the foregoing account, remarks : 

" I can answer for the perfect fidelity of this description of the Normal 
School of Potsdam. 
I saw this scheme in action. The spirit which dictated the arrange- 



206 PRIMARY NORMAL SCHOOL AT POTSDAM. 

ment and distribution of the tuition is excellent, and equally pervades all 
the details. The Normal course, which occupies three years, is compos- 
ed, for the first year, of studies calculated to open the mind, and to incul- 
cate on the pupils good methods in every branch, and the (eehng of what 
is the true vocation of a primary teacher. This is what is called the 
formal instruction, in opposition to the material or more positive instruc- 
tion of the second year, in which the pupils go through special studies of 
a very solid kind, and learn considerably more than they will generally be 
called upon to teach. The third year is entirely practical, and is devoted 
to learning the art ofteaching. This is precisely the plan which I take 
credit to myself for having followed in the organization of the studies of 
the great central Normal School of Paris, for the training of masters for 
the royal and communal colleges. At Potsdam, likewise, the third year 
comprises the sum of the two preceding, and the pupils are already re- 
garded as masters. In this view there is a primary school annexed to 
the Normal School, in whicll the students in their third year give lessons, 
under the superintendence of the masters of the Normal School. The 
childrer^who attend this primary school pay, or rather the town pays for 
them, only four thaler (12s.) a year; there are 170. They are divided, 
according to their progress, into four classes, which are taught by the 
twenty or five and twenty students, or apprentice masters, in their third 
year, with all the ardor of youth and of a new vocation. I was present 
at several of these lessons, which were extremely well given. A master 
of the Normal School frequently attends one of the classes, and, when 
the lesson is finished, makes observations to the young masters, and gives 
them practical lessons, by whjch they can immediately profit. 

As appears from the prospectus, the musical instruction is carried to a 
very high point. There are few students who have not a violin, and 
many of them leave the school very good organists and piano forte play- 
ers. Singing is particularly cultivated. The course of instruction em- 
braces not only a little botany, mineralogy, physical science, natural his- 
tory, and zoology, but exercises in psychology and logic, which tend to 
give the young men the philosophy of that portion of popular education 
intrusted to their care. I was present at several lessons ; among others, 
one on history and chronology, in which, out of courtesy to me, the pupils 
were interrogated on the history of France, particularly during the reigns 
of Charles IX., and Henry III., and Henry IV., — a period of which Prot- 
estantism is so important a feature. The young men answered extremely 
well, and seemed perfectly familiar with the dates and leading facts. I 
say nothing of the gymnastic courses, as Prussia is the classic land of 
those exercises. 

What struck me the most was the courses, called in Germany courses 
of Methodik and Didaktik, as also those designated by the name of Pa- 
dagogik: the two former intended to teach the art of tuition, the latter 
the more difficult art of moral education. These courses are more partic- 
ularly calculated for the acting masters, who come back to perfect them- 
selves at the Normal School ; for which reason they are not entered in 
the table, or prospectus, which exhibits only the regular studies of the 
school. These courses are almost always given by the director, who also 
generally gives the religious instruction, which here comes in its proper 
place, — that is, first, 

I ought to add that all the students of the school at Potsdam had a 
cheerful happy air, and that their manners were very good. If they 
brought any rusticity to the school, they had entirely lost it. I quitted 
the establishment highly satisfied with the students, full of esteem for the 
director, and of respect for a country in which the education of the people 
has reached such a pitch of prosperity." 



P.RIMARY NORMAL SCHOOL, 

AT BRUHL. 



The Normal School at Bruhl may be regarded as a type of the establish- 
ment for teachers of the Catholic faith, as that at Potsdam is of the Prot- 
estant institutions. The following account is abridged from an annual Re- 
port of its principal, Mr. Schweitzer, a Catholic clergyman. 

" The town of Bruhl stands in a beautiful plain on the left bank of the 
Rhine, two leagues from Koln, three from Bonn, and a short' league from 
the river. It is surrounded by fertile fields and picturesque villages. Di- 
rectly before it majestically rises the ancient Colonia, with its numerous 
towers and steeples, and its colossal cathedral. It bounds the view on that 
side : on the right, the Siebengebirge* traces its gigantic outlines on the 
blue distance, and on that side presents to the eye a picture of grandeur and 
repose. From some neighboring hights the lover of natural beauty looks 
down with admiration on the plains which lie outspread before him, and the 
silvery luster of the majestic Rhine, which, in its ample windings, rolls peace- 
fully along, as if it delighted to linger in these smiling regions, while two 
long chains of hills seem to hold this magnificent plain in their embrace. 
One of these chains stretches along the left bank of the Rhine, to the Eifel 
Mountains, and is for that reason called the Vorgebirge — (fore or introduc- 
tory range) ; at the foot of this chain is Bruhl. The summit is clothed with 
the forest of Vill, and the undulating sides are dotted with country-houses 
and pretty villages, the houses of which are half hidden among fruit-trees. 
At the blossoming season these villages present the most delightful aspect, 
and help to compose a picture of enchanting variety. It is not without rea- 
son, then, that Bruhl was the favorite residence of the Electoral Archbishops 
of Koln, and in former times this little town was far more important than it 
now is. At the present day Bruhl consists of only 278 houses, among 
which are many poor mud cottages, and contains only from fourteen to 
fifteen hundred inhabitants. Since it ceased to be the residence of the Elect- 
ors, its inhabitants nearly all live by agriculture, and by a small trade. 
There are only two remarkable buildings, — the palace, which is abandoned, 
and the monastery. This latter building is occupied by the establishment 
under my care. 

'^ The monastery was formerly the nursery of the order of Franciscan 
fcmonks for the whole province of Koln. After the suppression of the order 
on the left bank of the Rhine, in 1807, Napoleon gave the monastery and 
its dependencies to the town of Bruhl, which, in 1812, granted them to 
Messrs. Schug and Schumacher for the establishment of a secondary and 
commercial school, whose existence closed in 1822. At the end of that 
year, the town ceded these buildings to the government, for the establish- 
ment of the primary normal school which now occupies them. 

1. BUILDINGS. 

" The house is built in a grand style, with three stories, and in a quadran- 
gular form. The entrance is to the north, and leads by a small fore court, 

* The cluster of seven mountains nearly opposite to Bonn. 



208 PRIMARY NORMAL SCHOOL AT BRUHL. 

on the one side into the convent, on the other into the church, which is 
handsome, light, and lofty. The high altar, of artificial marble, and the 
organ, are much admired. On the south side are two wings, which give the 
buildings a handsome and palace-like appearance. From the very entrance, 
the cloisters are wide, with lofty vaulted roofs, cheerful and well lighted. 
They run quite round the building, as do the corridors over them on the 
first and second stories. On the ground floor we have four rooms or halls 
for study, and a large and very light dining-hall, which serves also for our 
public meetings, for study and for prayer. Beside it, are two school-rooms, 
and two rooms for the steward, with kitchen, offices and servants' hall in the 
basement story, where the porter has also his kitchen and two rooms. The 
establishment has a pump, abundantly supplied with fine water, near the 
kitchen ; a rivulet which runs under the two wings is of great importance 
for purposes of cleanliness. 

" The director occupies the eastern side of the building on the first floor ; 
the inspector, the left wing and a part of the southern side ; the steward has 
the rest of that side ; the right wing and the western side are inhabited by 
an ancient father and brother of the Franciscan order, — regarded as the last 
remnant of a once flourishing body, now extinct — and by the master of the 
school for practice. There are no rooms to the north, only corridors adjoin- 
ing the church. 

" The assistant masters inhabit the upper story, in which are also five hos- 
pital rooms to the south, and two large dormitories for the students to the 
east and west of the main building. A granary or loft, in good repair, runs 
over the whole of the building, and affords both steward and masters conve- 
nient stowage for their stock of grain of all kinds. 

" Both masters and pupils have ample reason to be satisfied with the 
rooms for study and for dwelling. The masters' apartments are not hand- 
some, it is true ; other schools have better : with a little cleaning and dec- 
oration they might, however, be made very comfortable. The students' dor- 
mitories are cheerful, and better fitted up than any I have seen in any nor- 
mal school ; their appearance is very neat and agreeable, with the clean beds 
all covered alike, which can be done only where they are furnished by the 
establishment. This house has only one inconvenience, — violent currents 
of air ; but these might, I think, be remedied. 

"The outside of the building is as agreeable as the inside is convenient; 
it is situated on the prettiest side of the town, and has no communication 
with any other building except the ^lalace, with which it is connected by a 
covered way, and by the old orangery. It has a magnificent view over a de- 
lightful country, a large kitchen-garden, a commodious court, and two flow- 
er-gardens. 

" The building is of stone, and consequently very substantial ; its aspect 
is indeed a little hoary now, but a new coat of plaster would soon give it a 
cheerful appearance. The roof is in good condition, and if once the build- 
ing underwent a thorough repair, the whole might be kept up at a very 
small expense. During the past year no great repairs have been done. 

2. NUMBER OF STUDENTS. 

" The number of students is fixed at a hundred ; at this moment there are 
ninety-two. The object of the establishment is to train schoolmasters for 
the Catholic parishes of the four regencies of Coblentz, Koln, Aachen, and 
Dusseldorf. Its position with relation to the government is, in principle, to 
receive the pupils from its hands, and to render them back accomplished for 
their task. In the other normal schools the rule is, that the candidates for 
admission be examined by the schoolmasters, and by them declared fit or 
unfit to be either entered or immediately admitted; but here it is the cu»- 



PRIMARY NORMAL SCHOOL AT BRUHL. 209 

torn for them to be examined in the department they come from, without 
any intervention of the school, and afterward admitted by the director on 
the nomination of the government. On the other hand, the parting exam- 
ination rests with the school, under the condition of a special commissioner 
being present. The pupil declared fit for nomination is not subject to be 
re-examined by the government authorities. According to its regulations, 
the school is not only authorized, but obliged, at the end of the first year, to 
send away the pupils who are judged incapable of attaining the requisite 
excellence. At the tim? of the last parting examination, the school had 
been obliged to exerci^ this power in the case of eight pupils, which re- 
duced their number to ninety-two. 

3. HEALTH. 

"The health of the students was not so good in 1824 as in the preceding 
year ; as sufliciently appears from the bill for medical attendance for the two 
years. 

"In 1823 this amounted to 66 thaler (91. 18s.), in 1824 to 177 thaler (26Z. 
lis.) But we m^st not forget that the number of pupils in the latter year, 
as compared with the former, was as three to two. Tliere have indeed been 
no contagious diseases, and few of a serious character, but frequent inflam- 
matory and catarrhal fevers, some intermittent and one nervous fever. In- 
flammatory ophthalmia, attacks on the chest, and palpitations of the heart 
have not been rare. The physician has paid the pupils great attention, in- 
deed I might almost say too much ; and I have agreed with him that he shall 
not order them medicines, except in cases where diet, rest, perspiration, and 
domestic remedies are insufficient. In order to prevent the young men from 
abusing the facility of applying to a physician, I have ordered that no one 
shall, for the future, consult him without my permission. Infectious cutane- 
ous diseases are avoided by having the pupils examined by the physician on 
their entrance, and again a week after. If any well-founded suspicions arise, 
separation takes place as a measure of precaution ; if the appearances of a 
contagious disease are certain, the pupil is sent home till perfectly cured. 

4. ORDER, DISCIPLINE, AND MORALITY. 

" Without rigid attention to order, we could not hope for the smallest 
success. In an establishment composed §f various elements, like this nor- 
mal school, where young men who differ in language (dialect), manners, 
and education are gathered together, there must be rigorous obedience to 
rule. In domestic life, the head of the family is the rule ; and in a large es- 
tablishment, unquestionably those who govern are strictly bound to furnish 
an example to all under them. They are that spring of the great machine 
which cannot cease to move without stopping the whole. But it is also ne- 
cessary that the establishment should have its precise rules, its written code 
of laws. The govcrnor.s, it is true, fill the place of the law whenever it is 
silent ; but all, without distinction, ought to know accurately what they must 
do, and what they may do. For this reason, the undersigned cannot share 
the opinion of some very estimable teachers who think it not necessary, nor 
even expedient, that there be written laws for an establishment like the pri- 
mary normal school ; nay, that their promulgation may operate only as an 
incitement to break them. Laws seem to me to grow out of the very na- 
ture of the institution. Gather together a number of young men without 
laying down any rule for them ; they themselves will soon feel the neces- 
sity of making laws for tlie government of their intercourse with each other, 
and will choose one of their body as guardian of these laws. It is, then, 
natural, useful, and fitting that the managers and masters should make laws 

14 



210 PRIMARY NORMAL SCHOOL AT BRUHL. 

for the school confided to them. If it be true that laws create the tempta- 
tion to break them, that is a reason why laws for all human society ought 
to be abolished. Fixed laws'-give to an institution a steady course, protect 
the weaker against caprice and tyranny, prevent mistakes and precipitation, 
and, what is more important for the future, they show in a clear and striking 
manner the necessity of laws for the commonwealth, and train youth to a 
reasonable and willing obedier.ce to them. The opinion I offer here springs 
from my general conviction of the utility of positive w^ritten laws, which my 
own experience has greatly strengthened. For in those infractions of order 
and discipline which have occasionally happened, I have contented myself 
with punishing the f;udt by reading the infringed law to the culprit, in a 
calm but severe manner, either in private or before all the pupils assembled ; 
and this punishment has never fluled of its effect. 

" After this digression, which I have thought it expedient to insert here, I 
return to the order of the house. It is our duty to make the utmost possi- 
ble use of the daylight, as being more healthful, more cheerful, and more 
perfect than lamp-light, and costing nothing. In our situation, it would be 
unpardonable to turn night into day. I make it a great point, too, that the 
young men should get the habit of rising early, so that in the evening they 
may lay aside all anxiety and all labor, and give themselves up to the enjoy- 
ment of tranquil and refreshing sleep. In summer, therefore, we rise at 
four, and even earlier when the days are at the longest ; in winter at six, in 
spring and autumn at five. In summer, I and my pupils go to bed at nine 
or half past, in spring and winter at ten. The pupils ring the rexeille by turns ; 
a quarter of an hour after, the bell rings again, and all assemble in the din- 
ing-hall, where the morning prayer is said ; then they all follow me to the 
church, where I perform the service of the holy mass. One of the students 
assists in the service ; the others sing the responses ; this religious act, for 
which we use the prayer-book and psalter of Bishop Von Hommer, is some- 
times mingled with singing, but rarely, because singing very early in the 
morning is said to be injurious to the voice and chest. All is terminated in 
an hour ; and the pupils, after having thus sanctified the first hour of morn- 
ing, return to the house, make their beds, breakfast, and then prepare for 
lessons, which begin at seven or at eight, according to the season. In es- 
tablishing this rule, I had some fears, at first, that rising so earlv and going 
directly into a cold church in the depth of winter, might be injurious to their 
health ; but I am always there before them, and I have never suffered. It 
may be said that I am more warmly clothed than the young men : but then 
they are young, their blood is warmer than mine, and that restores the bal- 
ance. Moreover, it cannot but be advantageous to them to hnrden them- 
selves, while habits of indulgence and delicacy would be extremely unfavor- 
able to them in their profession. On the Sundays and festivals of the church, 
I say mass to the students at half past eight in the morning. They sing a 
German mass for four voices, or simple chants and hymns ; and, on high 
festivals, Latin mass. During the last year, the pupils of the first class have 
several times executed some easy masses extremely well. But, generally 
speaking, I am not perfectly satisfied with our church music : not that our 
masters and pupils do not do their best, but we have not a suitable supply 
of church music. The singing in Catholic churches is subject to a particular 
condition : it must be connected with the acts of the mass ; it must form a 
whole, distinct, and yet in harmony with the mass, and moreover, must be 
adapted to each of the epochs of the ecclesiastical year. Now we have very 
little church music fit for the people. What there is, is in the hands of a 
few individuals, who do not choose to part with it. There is doubtless an 
abundance of sacred music suited to every occasion, but it is all in the most 
elevated style ; and to what good end should the studies of the pupils be 
pushed so far beyond what can be of use to them in their future sphere of 



PRIMARY NORMAL SCHOOL AT BRUHL. 211 

action ? Music of the highest order never can nor ought to become the 
property of the people. Music ought not to be cultivated as a mere grati- 
fication of a sense ; it ought to help to ennoble and refine the heart, and to 
form the moral taste. 

" It does not signify so much how they sing, as what they sing. In pri- 
mary normal schools music ought not, any more than reading, to be the 
principal object; it must be regarded and treated as a means toward a 
higher end, which is, education and moral culture. It is therefore with rea- 
son that the primary normal schools are required to diffuse a nobler and 
more worthy kind of popular sacred music ; this is, as regards music, their 
proper office. A good composer, who would devote himself to this object, 
might acquire immortal honor. It is to be wished that the higher authori- 
ties, particularly of the church, would encourage composers who show a 
genius for sacred music, to fill this chasm. In these remarks I have in view, 
it is true, only the Catholic church. It is quite otherwise with the Protest- 
ant, which possesses a great store of psalms ; there is only to choose what 
are appropriate to the sermon. This greatly f{icilitates the task of the Prot- 
estant normal schools. In the Catholic worship, on the contrary, the sermon 
is only a subordinate part of a higher whole, with which the singing must 
harmonize, adapting itself to the different important moments, and hence 
the scarcity of simple counterpoint fit for the purpose. To attain the pro- 
posed end, we ought to have, not only a good organist, but also an able 
composer, which it is not easy to find. I return to the order of the day. 

" As the day begins with prayer, so it ends with it. A quarter of an hour 
or half an hour before going to bed, all the pupils assemble, at the sound of 
the bell, for evening devotions. A short portion of the holy scripture is 
read, and after enlarging more or less on a text, and recommending it to im- 
itation, I conclude by a prayer. During the past year I preached a homilet- 
Ical discourse on the lesson of the day, before mass every Sunday morning; 
but as it becomes difficult for me to speak fasting, I now reserve it till even- 
ing. It has also been decided, that as a means of keeping alive religious 
and moral feelings, the pupils should confess and communicate once a month, 
unless particular reasons render it expedient to prolong the interval to six 
weeks, or, at furthest, two months. The rest -of the day is employed ac- 
cording to the scheme of lessons and the order enjoined by the minister. 
The pupils are not allowed to go out, except on the weekly afternoon holi- 
day ; and this is sufficient for their health, because in all their hours of rec- 
reation they can take exercise in a garden of two acres which belongs to the 
establishment. Nevertheless, on fine days I occasionally give them leave to 
make expeditions into the country, when I think their health will be bene- 
fited by it ; making it an express condition that they shall take no pipes. 

" It is good to correct faults ; better still to prevent them. Abundance 
of arguments have been adduced in support of the principle that we must 
let children have their will, in order that their will may become vigor- 
ous, and wait till the time when the reason expands to give it a lofty direc- 
tion. But this is letting the tares overtop the wheat before we attempt to 
root them out. Experience proves that the good seed springs up more vig- 
orously and thrives better when the soil has been cleared of weeds. Dis- 
cipline ought, therefore, to precede and to accompany the instruction of 
young men, as docility and modesty that of children. Doubtless external 
reverence and reserve are but the beginnmg of wisdom ; man must be 
brought to think spontaneously and without external impulse, of the duties 
he lies under, so that it may become his inclination to fulfill whatever he has 
clearly recognized as a duty, to consult nothing but conscience, and to set 
himself above the praise and the blame of men. This is true and uncon- 
tested ; nevertheless, the flesh is always weak, even though the spirit be 
willing ; and there are few of those elect for whom approbation and cen- 



212 PRIMARY NORMAL SCHOOL AT BRUHL, 

sure, remonstrances and encouragements, liope and fear, are noi, ..„ces& 
helps ; and for that reason, such helps are used for great and small, in pri- 
vate houses as well as m schools, m church as well as in state, and will 
never iail, if wisely used, to have a salutary effect. A hard ascetical con- 
straint and discipline are as far from my taste as from my principles ; but 
experience demands rigorous order in great schools, especially at their out- 
set. When order has once been thoroughly established, when the will of 
each has learned to bend to the unity of the collective body, the early se- 
verity may be relaxed, and give place to kindness and indulgence. As long 
as I can recollect, I have observed that the education of children is best in 
houses where this principle is observed. To let children grow perverse and 
wayward in their infancy through weak tenderness and indulgence, and then 
to reprove and chastise them with harshness when their habits are formed, 
cannot be other than a false system. For these reasons we always begin 
by reading the rules and disciplinary laws of the house, so that the pupils 
may distinctly know what they have to do ; we then take care that these 
laws are strictly enforced. The masters, on their side, are careful to show 
the most punctual obedience to all their duties. We afterward read por- 
tions of the rules, according to circumstances, and to the demand for any 
particular part; thus the discipline is strengthened and facilitated. The 
highest punishment is expulsion ; and last year we were obliged to resort 
to this twice. In all cases we try to proportion the punishment to the fault, 
BO as to conduce to the amendment of the culprit and the good of all. For 
instance, if one of the pupils lies in bed from indolence, he is deprived of his 
portion of meat at dinner, and for four days, a week, or a fortnight, as it 
may be, is obliged to declare his presence when we meet in the morning. 
Being kept at home on holidays, ringing the bell, fetching water, &c., are 
the only corporal punishments for faults of indolence and infractions of 
order. Faults of impatience or carelessness, of insincerity or raischievous- 
ness, of coarseness or any sort of incivility, oifenses against decency or good 
manners, are punished by notes in the inspection-book, which the culprits 
themselves are obliged to sign. As to the conduct of the students when 
out of the house, the authorities and mhabitants of the whole neighborhood 
unanimously bear witness that the presence of these young men is in no 
way perceived. It is not difficult to speak to their hearts, and by expostu- 
lation suited to their age and station, to touch them even to tears. 

" Of this I could cite several instances, did I not fear prolonging this Re- 
port. I will, however, give one. Last year the students of the highest 
class were dissatisfied with the steward, and presented a petition very nu- 
merously signed, in which they enumerated their causes of complaint, and 
asked to have him removed. I gave the petition to him, that he might an- 
swer the charges ; and after he had made his defense, I suffered accusers 
and accused to plead their cause, at the time of one of the religious lessons. 
The steward was not irreproachable ; his fiiult was, indeed, evident enough : 
on the other hand, the complaint was exaggerated, invidious, inexact, and in- 
considerate ; for several had signed without reading ; others had signed be- 
cause such or such a point seemed to them just ; others again had shown 
themselves extremely active in collecting signatures, and had reproached 
those who refused to sign. The aftlur being clearly and circumstantially 
stated, the steward had his share of the reprimand, and was deeply affected 
by it ; others were moved to tears : and the offenders, when the unbecom- 
ing, inconsiderate, and even criminal points of their conduct were distinctly 
explained to them, acknowledged their injustice, and promised never to act 
in the like manner again. 

" Order and discipline, instruction and prayer, are thus regarded and em- 
ployed as so many means, general and particular, for cultivating the moral- 
ity of the pupils ; and the undersigned, during the short time he has had the 



PRIMARY NORMAL SCHOOL AT BRUHL. 213 

care of the institulion, has had the satisfoction of seeing many vvlio entered 
it with bad and distressing habits, leave it metamorphosed and renewed. 
Sedateness and modesty have been substituted for giddiness ; the spu-it of 
temperance for cr viiig .ifrer sensual enjoyments: and tliose who came to 
seek but ordinary bread, have acquired a taste for purer and higher food. 
It is hardly possible that among so many, a vicious one should not occa- 
sionally creep in ; and last year, among the new-comers, was a cunning and 
accomplished thief, whose depredations filled the establishment with dissat- 
isfaction and alarm. It was difficult to find him out, but falsehood and per- 
versity betray themselves in the end. Heavy suspicions were accumulated 
during the year on the head of the criminal ; and though there were not pos- 
itive proofs, he could not so escape our vigilance as not to leave us in pos- 
session of a moral certainty against him. He was expelled at the examina- 
tion of last year. Nevertheless, as there was no legal proof, his name was 
not stigmatized by publicity, and the higher authorities will readily excuse 
my not mentioning it here, and will be satisfied with the assurance that no 
misfortune of the kind has since occurred. 

6. INSTRUCTION. 

The business of the primary normal school is to form schoolmasters. 
It must therefore furnish its pupils with the sum of knowledge which the 
state has declared indispensably necessary to the intellectual wants of the 
lower classes of the people, of whom they are to be the teachers, and must 
afterward fit them to fulfill their important vocation with zeal and vdth a 
religious will and earnestness. 

No more than grapes can be gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles, 
can any thing good be hoped from schoolmasters who are regardless of re- 
ligion and of morality. For this reason, religious instruction is placed at the 
head of all other parts of education : its object is to implant in the normal 
schools such a moral and religious spirit as ought to pervade the popular 
schools. The course of religious instruction has undergone no change from 
that stated in the report of last year, except that the several classes have 
been united for the Biblical part. During the present year we propose to 
treat the concordance of the Gospels, the history of the Apostles, and some 
of the Epistles. The course adopted is this : — The series of the concord- 
ance is established and dictated by the master ; the passages and discourses 
are explained, and, if thought expedient, learnt by heart by the pupils. For 
the catechising, or religious and moral instruction, properly so called, the 
classes are separated. The great catechism of Overberg is taken as a 
ground-work ; and we treat first of faith, then of morals, so that the latter 
may be intimately connected with the former, or to speak better, that moral- 
ity may flow from f;iith as from its source. I regard religion as a disposi- 
tion or affection of the soul, which unites man, in all his actions, with God ; 
and he alone is truly religious who possesses this disposition, and strives by 
every means to cherish it. In this view of the subject all morality is reli- 
gious, because it raises man to God, and teaches him to live in God. I 
must confess, that in religious instruction I do not confine myself to any 
particular method ; I try by meditation to bring the thing clearly before my 
own mind, and then to expound it intelligibly, in fitting language, with grav- 
ity and calmness, with unction and earnestness, because I am convinced that 
a clear exposition obliges the pupils to meditate, and excites interest and 
animation. 

As for the historical part, I have made choice of a short exposition of 
the history of the Christian church, with an introduction on the constitution 
of the Jewish church. I think it impossible to learn any thing of universal 
history, that can be useful or instructive to the students, in less than a hundr 



214 PRIMARY NORMAL SCHOOL AT BRUHL. 

red lessons. It signifies little whether a \'illage schoolmaster know^ the 
history of India, China, or Greece ; but he ought to know something of the 
history of the church, because it is, in many points, nearly connected with 
that of religion. I must confess that, in the measure of time allowed us, I 
cannot make universal history very interesting or profitable to the pupils ; 
but it is otherwise with ecclesiastical history. 

I introduce the theory of education and tuition by experimental psychol- 
ogy. This course of study is of infinite use, in teaching the science of edu- 
cation, and of tuition, as likewise in teaching morals and religion ; but I re- 
gard the school for practice, and the method there pursued, as the best 
course of pedagogical instruction. I have come to the conviction that, 
generally speaking, it is necessary to recommend to the pupils of the nor- 
mal schools, and to all young schoolmasters, a firm and decided plan, leav- 
ing it to them to modify it as time and experience dictate. It is with them 
as with a traveler going to a place he has never been at before : it is best 
to show him the high road, that he may not lose himself; when he is famil- 
iar with that, he may try cross-roads, if he thinks they will abridge his jour- 
ney. The masters of the school agree in my views on this point, and en- 
deavor to act up to them. The following are theu- courses of instruction in 
their several departments, furnished by themselves. 

Language :* First class, or class of the first year. — In the first half year we 
begin with the simplest elements, and gradually go through all the parts of 
speech, but without their subdivisions. In the second half year we go 
through the subdivisions in like manner ; so that, in the first year, a thorough 
knowledge is acquired of the simple and compound elements, as well as of 
the divisions and subiiivisions of speech. The course of instruction is partly 
synthetic, and partly analytic ; that is to say, what has been learned in the 
first manner, is made thoroughly clear in the second, by the analysis of a 
passage from some author. Second class, or class of the second year. — This 
class, proceeding in a similar way, goes through the most complicated peri- 
ods. In the second half year the pupils are familiarized with the most im- 
portant principles of Iqgic and of etymology. 

Arithmetic : Second class.f — In the first half year are studied the rule of 
three, single and compound interest, and discount ; in the second, the ex- 
traction of the square and cube roots, as far as equations of the first and 
second degree. The result of this course is a complete familiarity with all 
the branches of common arithmetic. These two departments of instruction, 
language and arithmetic, are taught according to the views of the inspector. 

Geometry : Second class. — In the first half year they get through what re- 
lates to rectilinear figures and the circle ; in the second, the theory of the 
transmutation of figures is added ; and after that, the most important prin- 
ciples of geometry and the measurement of solids. The books of instruc- 
tion are those of F. Schmid and Von Turck. 

Drawing : First class. — In the first half year dravdng is carried as far as 
the knowledge of the most important laws of perspective, so as to place ob- 
jects, not too complex, according to the laws of perspective. In the second 
half year they study light and shade. Second class. — During the first half 
year the attention is directed to the relief and shading of works of art, such 
as houses, churches, vases, &c. In the second half, the pupils copy good 
drawings of landscapes, flowers, &c., vdth a view to familiarize them wiih. 
the style of the best masters. The method adopted is that of F. Schmid. 

Reading : First class. — Begins by the enunciation of some simple propo- 
sitions, which are decomposed into words ; the words are reduced to sylla^ 
bles, and these to their simple sound. This course has been adopted with 
the pupils, that they may themselves use it with the younger children, and 
thus acquire a familiar acquaintance with it. It is taught according to the 

• M. Wagner. t Auother master takes the arithmetic for the first class or first year. 



PRIMARY NORMAL SCHOOL AT BEUHL. 215 

views of the inspector. Second class. — In the tirst class the principal object 
is reading- with ease ; in the second, reading with expression. The chief 
means of instruction consist in the master's reading aloud frequently, be- 
cause it is considcrc.l ili.it this plan is more nnfiilin'r nnd more easy than 
any rules. Since, however great the application on the part of both master 
and pupil, the art of reading is at all times difficult to acquire, this branch 
of instruction occupies a whole year. 

Singing : First class. — In the first half year they begin with easy exer- 
cises in time and melody ; the next step is to easy pieces for four voices. 
The second half year is devoted to more difficult exercises of the same kind ; 
so that, by the end of the year, the pupils have acquired a tolerable facility 
in reading. 

Natural Philosophy : Second class. — During the first half year the atten- 
tion is directed to the general and particular properties of bodies ; to those 
of the elements, water, air, and fire ; then to the theory of sounds, the velo- 
city of winds, the equilibrium of fluids, and aqueous meteors. In the second 
half year comes the theory of light, electricity, the lever, the inclined plane, 
luminous meteors, optics, &c. The principal object is to render the pupils 
attentive to the most striking phenomena of nature, and to accustom them to 
reflect upon her laws and secrets. The method adopted here is that of the 
inspector. 

During half of last year my* lessons embraced the following points : — 

Menial Arithmetic. — 1, The knowledge of numbers with reference to their 
value and form ; 2, addition ; 3, subtraction ; 4, subtraction and addition 
combined ; 5, multiplication ; 6, multiplication combined with the preceding 
rule ; 7, division ; 8, varied combinations of the four fundamental rules. 
Each rule was accompanied by its application, and by examples drawn from 
common life. My principal aim was to exercise the pupils in applying the 
rules to practice. I have endeavored also to draw their attention to the the- 
ory, and especially to the mode of using different rules in the solution of the 
same problem ; \\ith this view, I have always alternated the oral and written 
exercises. 

Arithmetic on the Slate. — Calculation on the slate is based upon mental 
arithmetic, insomuch that the latter may be considered as a preparation for 
the former. When the four first exercises in mental arithmetic are gone 
through, the pupils begin to use the slate. I have labored not only to give 
them practical dexterity, but also solid knowledge, and mth this aim have 
accustomed them to try various ways of working the questions. 

Elements of Geometry. — I have followed the work of Harnisch, and his 
theory of space drawn from the theory of crystals, and employed by him as 
a basis to the mathematics. 

Natural History : Botany. — The principal parts of a plant are first 
pointed out and named ; then each of these parts are examined separately : 
— 1, the root, its form and direction; 2, the stem, its internal construction, 
its figure and its covering ; 3, the buds, their place upon the stalk ; 4, the 
leaves, their variety according to their situation, their mode of insertion, 
their figure, their place ; 5, the flower-stalks ; 6, the flowers according to 
their species, the manner in which they are fixed, theii* composition ; the ca- 
lyx, corolla, stamina, pistil, the fruit, seed-vessel, and sex of the plants. All 
this has been shown to the pupils, either in the plants themselves, or in 
drawings which I have traced on the slate. I interrupted the botany till we 
could take it up again after Easter, and began 

Mineralogy. — I have pursued the same course here. The pupils have first 
been familiarized with the propertie^which distinguish minerals one from 
another, as their colors, the arrangement of parts, the external form, regular 
and irregular, or crystalline form ; the polish, texture, transparency, vein, 



216 PRIMARY NORMAL SCHOOL AT BRUHL. 

hardness, alteration of color, effervescence in acids : all these properties have 
been observed by the pupils in the minerals of our collection. To this suc- 
ceeded the classification of minerals, from which the pupils have learned the 
names and uses of the most important. 

Singing. — Having devoted last year, with my singing pupils, to timo, tune, 
and acoustics, I have, during the past six months, combined the three 
branches of the art of singing which I had before taught separately, and 
have practiced them chiefly on sacred vocal music, such as a psalm of Schna- 
bel's, a chorus from Handel's Messiah, a mass of Hasslinger, and another 
of Schiedermeyer, a chorus from Haydn's Creation, two songs by Von Web- 
er, &c. 

Thorough- Base* — The lessons I have given in this science have been ac- 
cording to Hering's practical introduction, or to my own ideas. The follow- 
ing course has been adopted: 1, the theory of intervals; 2, the theory of 
harmonic thirds, a. if they comprise a scale, b. if they belong to the whole 
system ; 3, the theory of the chord of the seventh, a. if it belongs to a scale, 
b. if it belongs to the whole system of chords ; 4, modulation, a. in a free 
style, b. in a free style, with particular reference to the organ ; 6, written 
exercises in parts for four voices. 

Geography. — We have finished Germany and begun Europe: the follow- 
ing course has been adopted. P'irst we made the pupils acquainted, as ex- 
actly as possible, with the Rhenish provinces — our own peculiar country ; 
then with Prussia, then with the rest of Germany. This was done in the 
following manner: 1, the boundaries; 2, the mountains; 3, the rivers; 4, 
the natural divisions according to the rivers ; 5, the towns. We then con- 
sidered Germany in its political divisions, paying attention to the position 
and natural limits of the countries. All the exercises on this subject were 
done with skeleton map^ If time permit (though only one year with two 
lessons a week are allotted to this department), Europe will be followed by 
a general review of the earth. 

Writing. — In the writing I have followed exactly the system of Hennig ; 
by giving, 1, the easiest and simplest letters of the running alphabet to be 
copied, each letter separately, till the pupil can make them with ease ; 2, 
words composed of such letters as they have practiced ; 3, at the opening of 
the course, after Easter, will come the capital letters, in the same way ; 4, 
English handwriting.f In practicing single letters, I have especially pointed 
out how one was formed out of another, and the letter they were practicing 
as making part of that which followed. Afterward copies, written, not en- 
graved, are placed before the pupils, because these last, according to the 
opinion of good penmen, discourage the pupils. 

Orthography. — 1, The object and utility of orthography ; 2, general rules 
of German orthography ; 3, the use of capital letters ; 4, the regular use of 
isolated letters ; 5, the division, composition, and abbreviation of words. 
These rules are alternately put in practice in the dictations. The director, 
with the assistance of the masters, examines in each department every three 
months. Instrumental music, on the violin, piano-forte, and organ, is taught 
by Mr. Richter and Mr. Rudisch, with the assistance of two pupils. 

6. SCHOOL FOR PRACTICE. 

It is difficult, in a written description, to convey a just idea of a school, or 
of any large establishment for instruction. Nevertheless, I will endeavor to 
give a brief sketch of this institution, and of the manner in which the pupils 
are there occupied. The regulations fij from one to three in the afternoon 
for the lessons of practice. The children of the school for practice are di- 

• Mr. Rudisch. 

t t, «. The Italian handwriting, as distinguished from the current German hand. — Tra.nsi.. 



PRIMARY NORMAL SCHOOL AT BRUHL. 217 

vided into eight classes, and one of the pupils from the normal school pre- 
sides over each of these divisions alternately, so that twenty-four are occu- 
pied from one to two, and twenty-four from two to three; and while the 
first twenty-four are teaching-, the others listen, that they may be ready at 
any moment to take it up and continue the lesson. Tiiis can be done only 
where a fixed and complete mode of instruction is laid down. 

The branches taught by the pupils are grammar, reading, composition, 
writing, drawing, arithmetic, mental exercises, singing, religion. Language 
is taught partly after Krause, and partly on the plan of the inspector, Mr. 
Wagner. Reading is closely connected with writing, according to the 
method of the inspector. The pupils of the higher classes have subjects of 
familiar compositions given them ; at the same time, tliey are made to learn 
by heart short letters, narrations and descriptions, because this is deemed 
the best method of fixmiliarizing children with the language, and enabling 
them to express themselves with ease in writing. When they have learned 
a piece by heart, they endeavor to write it without a fiiult, and with the 
proper punctuation ; the comparison with the original and the correction are 
left to themselves, that the thing may be more deeply impressed upon their 
mind. Arithmetic is taught on the system of Schumacher and Jos. Schmid. 
In the lower classes great care is taken that the numbers are always correct, 
in order to avoid the inefficient and too artificiMl mental arithmetic of Pesta- 
lozzi, and to make arithmetic itself an exercise of language. Singing is 
taught by the two forwardest pupils of the school, who give two lessons in 
the morning, and drawing by the two most skillful draughtsmen. For exer- 
cises in hinguage and mental activity, use is occasionally made of Krause's 
Exercises for the Mind, and Pestalozzi's Mother^s Book. On religion the 
pupils give but one lesson a week, under the particular guidance of the di- 
rector. The specifil superintendence of this school is confided to the inspect- 
or, Mr. Wagner, who, besides a daily visit during the lessons, subjects them 
to a slight examination every week, to keep up a persevering activity in the 
young men, and to know exactly what progress is made. The satisfaction 
of the parents at the pupils' mode of teaching is proved by the regular at- 
tendance at the school. I am well satisfied with the practical ability hith- 
erto sho'wn by the pupils. 

7 MASTERS OF THE ESTABLISHMENT. 

Two masters, besi.ies the director, were last year annexed to the estab- 
lishment — the inspector, Mr. Wagner, and Mr. Richter. The assistant mas- 
ter, Mr. Rudisch, was added at the beginning of this year. These masters 
give their entire and undivided attention to the school ; yet they are not suf- 
ficient for this great establishment ; two pupils and the organist of the town 
assist in the department of instrumental music. 

Although the general superintendence rests upon the director, yet, to re- 
lieve him, one of the masters in rotation has hitherto conducted the special 
inspection each week. But I see every day more clearly, that the whole 
inspection ought to devolve upon the director alone ; — in a well-regulated 
house there should be but one head. The other masters also recognize this 
principle ; and in the end the director will have the whole superintendence, 
and, in case ofuieed, will transfer it to the inspector. But as the director 
and the inspector cannot be always with the pupils, and as it is nevertheless 
necessary that there should be some fixed person to refer to when disturb- 
ances or complaints occur, the established custom will be continued of ap- 
pointing the student wh" is deemed the best fitted as superintendent of 
liis fellow-students. Tb \ plan may, besides, have a very useful effect in 
the education both of th» young superintendent and of his school-fellows. 



218 



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SEMINARY FOR TEACHERS* 

AT WEISSENFELS, 



IN PRUSSIA. 



This seminary, for the education of teachers for the elementary schools, 
is one of four belonging to the province of Saxony,f and was last organized 
in 1822. It combines within its premises, or in the neighborhood, so as to 
be subject to the control of the same director, the following establishments : 

1. The normal school, or seminary for teachers, a government institution, 

2. A preparatory school, subsidiary to the former, and established by the 
enterprise of its teachers. 3. A seminary school, or burgher school, of four 
hundred pupils, already described. 4. An elementary school for poor chil- 
dren, of two hundred pupils. 5. A school for the deaf and dumb, of twenty- 
five pupils, established in 1828, and supported by the government. The last 
three mentioned schools afford practice to the students of the seminary. 

The government of these establishments is confided to a director,! who is 
responsible immediately to the provincial school-board in IMagdeburg. He 
has the personal charge of the seminary in which he gives instruction, and of 
which he superintends the domestic economy, discipline, and police. He is 
assisted in the seminary by three teachers, who meet him once a week in 
conference, to discuss the progress and conduct of the pupils, the plans of 
instruction, and other matters relating to the school. There are also seven 
assistant teachers, five for the seminary school, and two for the deaf and 
dumb institution, who also assist in the seminary itself. Once a month 
there is a general meeting of the teachers of all the schools just enumerated, 
for similar purposes. 

Applicants for admission are required to produce certificates of baptism, 
of moral conduct, and of health, J besides an engagement on the part of their 
parents or guardians to pay an annual sum of fifty thalers (thirty-seven dol- 
lars) for maintenance. These papers must be forwarded to the director a 
fortnight before the day of examination. The candidates are examined at a 
stated time of the year (after Easter), in presence of all the teachers of the 
school, and their attainments must prove satisfixctory in Bible and church 
history, the Lutheran Catechism, reading, writing, German grammar, espe- 
cially the orthography of the language, the ground-rules of arithmetic (mental 
and written), geography and history, and natural history and philosophy, of 
the grade of the highest class of a burgher school. They must also be able 
to play, at sight, easy pieces of music upon the violin. The usual age of 
admission is eighteen ; and the lowest at which they are admissible, seven- 
teen. On entrance, they are entitled to free lodging and instruction, and, if 
their conduct and progress are satisfactory, in general, receive a yearly allow- 
ance of twenty-five dollars, which is equivalent, nearly, to the cost of their 
maintenance. Tlieir clothing and school-books are provided by the pupils. 
The modes of preparation judged most appropriate by the authorities of the 
seminary are, the attendance on a burgher school, with private lessons from 
a competent teacher, or entrance into the preparatory establishment at Weis- 
senfels. A gymnasium is considered by no means a proper place for the 

* From Bache's Education in Europe. 

t At Magdeburg, Halberstadt, Krfuit, and Weissenfels. 

i The Rev. Dr. Hiiniisch, to whom I am indebted for a kind welcome to his institution, and a 
MS. account of its different schools. 

J Tlie directions issued by the provincial authorities are, that they shall have a strong chest 
and sound lungs, not to be too near-sighted, nor deaf, nor iotirm. The physician's certiticalo must 
state whether they have had the measles, &c. 



220 



SEMINARY FOR TEACHERS AT WEISSENFELS. 



preparation of pupils, itn courses, discipline, and mode of life having a dif- 
ferent tendency from that required by the future teacher of a common 
school. 

The admission of new pupils takes place with some ceremony, in^resence 
of the teachers and pupils. The director gives a charge, in which he makes 
them acquainted with the rules of the school, chiefly those relating to moral 
conduct, to obedience to the authorities, punctuality, regular attendance at 
study, school, church, and, in general, on the appointed exercises, due exer- 
tion, neatness in their habits, and exactness in the payment of dues to the 
tradesmen with whom they may deal. They bind themselves to serve for 
three years after leaving the school, in whatever situation may be assigned 
them by the regency of Merseburg, or to pay the cost of their education and 
maintenance. During their stay at the seminary, they are exempted from 
military service, except for six weeks. In fiict, this service usually takes 
place at leaving the school, and before entering upon their new career. The 
number of pupils, on the average, is sixty. 

The courses of instruction are, morals and religion, German, arithmetic 
and geometry, cosmology, pedagogy, terraculture, hygiene, theory and prac- 
tice of music, drawing, and writing. Cosmology is a comprehensive term 
for geography, an outline of history and biography, the elements of natural 
history and natural philosophy, all that relates to the world (earth) and its 
inhabitants. Pedagogy includes both the science and art of teaching. The 
courses just enumerated are divided among the masters, according to the 
supposed ability of each in the particular branches, the whole instruction 
being given by the four teachers. The director, as is customary in these 
schools, takes the religious instruction, and the science and art of teaching, 
as his especial province, and adds lectures on the theory of farming and gar- 
dening (terraculture), and of health. 

The duration of the course of studies has been reduced from three years 
to two, on account, as is alleged, of the necessity for a more abundant sup- 
ply of teachers. There are, probably, other reasons, such as the expense, 
and the fear of over-educating the pupils for their station, which have been 
influential in bringing about this reduction. There are two classes corre- 
sponding to the two years of study. The first year is devoted entirely to re- 
ceiving instruction; and in the second, practice in teaching is combined with- 
it. In the preparatory school there is likewise a course of two years, and 
the pupils are divided into two classes. This establishment is in a building 
near the seminary, which can accommodate forty pupils, and is under the 
special charge of one of the teachers.* 

The outline of the studies in the two schools is as follows : 

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 
PREPAEATORY SCHOOL. 

II Class. Bible stories, which the pupils must be able to narrate with propriety. 
Cliristian doctriue. Portions of Scripture committed to memory. Four hours 
weekly. 

I Class. Eeading the Bible, especially the historical parts. Krummacher's Bible 
Catecliism. Christian doctrine. Parables of the New Testament. Seven hours. 

In the lectures on Christian doctrine, which the two classes of the normal 
school attend together, the director gives a portion of Scripture to be com- 
mitted to memory, explains and illustrates it, and interrogates the pupils, 
who take notes of the lecture, which they subsequently write out. 

NORMAL SCHOOL. 

II Class. Eeading tlie Bible, particularly tlie Mstoriciil parts ; writing catechet- 
ical exercises, adapted to children. Two hours. 

* The payments made by the pupils are, per aunimi, for instruction, nine dollars ; for dinner, 
bread not included, tliirtcen dollars and fifty cents; lodginsr, three dollars; waiting and nuraiugia 
time of sickness, one dollar and bevenly-Uve cents ; use of library, fifty cents. 



SEMINARY FOR TEACHERS AT WEISSENFELS. 221 

I Class. Continuation of the second class course. Two hours. 

I and II Class. Christian doctrine, -from Luther's Catechism. Three hours. 
History of the different dispensations. Two hours. A coui'se of two years. 

The course of church history is taught, also, by the mixed method of lec- 
tui-e and interrogation, to both classes united. 

GERMAN LANGUAGE. 
PEEPABATORY SCHOOL. 

II Class. Exercises of speech in reading and delivery. Descriptions and essays 
on subjects drawn from common life. Grammar. "Writing, as an exercise in cal- 
ligraphy and orthography. Nine hours. 

I Class. Eeading, with explanations. Composition. Grammar revised. Writ- 
ing, as in the second class. Nine hours. 

NORMAl SCHOOL. 

II Class. Eeading, with explanations. Writing, as an exercise of calligraphy and 
orthography. Exercises of style. A compoMtion once every month. Essays from 
history, geography, or natural history. Granmiar revised. Eight hours. 

I Class. Poetrv, with readings. Calligraphy. Exercises of style. Grammar re- 
vised. National literature. Seven hours. 

The first and second classes are united for a portion of instruction in this depart- 
ment, intended to rid them of provincialisms oi speech, and to improve their hand- 
writing. Three hours. 

MATHEMATICS. 
PREPARATORY SCHOOL. 

II Class. Arithmetic, including the Eule of Three. Three hours. 

I Class. Arithmetic, revised and extendedf Use of compass and ruler. Four 
hours. 

NORMAL SCHOOL. 

II Class. Geometry^ commenced. Four hours. 

I Class. Eevision ot previous studies. Geometry, continued. Two hours. 

The method of teaching mathematics is that of Pestalozzi ; and director 
Harnisch has himself prepared a work on geometry for his pupils. The ap- 
plications are made to follow the principles closely. As in the other course.s, 
the greater part of the learning is done in the school-room, the books being 
used rather for reference than for preparation. In the lessons which I at- 
tended in this department, much skill was displayed by the instructors, and 
a very considerable degree of intelligence by the pupils. Considering it as 
the means of developing the reasoning powers, this method is very far supe 
rior to that in which the propositions are learned from books. To exem- 
plify the method of Dr. Harnisch, I may state the following case of a recita- 
tion in geometry by the second class. The equality of two triangles, when 
the two sides and the angle contained between them in one are equal re- 
spectively to the two sides and the contained angle in the other, had been 
shown by the teacher, and the demonstration repeated by the pupils, who 
were interrogated closely upon it. An application of the theorem was at 
once required, to determining the distance between two points, one of which 
is inaccessible. Two of the class found the solution immediately, and all 
were able to take part in the subsequent discussion of the problem. 

COSMOLOGY (WELTKUNDE). 
PREPARATORY SCHOOL. 

II Class. Elements of botany and zoology. Excursions for practical instruction 
in the former. Four hours. 

I Class. Geography and the drawing of maps. Elements of physics and tech- 
nology. Biography. Three hours. 

NORMAL SCHOOL. 

II Class. Eevision of the above studies. Three liours. 

I and II Classes united. General views of the earth and its productions and in- 
habitants. One hour weekly for one year. Gardening and hygiene (Gesundheita- 
tunde). Two hours weekly for two years. 



222 SEMINARY FOR TEACHERS AT WEISSENFELS. 

The lectures in the normal school on these subjects are by the director. 
The means of illustration in physics are small, and the whole course is 
chiefly intended to show the future teachers how wide a range of knowledge 
may be opened to them by study. The natural history is illustrated, for the 
most part, by drawings. To render the seminarists more useful in their 
situation of country schoolmasters, which a large proportion of the pupils 
become^ they have lectures on the principles of agriculture and gardening, 
and also practical lessons from the gardener, who has charge of the grounds. 
The pupils work during the appropriate season every day in turn, under the 
direction of the gardener. Good manuals, conveying correct but elementary 
instruction on these matters, are much wanted. They should, perhaps, be 
prepared by a teacher, but by no means allowed to go into use without re- 
vision by persons specially acquainted with the different branches of science 
thus grouped together. This revision would insure the accuracy which, 
though difficult to attain, is so necessary ; the more so in conveying such 
elements, as there is no collateral knowledge to correct or modify error as to 
fact or theory. 

SCIENCE AND ART OF TEACHING. 
PREPAEATOEY SCHOOL. 

The first class receive simple directions for keeping school, and lessons on teach- 
ing. They attend in turn the classes of the seminary. schools two hours weekly, hut 
take no part in teaching. , 

NOKMAl SCHOOL. 

n Class. Lessons on teaching, three hours. Visits to the schools, three hours. 

I Class. Lessons on the art of teaching, three hours. Visits to the schools, five 
hours. Lessons on the instruction of tlie deaf and dumb, by the dh-ector of that 
department, one hour. 

1 and II Classes united. Science of teaching, two houi's. 

The director delivers the course on the science of teaching, which in these 
schools is considered of the highest importance, and also gives a portion of 
the lessons in the art of teaching to the first class. 

The theoretical instruction in the science and art of teaching embraces 
two courses, each of a year ; the first being devoted chiefly to education in 
general, the second to instruction and the' arrangements of the school.* The 
director remarks of this course, that the pupils learn by it to say a good deal 
upon these subjects, and sometimes believe that they can easily execute 
what they can so readily describe ; an opinion of which practice can alone 
show the error, and which it is essential should be removed. The general 
theory of education is founded upon the constitution of man, and, under the 
head of instruction, the methods of teaching the various branches are de- 
scribed. The practice which must render this theory of real use is had in 
part in the schools. The pupils attend the free school, the burgher school, 
and the deaf and dumb school, at stated times. They go at first as listen- 
ers, next take part in the instruction, under direction of the assistant teach- 
ers, and lastly instruct the classes. In order that they may have models of 
teaching, not only in the assistants, but in the teachers of the seminary 
themsefves, the latter give lessons occasionally in the different schools. 
Thus the director teaches one hour per week in the seminary school, the 
second teacher two hours, and the third and fourth teachers four hours. 
The lower class attend the several classes of the burgher school, except the 
highest girls' class, remaining, in general, one-fifth of the time in each class 
except the lowest, where they remain double this time, and visiting each 

• Harnisch's Manual of Common School Matters (Handbuch des Volks-schulwesens) is used as 
« text-book. 

A more common division of the coui-se is into pedagogics, or the principles of education and 
instruction. Methodics, or the art of leaching the system or methods of education, to which a 
third division is sometimes added, called didactics, which relates to the subjects of educatioUi 
(Scbwarz Erzichung uad Unteftichts lebre). 



SEMINARY FOR TEACHERS AT WEISSENFELS. 223 

class twice at intervals. The upper class attend also the girls' class, the 
deaf and dumb school, and the free school, remaining one-eighth of their 
time in each of the classes. Each member of the lower class keeps a jour- 
nal of his visits to the schools, which is inspected by the second teacher. 
Each of the first class draws up a report of his occupation and observations 
in the schools, which is reviewed by the assistant teacher of the class to 
which it refers, and is then examined by the second teacher and by the di- 
rector. The several assistant teachers make reports upon the qualifications 
of the seminarists who have given instruction in their classes. By these ar- 
rangements, a pupil who has the mental qualities essential to a teacher can- 
not fail to become well versed in the practice of liis profession. Habits of 
observation are inculcated, which must be of great service to him in his prac- 
tice, enabling him to adapt iiimself to the circumstances in which he is 
placed, and to profit by the experience of every day. 

To exemplify the principles and methods, a small number of the children 
from the seminary school are brought into the class-room of the seminary, 
and are examined upon a given subject b}' some of the pupils. The class 
present and the director make their notes on these examinations, and the 
exercise terminates by an examination of the children by the director him- 
self, as an exerapliticatioo of his views, and that they may not receive injury 
from being left in a half or ill-informed state on the subjects of the lesson. 
The children having retired, the different members of the class make their 
criticisms, which are accepted or shown to be erroneous by the director, a 
conference or discussion being kept up until the subject is exhausted. The 
character of each exercise is marked by the director, who is thus enabled to 
judge of the progress made by every member of the class, and to encourage 
or admonish privately, according to circumstances. 

The lectures given by the head master of the school for the deaf and dumb 
are also accompanied by practice, a certain number of pupils being detained 
every day for that purpose. The basis of the method is the idea that it is 
possible to restore the deaf mute to society, by enabling him to understand 
spoken language from the motion of the lips, and to speak intelligibly by 
mechanical rules. It is hoped ultimately, by training every schoolmaster in 
this method, that the mute may be instructed in schools with other children, 
and thus not be required to sunder ties of kindred during a long absence 
from home. The pupils of the deaf and dumb institution do not live in the 
establishment, but are boarded with tradesmen of the town of Weissenfels. 
The object is to induce the practice of the lessons out of school, the pupils 
being enjoined to avoid the use of signs. The first lesson is one in articula- 
tion. The principle of this instruction is now dominant in Germany, but up 
to this time the system has not been fairly tried by its results. The indomi- 
table perseverance of the masters of the principal schools which I visited 
struck me with admiration ; but I was not convinced that what they aimed 
at was practicable, at least to the extent which their principle asserts. The 
attempt deserves, however, the best encouragement. 

DRAWING. 
PREPARATORY SCHOOL. 

The two classes united for geometrical and perspective drawing, 

NOKMAL SCHOOL, , 

The same course continued. 

MUSIC. 
PEEPARATORT SCHOOL. 

The two classes united for instruction in the elements of music. Choral singing. 
Instruction is given on the piano and organ to the pupils, divided into four sec- 
tions. They are also taught the violin. 

NORMAL SCHOOL. 

The instruction, as just stated, is continued. Theory of music. Composition. 



224 SEMINARY FOR TEACHERS AT WEISSENFELS. 

The violin is taught, as the means of leading the exercises in singing in 
the elementary schools. The piano serves as an introduction to the organ, 
a knowledge of which is important to the Prussian schoolmaster, as enabling 
him to act as organist in the church of the parish where his school may be 
situated. So high a value is placed upon an elementary knowledge in vocal 
music, that an ability to give instruction in it is indispensable to admission 
into the class ot^ teachers. It is not, therefore, surprising that the pupils of 
the seminaries, in general, are proficients in music. I confess, however, that 
I was not prepared for the advance in the theory and practice to which many 
of the first class in this school had attained. In regard to the former, I was 
present at one of the exercises in composition, in which the teacher* read, 
and the pupils transcribed, three stanzas of poetry. This done, they were 
required to compose an air adapted to the words. In less than ten minutes^ 
a fifth of the class were ready. The teacher took his station at a black- 
board, on which the ledger lines were drawn, ^d one of the pupils whom he 
designated began to sing the words to the air which he had composed, the 
teacher writing the music meanwhile. This air was pronounced not to be 
original. A second was tried, which the teacher thought an imitation. A 
third and fourth he accepted, and wrote upon the board. They were criti- 
cised by both the class and teacher, set to parts by the former, and sung. 
Tlie two classes were in the next hour united for choral singing, in which 
many are proficient, the teacher leading at the organ. 

The course of drawing is limited in extent, the object being chiefly to give 
opportunities to those pupils who have a taste for drawing to cultivate it. 
In fact, as it tends to divert attention from more important matters, which 
the short time spent at the seminary requires entire devotion to, it is not 
much encouraged. 

The four teachers attached to the normal school have charge of specific 
departments of labor, as well as of particular implements of instruction. 
The director has the general superintendence of the instruction, discipline, 
household arrangements, and finance, and is librarian of their small collec- 
tion. The second teacher has charge of one of the schools, of the musical 
exercises, books, and instruments ; a third, of the students when assembled, 
especially in the school-house, and of the drawings, copy-slips for writing, 
and maps. The fourth superintends the pupils while in the dwelling-house, 
and also at meals. These teachers are aided in their duties by younger ones 
attached to the seminary, under the title of assistant teachers. The dining- 
hall, or the recitation-rooms, serve as places of study, according as the pupils 
are in the school-house or in the dwelling, the two buildings being separated 
by a portion of the grounds. The chapel, which is a neat room connected 
with the school-house, serves for the music-room, as well as for the religious 
• exercises. 

The order of the day in the normal school will serve to show how con- 
stantly these young men are employed in preparing for the duties of their 
arduous profession, and yet they appeared to me always cheerful in the per- 
formance of then- self-imposed task. In winter, the pupils rise at five, and, 
after washing and dressing, have a brief religious exercise, and study until 
breakfast, which is at seven o'clock. Until eight there is recreation. From 
eight until twelve they are in school, engaged in recitation, listening to lec- 
tures, or teaching. From twelve until one they have dinner and recreation. 
From one until five they are again in school. From five until seven or half 
past seven, in summer, there is recreation, or excursions are made with a 
teacher, and then study until nine. In winter, there is recreation until sLx, from 
six to eight study, and from eight to nine musical exercises, one-third playing 
on the violin, another on the organ or piano, and another singing. At half 
past nine in winter, and ten in summer, the pupils retire. There are prayerg 

• Mr, Henscbel. 



SEMINARy FOR TEACUEUS AT WEIr SKNTELS. 225 

morning and evening. On Wednesday and Saturday they have half of the 
day for recreation, and in summer make excursions to collect plants or min- 
erals. A place for gymnastic exercises is provided, and used during the 
hours of recreation. 

The moral education of these young men is closely attended to. They 
not only receive direct religious instruction, but the best examples are con- 
stantly before them. The chief reward for proficiency or good conduct is 
the approbation of the teachers; the principal punishment, short of dismis- 
sion, their disapprobation. The director has, also, the influence, resulting 
from his power, to give pecuniary assistance to the meritorious while in the 
school, and to secure them good places at leaving it. The greatest harmony 
reigns throughout the establishment. On the evenings of Saturday, there 
are frequently parties in turn among the teachers, to which the pupils are in- 
vited, and where there is usually music. Those who have acquaintances in 
the town are encouraged to visit their families, but the places of visitmg 
must be known to the director. 

Physical education is most essential where young men, at the time of life 
of these seminarists, are sedulously engaged in intellectual pursuits, and 
necessarily so much confined to the house. They, therefore, have gymnas- 
tic exercises or work in the fields or garden, or walk during those periods 
of the day and parts of the week allowed for recreation. Care is taken that, 
unless indisposed, they do not remain in the house at those times, when the 
weather permits them to be in the open air. There is an infirmary for the 
sick, in which one of the pupils in turn acts as nurse, and a physician is 
called in when necessary. 

The school year is divided into three terms, the first from the beginning of 
June until August, the second from September to Christmas, and the third 
from January to May. The holidays are four weeks in August, two at 
Christmas, and one at Easter. During the first two named, the pupils go 
home to their friends. Christmas is celebrated in the school, and at the 
close of the first and second terms there are jirivate examinations, the results 
of which are communicated to the students. At the close of the third term, 
the examination for passing from the second to the first class is held, and 
none are promoted from one class to another unless fully proficient in the 
courses of the past year. At the end of the second year, they are examined 
upon the whole range of study, and in composition and orthography. Those 
who pass satisftictorily receive a diploma, and find no difficulty in obtaining 
employment as teachers. Some of the most promising are frequently re- 
tained in the schools of the institution as assistant teachers, under the ap- 
pointment of the director. The additional experience thus gained is of im- 
portance in a professional, and ultimately in a pecuniary point of view. 

Every pupil, on leaving the school with a diploma, makes a drawing, or 
copies a piece of music or of writing, which he leaves as a memento. 

The pupils of all the normal schools are bound by law to serve in such 
situations as may be assigned to them for three years, or to pay certain sums 
in lieu of this service. 

The domestic economy is superintended by the director, who has a house- 
keeper under his orders. Dinner is provided at a common table, but each 
person furnishes himself with breakt^ist and supper. The diet is of the 
plainest kind, but there is meat for dinner every day in the week except 
two.* The police of the establishment is attended to by the pupils them- 
selves. The members of the second class, in turn, have charge of the police 
of the school-rooms, dormitories, of the lamps, of ringing the bell, &c. ; or 
these duties are executed by those who have fallen under censure. The 
first class superintend the fires and out-of-door work, have charge of the 

* The dinner costs seven dollars and fifty cents per annum, or about two cents and a 
half per day. If a pupil receives no stipend from the institution, he is charged but half this 
8um. 

15 



226 SEMINARY FOR TEACHERS AT WEISSENFELS. 

cellar, store-room, lavatory, «fcc. There are three dormitories, under the general 
superintendence of one of the teachers, aided by pupils selected for the purpose. 
The bed and bedding are furnished by the pupils at entrance. The lodging of 
these youths is, like thoir fare and clothing, of the plainest sort — a plainness 
which puts in strong relief the richness of the moral and intellectual culture 
afforded by the institution.* 

The following additional particulars respecting this celebrated semi- 
nary, are gathered -from a full description by Mr. Kay, in his " Social 
Condition and Education of the People of Europe." Mr. Kay's visit 
to the institution was made in 1846. He gives prominence to some fea- 
tures briefly alluded to by Dr. Bache. 

All candidates for admission present themselves at the institution, at the 
annual candidates' examinations, which are conducted by the director and pro- 
fessors, in the presence of the educational magistrate for the county. The most 
able aud forward of the candidates are then, after a careful examination, elected 
and admitted. There are generally, in each of the Prussian provinces, some 
special regulations, limiting this choice of students for the normal colleges. Thus, 
the regulations of the province, in which the normal college of Weissenfels is 
situated, prescribe, that " no short-sighted, deaf, or feeble candidates shall be 
admitted." The same regulations also direct the examiners to give a preference 
to those candidates who have a broad chest and a good voice. They also forbid 
any young man being admitted before he has completed his seventeenth year, 
or, " unless he is a young man of a good character, moral habits, and imimpeach- 
able conduct." 

A part of the young students educated in the Weissenfels institution are pre- 
pared for admission in a preparatory normal college, situated not far from the 
principal establishment. This preparatory institution contains about sixtj' boys, 
most of whom are destined for reception into the principal college. Some of 
them, however, make such satisfactory progress in their studies during their resi- 
dence in the preparatory institution, as to be able to present themselves at the 
annual examination for diplomas, without going through the normal college at 
all. The course of study at this preparatory school is of two years' duration. 
Tlie boys, who are destined to be teachers, and whose parents can afford to pay 
for their education, enter it about the end of their fifteenth year, after leaving the 
primary parochial schools. There are two classes in this school. The first class 
is intended for the boys during their first year's residence in the establishment, 
the second contains all those who have spent more than one year in the estab- 
lishment. 

The subjects of instruction iu the first class of this preparatory school are: 
religious instruction, Scripture history ; composition ; a clear pronunciation in 
reading and speaking 5 arithmetic, wTiting, the German language ; agriculture 
and farming ; drawing ; singing, the violin, and piano-forte. 

The subjects of instruction in the second class are : religious instruction. Scrip- 
ture history. Scriptural interpretation ; the German language ; writing, arithme- 
tic, geometry, natural philosophy, geography, history, drawing ; choral singing, 
the violin, the piano-forte ; and exercises in teaching. 

It often happened, that many young men who had presented themselves at 
these entrance examinations have been rejected, as not having made sufficient 
progress in their studies, even when there still remained several unoccupied 
vacancies in the establishment, which the director was desirous of filling up. But 
the maxim in Prussia is, "that it is better to have no teacher, than to have an 
incapable or an immoral one. 

As soon as a candidate has been admitted into the "Weissenfels College, he is 
required, with the approbation of his parent, or guardiau, to bind himself by 
WTiting. 

' Tlie yearly cost, of this institution is but about Iwenty-eight hundred and forty dollars. 
The directof receives a salary of six hundred dollars, which enables him to live very com- 
fortably, and to maintain his proper station, on a par with the burgher authorities, the cler- 
gyman, district judge, &c. 



SEMINARY FOR TEACHERS AT \VEISSENFELS. 227 

1st. During the first three years after leaving the normal college, to accept 
any situation in the county in which the college is situated, to which he should 
be presented by the county magistrates ; and during these three years, to avoid 
all engagements which would prevent him fulfilling this condition.. 

2d. If he should not, during the first three jears, aecept any situation which 
the county magistrates offer him as soon as it is offered, to repay to the college 
all the outlay which was made by the institution, while he remained there, upon 
his maintenance and education. 

The Prussian government has, however, enacted, that as long as any candi- 
date, who has been educated at one of the normal colleges of a county, is unpro- 
vided with a situation, neither the county magistrates nor any parochial commit- 
tee, nor any patron of a private school, shall elect any other person as a teaclier, 
even although such person shall have obtained a diploma certifying his fitness to 
be a teacher. 

The above-mentioned regulations are intended to prevent unprincipled men 
making use of the gratuitous education of the college, merely for their own 
advancement in life, without any intention of ever acting as teachers in the paro- 
chial schools of the county ; to prevent the young men commencing to teach, 
before they have satisfied the magistrates of their fitness and capability ; and to 
oblige the young and unpraeticed teachers to begin their labors in the worse paid 
and poorer situations, from which they are afterward advanced to the more im- 
portant and lucrative posts, if they prove themselves deserving of such advance- 
ment. Were it not for the former of these two regulations, the poorer situations 
would never be filled, while the worse paid teachers would seldom liave any 
hopes of any advancement; and were it not for the latter, unprincipled men 
would be able to avail themselves of the gi-atuitous education of the college in 
order to prepare for more lucrative situations than those which the teachers gener- 
ally occupy during the first thi-ee years after obtaining their diplomas. 

At the time of my visit the students paid nothing for their lodgings or dinners ; 
but they provided their own bread and milk for breakfasts and suppers, and for 
dinner, if they wished to eat bread with their meat. I inquired, if they could 
have what they liked for breakfasts and suppers, but the answer was, " No ; we 
only allow milk and bread, as we wish to accustom them to the plainest fare, that 
they may never find the change from the normal college to the village school a 
change for the worse ; but always one for the better." The young men furnished 
themselves with all the necessary class-books ; but their instruction was entirely 
gratuitous ; and, I believe, that the sum total, which a young student had to pay 
annually, exclusive of the cost of bread and milk for breakfasts and suppers, and 
of his clothes, did not exceed three pounds, so that there was nothing to hinder 
young men, of the humblest ranks of society, entering the college, and being 
educated there for the teachers' profession. 

All the household duties (except preparing meals, making fires, and cleaning 
the house) were performed in turn by the young students themselves. Each 
young man had his appointed days, when he was expected to ring the bell for the 
different lectures and meals, to bring the letters from the post, to attend the sick, 
to carry the director's dinner to his room, to light the lamps, &c., &c. By the 
performance of these humble duties, and by their labor in the gardens, where 
they cultivate the vegetables for the use of the household, they learn to combine 
simplicity and humility with high mental attainments ; and are taught to sympa- 
thize with the peasant class, with whom they are afterward called upon to min- 
gle, and to whom, it is the principal dutj' of their lives, to render them good 
counsellors, instructors, and friends. 

In summer, the first and second class of the students, attended each by a pro- 
fessor, make long walks into the country to botanize, for botany is studied care- 
fully by all the teachers in Prussia, as they are required to teach at least the 
elements of this science to the children in the country parishes, in order to give 
them a greater interest in the cultivation of plants, and to open their eyes to some 
of those wonders of creation, by which they are more immediately surrounded. 

A great deal of time is devoted to the musical part of the education of Prus- 
sian teachers, and the proficiency attained is perfectly astonishing. I was present 
at an exercise in musical composition in the Weissenfels College. It was the 



228 SEMINARY FOR TEACHERS AT WEISSENFELS. 

eecond class that was examined, so that I did not see what the most proficient 
students were capable of performing. The musical professor wrote upon a black- 
board a couplet from an old German song, which he requested the students to 
Bet to music. In ten minutes this was done, and though every composition was 
not equally good, yet, out of a class of twenty, I have six different pieces of 
music, the compositions of six of the students, which deserve no little praise for 
their harmony and beauty. The director afterward assembled all the professors 
and students of the college, in the hall, that I might hear them sing some of their 
national songs together. The performance was most admirable ; the expression, 
time, and precision, with which they managed the great body of sound, which 
they created, was quite wonderful. My readers must remember, that every Ger- 
man child commences to learn singing as soon as it enters a school, or, in other 
words, when it is five or six years of age ; that the young students continue the 
practice of singing and chanting from six years of age, until the time when 
they enter the normal colleges ; and that during their residence there they daily 
practice the most difficult musical exercises, besides learning three musical instru- 
ments. It is not, therefore, surprising that they attain very remarkable profic- 
iency. I have mentioned several times that every teacher in the normal colleges 
in Prussia (and the same is the case throughout Germany) is obliged to learn the 
violin and the organ. They are required to know how to play the violin, in order 
with it to lead the singing of the children in the parochial schools, as the Ger- 
mans think the children can not be taught properly how to modulate their voices, 
without the aid of a musical instrument. They are required to learn the organ 
for a reason vv'hich I will now explain. 

The German teachers, as I have before shown, have almost always some duties 
to perform, in connection with their respective places of religious worship. If the 
teacher is a Romanist, he is expected to attend upon the priests, to play the 
organ, and to lead the chanting and singing. If he is a Protestant, he has to 
give out the hymns, to play the organ, to lead the chanting and singing, and if 
the clergyman should be prevented officiating by illness, or any other cause, the 
teacher is expected to read the prayers, and in some cases also to read a sermon. 
This connection of the teachers and of the religious ministers is very important, 
as it raises the teachers' profession in the eyes of the poor, and creates a union 
and a sympathy between the clergy and the schoolmasters. 

In order, therefore, to fit the teachers for these parochial duties, it becomes 
necessary for them to pay a double attention to their musical education, and par- 
ticularly to render themselves proficient upon the organ. 

Hence a traveler will find, in each of the German teachers' colleges, two or 
three organs, and three, four, and sometimes six piano-fortes, for they commence 
with practicing on this latter instrument, and afterward proceed to practice on 
the organ. 

They had two organs in the Weissenfels Institution ; one in the great lecture 
hall, and another in one of the largest of their lecture rooms. 

As I have already mentioned, time-tables were hung up in different parts of 
the establishment, showing how the different hours of the day are to be employed. 
Before visiting any of the classes, the director took me to one of these tables, and 
said, " You will see from that table, how all the classes are employed at the pre- 
sent moment, so you can choose which you will visit." In this manner, I chose 
several classes one after the other, by referring to the table ; and I invariably 
found them pursuing their allotted work with dilligence, order, and quiet. 

The education of the young students, during their three years' residence in the 
training college, is, as I have said, gratuitous. The young men are only required 
to pay part of the expenses of the board. Even this small expenditure is, in 
many cases, defrayed for them, so as to enable the poorest young men to enter 
the teachers' profession ; for the Prussians think, that a teacher of the poor ought 
to be a man, who can thoroughly sympathize with the peasants, and who can 
associate with them as a friend and a brother ; and that no one is so well able to 
do so as he, who has known what it is to be a peasant, and who has personally 
experienced all the wants, troubles and difficulties, as well as all the simple pleas- 
ures of a peasant's life. For these reasons, they have endeavored in many 
ways, to facilitate the admission of peasants into the teachers' profession. They 



SEMINARY FOR TEACHERS AT WEISSEM'ELS. £29 

have founded, in the superior schools, a great number of free places, which are 
reserved expressly for boys of the poorest classes, who are unable to pay any thing 
for continuing their education, beyond the course of the primary schools. These 
places are generally awarded to the most advanced of the poorer scholars, who 
have creditably passed through all the classes of a primary school, and who are 
desirous of pursuing their education still further. This liberal and excellent plan 
enables a young man, however poor, to prepare himself for the admission exam- 
inations of the normal colleges. 

But even if a young peasant is enabled to enter a normal college, there is still 
the expense of maintaining himself there ; and this, unless provided for, would, 
in the case of most peasants, be an effectual bar to his entering the teachers' pro- 
fession. To obviate this difficulty, the Prussians have founded, in each of their 
forty-two normal colleges, a certain number of what are called stipendia. These 
stipendia correspond with the foundations at our public schools. They are en- 
dowed places, intended for poor and deserving young men, who would not, with- 
out them, be able to bear the small expenses of residence in these institutions. 
These foundations or endowments are created, sometimes by charitable individu- 
als, sometimes by municipal corporations, and sometimes by the government, but 
the object of them is always the same, viz.; the assistance of very poor young 
men of promising abilities, who are desirous of entering the teachers' profession, 
but who would not be able to aspire to it without such assistance. There are ten 
of these fomidations in the Weissenfels Institution, varying in amount, and created, 
some by the mimicipal authorities of Weissenfels and other towns in the province, 
and others by private individuals. 

The principal part of their instruction in pedagogy is reserved for their third 
year's residence in the normal college. They then begin to practice teaching at 
regular hoiu's. One or two of the students, who have passed two years in the 
establishment, are sent daily into each of the five classes of the model school, 
each of which classes has a separate class-room assigned to it, where one of the 
five trained teachers of the model school is always engaged in instruction. Under 
the superintendence, and subject to the criticism and advice of these able teach- 
ers, the yoimg students make their first attempts in class teaching. After they 
have attended these classes for some months and have gained a certain profic- 
iency in class management and direction, they are allowed by turns to take the 
direction of the classes of the other school for children, which is attached to the 
institution. Here they are left more at liberty, and are subjected to no other sur- 
veillance than that of the casual visits of the director, or one of the superior pro- 
fessors, who pay occasional visits to the school, to see how the students manage 
their classes, and what progress they make in the art of teaching. They also 
attend, during their third year's residence, regular lectures given by the director 
on pedagogy ; indeed, their principal employment during their last year's resi- 
dence in the college is to gain an intimate acquaintance with both the theory and 
practice of this difficult art. With what success these labors are attended, all 
will bear witness who have had the pleasure of hearing the intelligent and simple 
manner, in which the Prussian teachers convey instruction to the children in the 
parochial schools. There are none of the loud, and illogical discourses, or of the 
vmconnected and meaningless questions, which may be heard in many of our 
schools ; but the teacher's quiet and pleasant manner, the logical sequency of his 
questions, the clearness and simplicity with which he expoimds difficulties, the 
quickness of his eye in detecting a pupil who does not understand him, or who is 
inattentive, and the obedience of the children, never accompanied with any symp- 
tom of fear, show at once, that the Prussian teacher is a man thoroughly ac- 
quainted with his profession, and who knows how to instruct without creating 
disgust, and how to command respect without exciting fear. 

There are three vacations every year in the Weissenfels College ; one in 
August of three weeks, one at Christmas of two weeks, and one at Easter of 
three days' duration. Previous to each vacation, the young men are called to- 
gether, when the director reads aloud a paper, containing the opinions of himself 
and the professors of the abilities, industiy, and character of each student. Each 
young man is then required to write out the judgment, which has been passed 
upon himself. These copies are signed by the director, and are carried home by 



230 



SEMINARY FOR TEACHERS AT WEISSENFELS. 



the young men to be shown to their relatives. The students are required to pre- 
sent these copies to their religious ministers and to their parents, and to obtain 
their signatures, as a proof that they have seen tliem. They are then brought 
back, at the end of the vacation, to the normal college, and are delivered up to 
the director, that he may be satisfied, by the signatures, that their friends and 
religious minister have seen and examined them. It is not necessary to show 
how great a stimulus to exertion these written characters afford. 

The following regulations are a literal translation of some, which are contained 
in a published description of the Weissenfels Institution, which was put into my 
hands by the director. 

" Since the state considers the education of good teachers a matter of such 
great importance, it requires that all young students shall be removed from the 
establishment, concerning whom there is reason to fear that they will no* become 
efficient schoolmasters. The following regulations are therefore made on this 
point : 

" If at the close of the first year's course of study, it is the opinion of all the 
professors of the normal college, that any one of the students does not possess 
sufficient ability, or a proper disposition, for the profession of a teacher, he must 
be dismissed from the establishment. But if only three of the professors are of 
this opinion, and the fourth differs from them, they must inform the provisional 
authorities of their disagreement, and these higher authorities must decide. 
Should the unfitness of any student for the profession of a teacher be evident, 
before the end of his first year's residence in the normal college, the director 
must inform the young man's friends of this fact, in order that they may be ena- 
bled to remove him at once. 

" If any student leaves the institution without permission before the end of his 
three years' course of study, and yet desires to become a teacher, he can not be 
admitted to the examination for diplomas sooner than the young men who entered 
the normal college when he did. 

" In cases of theft, open opposition to the rules and regulations of the establish- 
ment, and, in general, in all eases of offenses which merit expulsion from the col- 
lege, the superior authorities, or provincial committee, must carry such expulsion 
into execution." 

When the young men have completed their three years' course of study in the 
Weissenfels College, they can present themselves for examination for a diploma. 
Until a student has gained a diploma, he can not instruct in any school, or in any 
private family. The knowledge that he has procured one, serves to assure every 
one that he is fitted for the right performance of his duties. If he can show this 
certificate, granted by impartial and learned men, after rigid inquiry into the 
merits of the claimant, every one feels that he is a man to be trusted and to be 
honored. It assures them that he entered the Weissenfels College with a high 
character, that he maintained it while there, and that he has attained that amount 
of knowledge which is required of all elementary school teachers. 

A young man who has not been educated in the Weissenfels College may 
obtain a diploma if he can pass the examination, and can fm-nish the county 
magistrates with the following certificates : 

1st. A certificate of a physician that he is in perfect health, and has a sound 
constitution. 

2d. An account of his past life composed by himself. 

3d. Certificates from the civil magistrate of his native town or village, and 
from the religious minister imder whose care he has grown up, of the blameless 
character of his past life, and of his fitness, in a moral and religious point of view, 
to take a teacher's situation. 

The committee of examiners at the Weissenfels Institution consists of Dr. Zer- 
rener, the educational councillor (schulrath) of the provincial school committee 
under which the normal college is ranged ; of Dr. Weiss, the educational coun- 
cillor (schulrath) of the court of the county in which Weissenfels is situated ; and 
of the director and professors of the normal college. 

The examination is conducted by the professors in the presence of these two 
educational councillors ; and when it is over, the young men receive their diplo- 
mas, marked "1," "2," or "3," according to their merits. Only those who 



SEMINARY FOR TEACHERS AT WEISSENFELS. 231 

obtain the first kind, or those marked "1," are capable of being definitely ap- 
pointed to a school ; those who obtain either of the other kind of diplomas, can 
only take a situation on trial for one or two years ; at the end of which time they 
are obliged to return again to the normal college, and to be re-examined, when 
they again receive diplomas, marked according to their merits, as before. Until 
a young man has obtained a diploma " 1," he can not obtain an independent situ- 
ation, and it sometimes happens that a young man returns three or four times to 
the normal college ere he can obtain a permanent appointment as a teacher. 

The examinations at the Weissenfels College are very strict, and last for two 
days. The young men are examined both viva voce and also by writing in all 
the subjects of instruction in the college and the examinations are rendered all 
the more imposing by the presence of the two representatives of the Minister of 
Public Instruction. Religious instruction, history, (both sacred and profane,) 
music, (both theoretical and practical,) geography, (both topographical and phys- 
ical,) grammar, arithmetic, mental calculation, mathematics, botany, natural his- 
tory, and particularly pedagogy, are the subjects of this searching investigation. 
[f the young candidate passes it creditably, his diploma is signed by the two 
representatives of the Minister, and by the professors of the establishment ; and 
fi'om that time forward he is a member of the profession of teachers. His long 
course of study is then at an end ; the continual examinations to which he had 
been previously subjected are passed. He is, from that moment, the recognized 
servant of his country, which protects him and encourages his efforts. 

But even after a teacher has obtained his diploma marked "1," and after he 
has been appointed to a permanent situation, the directors and professors of the 
college do not lose sight of him. 

If they, or the inspectors of the county court, perceive that a teacher, after 
leaving the college, neglects to continue his education, or that he has forgotten 
any of the knowledge or skill he had acquired when there, they require him to 
return to the college for a few months or weeks, where he is made to attend the 
lectures and to submit to the discipline intended for the regular students. The 
county magistrates are empowered to provide for the support of his family, and 
for the management of his schools, dui'ing the time of his residence in the 
college. I 

The director of the college is directed to make at least one tour of inspection 
every year through the whole of the district, for which his normal college edu- 
cates teachers, at the expense of the county magistrates, for the purpose of 
inspecting the progress and attainments, and of making inquiries about the charac- 
ter of the teacher, who have been educated in his college. 

It is not necessary for me to point out how these different regulations tend to 
raise the character of the teachers' profession in Prussia, and to gain for them 
the estimation and respect of society. As it is laid down in one of the circular 
rescripts of the Prussian government, " the chief end of calling the teachers back 
to the normal colleges at intervals, is to increase the earnestness, zeal, and enthu- 
siasm of the teachers in their duties ; to regulate and perfect the character of the 
teaching in the village schools ; to produce more and more conformity and 
agreement in the methods of instruction used in the schools ; to make the teach- 
ers look upon the normal college as their common home, and the place to which 
they may all apply for advice, assistance, and encouragement ; to make the pro- 
fessors of the college better acquainted with those parts of the education of teach- 
ers which particularly require their attention, and which are necessary to form 
efficient village school teachers ; to inspire the professors of the normal college 
with a constant zeal in the improvement of the district in which their college is 
situated ; and to impress upon the young students of the normal college, from 
their first entrance into it, a full sense of the importance of the work in which 
they are about to engage." Every one knows that any person, who is officiating 
as teacher, must necessarily be a learned and moral man.' Every one knows that 
he has passed through a long course of education in religious and secular instruc- 
tion, continuing from his sixth to his twentieth year ; that he has passed two or 
three different severe examinations with honor ; that he is well versed in Scrip- 
ture history, in the leading doctrines of his religion, in the history of Germany, 
in the outlines of universal history, in geography, and in arithmetic ; that he is a 



232 SEMINARY FOR TEACHERS AT WEISSENFELS. 

good singer and chanter ; that he can play the organ, piano-forte, and violin ; that 
he is acquainted with the elements of the physical sciences, with natural history, 
and botany ; and that he is profoundly versed in the science which is more 
peculiarly his own, viz., that of pedagogy. I have already said, that it is no 
uncommon thing for a Prussian teacher to be acquainted with the Latin language, 
that very many speak and read French fluently, and that not a few can also, at 
least, read English. Now, I do not ask whether we have a class of village 
teachers who can be compared to these men, for it would be ridiculous to put 
such a question ; but, I ask, have we any set of teachers in the country, who, in 
general attainments, can bear comparison with them ? Very few of the masters 
of our private schools are gentlemen who have been educated at our universities ; 
but of even those who have been brought up at our great seats of learning, I 
would ask any university man, whether one man in ten receives any thing like so 
general an education as the Prussian schoolmasters must have obtained, in order 
to enable them to pass the examination for diplomas ? Do the students at our 
universities generally learn any thing of church history, of music, or of physical 
geography ? Do they learn even the outlines of universal history ? Are they 
acquainted with botany or natural history ? Do many study carefully the history 
of their own country or its geography? Do any of them know any thing of 
pedagogy ? If not, where shall we fmd a class of teachers of even the children 
of our gentry nearly so highly educated as the Prussian parochial schoolmasters ? 



SEMINARY 

FOR 

TEACHERS OF THE CITY SCHOOLS* 
AT BERUN, IN PRUSSIA. 



This is one of the more recently erected seminaries, and its objects are 
declared to be — first, to educate teachers for the city schools ; second, to 
enable teachers to advance in their vocation, by providing them vi^ith lec- 
tures, and with a library ; and third, to enable candidates for the ministry to 
become somewhat acquainted with the art of teaching, as they are required, 
subsequently, to act as inspectors of the schools. The first of these is the 
main object of the institution. The teachers to be furnished are, in general, o( 
the grade required for the burgher schools. This, with its location in the 
city, renders the general plan of this school difterent from that already de- 
Bcribed. The care taken in the selection of the du-ectors of the normal 
schools prevents the necessity for minute regulations, and does what no 
regulation can — namely, infuses the proper spiiit. Hence, there will always 
be found differences in the minute details of these institutions, which may 
not, however, be essential. 

The director of this seminaryf is also the head of the school of practice 
attached to it, and already described. There are, besides him, eight teachers 
for both the school and seminary. The pupils of the latter are about fifty 
in number. 

The pupils generally live out of the seminary, there being accommoda» 
tions but for sixteen or eighteen within the buildings. It is an important 
question whether the method of boarding the pupils in or out of the house 
shall be adopted in these institutions, and I believe that it has been rightly 
solved, both at Weissenfels and here, adopting in the former school the 
method of collecting the pupils, and in the latter, of allowing them to dwell 
apart. 

The conditions for admission are nearly those, as to certificates, age, and 
qualification, of the Weissenfels school, taking as the standard of qualifica- 
tion the attainments of pupils from the preparatory department. Thus, 
eighteen years is the general age of admission, and the applicants must pre- 
sent to the school-board of the province certificates of baptism, of having 
attended the first communion, of having attended school, of moral conduct, 
of good health, and that their parents or guardians will support them while 
at the seminary. The candidates are expected to be prepared for examina- 
tion on the principal parts of the Bible and the chief truths of Christianity, 
and to be acquainted with some of the principal church songs ; to express 
themselves correctly in words and in writing, and to have a good knowledge 
of the etymology of the German language ; to understand the ground rules 
of arithmetic, proportions, and fractions, and the elements of form in geom- 
etry ; to possess a competent knowledge of geography and history ; to know 
the use of mathematical instruments, and to have an elementary knowledge 
of music. The school does not professedly maintain any pupil while receiv- 
ing instruction, but assists some of those of the second year who are meri- 
torious, and makes a further advance to those of the third year who have 
shown themselves worthy of their calling.J 

• From Bache's Education in Europe. 

t Dr. Diesterweg. 

X TIlis may amount to sixty dollars yearly. The boarders at the school pay but three dollara 
and thirty-seven cents per quarter for their lodging. An entrance fee of twelve dollars is paid, 
which exempts the pupil from further charges for instruction. 



234 



SEMINARY FOR CITV TEACHERS AT BERLIN. 



The courses are of tliree years' duration, of which the first is entirely oc- 
cupied with revising and extending the attainments of the pupil : the second 
is, in part, devoted lo teaching, but under the inspection of the director ; and 
the third is mainly tilled up with teaching in the school attached to the semi- 
nary, or others of the city. This arrangement is intended, first, to secure a 
due amount of scholarship on the part of the pupils ; and next, to make 
practical teachers of them. The first essays in their art are made under 
close supervision ; and subsequently, the independent teaching affords them 
opportunities for comparing the theoretical principles which are inculcated 
in the lectures at the seminary with their daily observation ; and the com- 
munication of their remarks in meetings with the director gives them the 
advantage of his experience in guiding their observation. 

The scope of the instruction here does not differ essentially from that at 
Weissenfels, the subjects being reproduced in a different form. The follow- 
ing table gives th6 names of the branches, with the time occupied in each of 
tlie classes, the third class being the lowest. The course of each class is a 
year in duration. 

The hours of duty are from seven in the morning until noon, and from 
two in the afternoon until four for the second and third classes, with few ex- 
ceptions. The first class receive their instruction from half past five until 
half past seven in the evening, except on Wednesday and Saturday. Wed- 
nesday is a half-holiday for the lower classes, as well as Saturday. 

The religious instruction is given by a clergyman. The physical educa- 
tion is left much to the discretion of the young men, at least in case of those 
who live out of the seminary. The school is deficient, as the one already 
described, in the means of illustrating the courses of natural philosophy and 
natural history, but the pupils may have access to the natural history collec- 
tions of the university. 

TABLE OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF TIME AMONG THE DIFFERENT EMPLOTMENTS 
AT THE BERLIN SEMINARY. 



Subjects of study, &c. 



Pedagogy 

Practice 

Religious Instruction 

Theory of Music 

Vocal Music 

German Language... 

Reading 

Arithmetic 

Geometry 

Geography 

History 

Zoology 

Mineralogy 

Physics 

Drawing 

Writing 

Playing the Violin... 



HOURS PER WEEK. 


First 


Second 


Third 


Class. 


Cliiss. 


Class. 


2 






1 


4 




1 


2 


3 




1 


1 


1 


3 


5 




2 


6 




2 


2. 




3 


4 




2 


2 




1 


2 




1 


2 




2 


2 




2 


2 




2 


2 


2 


2 


2 




1 


2 




3 


8 



The method of instruction, as in the other school, is mainly by lecture, 
with interrogations. The inductive system is followed in the mathematical 
branches. The works of the director on these subjects enjoy a high reputa- 



NORMAL SCHOOLS 

FOR 

FEMALE TEACHERS IN PRUSSIA 



The school system of Prussia, as well as the European system of public 
instruction generally, is defective in its provision for female education be- 
yond the lowest grades of schools. While boys are highly instructed in 
language, the elements of science, and Ihe principles of the useful arts, in 
public schools of a higher grade, the girls, except those of the wealthy 
and aristocratic classes, are entirely neglected. This has had the effect 
to open a chasm, broad and deep, between the intelligence and intellec- 
tual capabilities of the two sexes — has weakened the power and influence 
of woman on society — has narrowed the circle of a mother's teaching at 
home, and shut her out from the wide and appropriate field of employ- 
ment as a teacher in every grade of public and private schools. The 
most valuable contribution now making by our American, and especially 
our New England experience, to the advancement of public education, is 
the demonstration of the wisdom of giving to every girl, rich or poor, and 
whatever may be her destination in life, an education which shall corres- 
pond, in amount and adaptation, to that given to boys in the same school — 
and particularly, to such as show the requisite tact, taste, and character, 
an appropriate training for the employment of teaching. Our experience 
has shown not only the capacity of woman, but her superiority to the 
male sex, in the whole work of domestic and primary instruction, — not only 
as principal teachers of infant and the lowest class of elementary schools, 
but as assistants in schools of every grade in which girls are taught, and 
as principal teachers, with special assistance in certain studies, in country 
schools generally. Their more gentle and refined manners, purer morals, 
stronger instinctive love for the society of children, and greater tact in 
their management, their talent for conversational teaching, and quickness 
in apprehending the difficulties which embarrass a young mind, and their 
powers, when properly developed, and sustained by enlightened public 
sentiment, of governing even the most wild and stubborn dispositions by 
mild and moral influences — are now generally acknowledged by our most 
experienced educators. Let this great fact be once practically and gen- 
erally recognized in the administration of public schools in Europe, and 
let provision be made for the training of female teachers on a thorough 
and liberal scale, as is now dorie for young men, and a change will pass 
over the whole face of society. 

Until within ten years no attempt was made to train females for the 
employment of teacbinn- except in certain convents of the Catholic 
church, where the self-i enying life which the rules of their establishment 



236 



NORMAL SCHOOLS FOR FEMALE TEACHERS IN PRUSSIA. 



reauire, and the excellent education there given, are an admirable pre- 
paration for the important duties which many of the sisters are called 
upon to perform as teachers in schools for the poor, as well as for board- 
ing-schools connected with their rehgious houses. 

In 1840, for the first time, a seminary for female teachers, governesses, 
or rather a seminary course, was established at Marienweider, in the 
province of Prussia, in connection with a high school for young ladies, in- 
stituted by Alberti. The course is for two years. Candidates must be 
sixteen years of age, must be confirmed, and pass a satisfactory examina- 
tion in the branches taught in common schools. Instruction is given in 
French, English, and Italian languages, as well as in the German litera- 
ture and language, arithmetic, history, geography, natural sciences, music, 
history of art and esthetics, including drawing, sketching, &c., as well as in 
the theory and practice of teaching. The charge for tuition and residence 
can not exceed four thalers a month, and this is reduced according to the 
circumstances and continuance at the seminary of tlie pupils. In 1847, 
there were twenty-two pupils. 

In 1841, a class of female teachers was instituted in connection with the 
celebrated " Diaconissen Anstalt," at Kaiserswerth, erected by Mr. Fleid- 
ner. The course for elementary schools occupied two years. In addition 
to the studies pursued at Marienweider, instruction is given in domestic 
economy and household work. Practice in teaching is had in the orphan 
and hospital schools, and the elementary school of the great establish- 
ment. In 1848, there were eighty-five pupils, forty-four of whom were 
destined for infant and industrial schools. 

The " school for deaconesses," at Kaiserswerth. on the Rhine, was in- 
stituted by Rev. Thomas Fleidner. the pastor of its small Protestant par- 
ish, who seems to be acting in a new sphere of Christian benevolence 
with the spirit of Franke. The main object of the institution was to train 
females of the right spirit — females who are willing to consecrate a por- 
tion of their lives in humility and love to the service of their iellow-crea- 
tures, for Christ's sake — to the practical duties of the sick room. The 
original plan has been extended so as to embrace a Normal department 
for training young women of the same spirit for teachers of infant schools, 
as well as an asylum for erring. It is conceived in the spirit, and to some 
extent, formed on the model of some of the orders of sisters of charity, in 
the Catholic church. It presents a new appHcation of the principle, and 
illustrates in a beautiful manner the importance, of Normal or professional 
training in every department of life which involve art and method. The 
following account of a visit to the institution is abridged from a communi- 
cation in Lowes' Edinburgh Magazine, for 1846. 

" Kaiserswerth is the name of a small village on the east Dank of the Rhine, 
about an hour from Dusseldorf. The village is clean and orderly, but very an- 
cient in its houses, and still more so in the aspect of its church and manse. 
This circumstance the more fixes the attention of the traveler on a new street 
running at right angles to the old one. All the buildings in it are peculiar, and 
piece on but awkwardly with the old manse, whence they spring, and which is 
occupied by the " School for Deaconesses." The Rev. Thomas Fleidner is pa^- 



NORMAL SCHOOLS FOR FEMALE TEACHERS IN PRnsSIA. 23^ 

tor >of this small parish, and has found full occupation for his benevolent energy 
. in ihe institiiiion of which he is the founder. 

We unwittiiij^'ly made our visit of investigation on the great anniversary ; a 
day for school examinations, for inspecting the hospitals, and for setting apart, 
for the exercise of their fimctions, wheresoever they may be called, such dea- 
conesses as have satisfactorily passed through their period of training. The 
whole place was therefore in its best attire. Windows bright; walls newly 
colored, and every here and there, where an arch or a peg to hang a wreath 
upon could be found, active and tasteful hands had transferred the garden's 
autumnal treasures of flowers to the various chambers of the dwellings. In a 
room on one side of the street, the floor was covered with beds for the repose 
of visiting schoolmistresses and deaconesses who had returned to enjoy the day 
wiih their former associates ; while, on the other, the hall with its table of 
many covers, and the savor of good food from the kitchen, indicated that the 
mother was on that day to entertain her children. In short, it was a gala day — 
the day of all the year when many acquisitions are brought to light, and for 
which many a studious preparation is made. As all were engaged in the ex- 
amination of the orphan-school, we had leisure, while waiting, to observe the 
characteristic furniture of the manse parlor, where, according to the fashion of 
the country, the pale sand crackled under our i'eet. There hangs a portrait of 
Mrs. Fleidner. the honored and most useful coadjutorof her husband. She has 
been a fitting mother of that institution, of which he is the father. Having 
given out all her strength to it, she was in her prime translated from the land 
of labor and anxiety to the land of eternal rest. 

Near her is placed, in meet companionship, a portrait of our Mrs. Fry, whose 
experienced eye took in at once, with much delight, the utility of the whole in- 
stitution. On the same wall appears a portrait of Mr. Fleidner's mother, a 
venerable widow of a former pastor, whose lovely Christian bearing we had 
occasion to respect and admire, having made her acquaintance in a distant city. 
She had reared a large family lor the church, and suffered many hardships 
while her country was the scene of French warfare, being long separated from 
her husband, uncertain of his safely, and moving from place to place with her 
young children, at times at a loss for a lodging and all necessary provision. 

Opposite to these portraits are engravings of some of the Protestant Reform- 
ers, among whom appear Luther and Calvin ; and in a corner a cupboard 
with a glass door, furnished with books for sale, chiefly such as are employed 
in the schools or report their condition. Also the noble set of Scripture prints 
which was prepared for the institution, but which is now to be found in many 
seminaries for the benevolent instruction of the young in Germany and Prussia. 

Presently an amiable and gentlemanly man, who apologized for his imperfect 
English, came and guided us to the school-room, in which an intelligent teacher 
was calling forth the attainments of his pupils. The audience consisted of Mr. 
Fleidner's co-presbyters, the physician, a lew personal friends, the teachers 
who were that day visitors to the school where they had themselves been trained, 
and as many of the deaconesses as could be spared from their regular avo- 
cations. 

The orphans under examination are many of them the children of pastors 
and schoolmasters. They looked more vigorous and hearty than most children 
of their age do in Germany, and are receiving good, sound education, which 
will fit them to help both themselves and others in future life. 

We were led from the school-room to the dormitories, and found each con- 
taining six small beds, and one larger. The deaconess, who occupies the 
larger bed, is regarded as .the mother of these six children, and fills that office 
as to washing, clothing, medicating, and instructing them, just as a real mother 
ought to do. Each bed has a drawer which draws out at its foot, containing all 
the little tenant's property, and on the opposing wall is himg a tin basin, jug, 
and tooth-brush for the use of each. The deacone.ss soon feels an attachment 
to the orphans spring up in her bosom, while she al.so feels responsibility about 
their neat and healthy appearance, proper demeanor, and attainments of all 
kinds. 

We next saw the delinquents' shelter, and two women in charge, one an 
older, sensible, firm-looking person, whose post is probably never changed, and 
another younger, her pupil. They showed us with some satisfaction the needle- 
work ihey had taught to a set of lOwering-browed, iinpromising-lookingf females, 



238 NORMAL SCHOOLS FOR FEMALE TEACHERS IN PRUSSIA. 

who, like their peers in Scotland, gratify their curiosity by side-peeps, but never 
look you fairly in the face. From ihe educational system of Prussia, it rarely 
occurs that reading requires to be taught to adults. The senior deaconess 
spoke mildly and sensibly of some intractable, two or three runaways, some re- 
conciled to friends, some restored to society, and acquitting themselves well in 
service. In short, it was a fac-simile of poor humanity, and the uncertain re- 
sults of benevolent effort at home. These women sleep in small apartments, 
which fill one side of a long gallery — each contains a bed, a stool, and a box, 
and in the midst of them is the room for the deaconess, who is, by means of 
her open door, enabled to observe all movements, and prevent all communica- 
tions on the subject of past transgressions. The delinquents are shut into their 
night-rooms. 

In the infant school department, we did not observe any thing differing from 
what is to be seen in the best schools of the same style elsewhere, unless we 
might mention an extensive frame of pigeon-holes, each numbered to indicate 
the proprietor, and occupied by pieces of bread. In this Normal School have 
been trained teachers who are now engaged in managing the infant population 
in many parts of Prussia and Germany. 

We crossed the little street, and entered, on the opposite side, the hospital, a 
handsome building entirely of recent erection, in a pretty extensive and neatly 
laid-out garden, where we (Observed some patients of all ages — the children at 
play or carried in the arms of their tender-looking nurse — the adults resting on 
benches in the sun, for the day was cool, or moving feebly as their reduced 
strength enabled them. 

Our guide, whom we here discovered to be chaplain to the hospital, led us 
first into the apothecary's room, where we saw two sensilile, energetic-looking 
women compounding medicines after the prescription of the physician. They 
are licensed by government, serving a regular time to the acquisition of this 
important branch of knowledge, and are always on the spot to watch the effect 
of their administrations. The place is fitted up like a druggist's shop at home. 
We forgot to inquire if the counter, within whose railed-off quarter the chief 
apothecary stood, is rendered necessary by the shop being frequented by the 
villagers, which seems probable. The other deaconess was working at a mor- 
tar. From this place we passed to the kitchen, and saw the huge apparatus 
necessary for feeding such a family, and the extra supply required on that festal 
day, when their family was greatly increased. The plans for keeping food in 
that warm country, the cleanliness and beautiful order of the larder and laun- 
dries, indeed of every corner, was quite remarkable, and the ventilation so per- 
fect, that even when we ascended to wards occupied by persons in bed, or rest- 
ing on the long benches, who looked very ill, the atmosphere was tolerably fresh 
and agreeable. Our conductors dropped here and there a good word to the sick 
as we passed. In the male wards a part of the attendance seems to be done by 
men, but each has its quota of deaconesses who have their own charge and re- 
sponsibility In one chamber we found five women who had joined the estab- 
lishment a few days before, who were engaged in learning the useful art of 
cutting out clothing, under two instructors. There was something touching in 
the ward of sick children, where we saw many eyes beaming tenderness, and 
many hearts exercising all the maternal instincts, albeit not mothers. Some 
who were very sick formed for the time the sole charge of one deaconess, while 
three or four might be intrusted to the care of another. In addition lo minute 
watchfulness over the body, there is, as they can bear it, an endeavor lo occupy 
the memory with suitable hymns and passages of Scripture, and to engage their 
minds on subjects that lead them to glorify God by honoring and loving Him in 
the days of their youth. The chaplain was acquainted with each face, and its 
owner's little hisiory, and tried to draw out a little repetition of their small store 
of Scripture learning. One could not but.remark the useful discipline which 
such employment must be for ihe young women who are engaged in it, or fail 
to observe the loving patience with which one or two met the feverish frac- 
tiousness of their nurslings. 

_ The office of these ' sisters of charity,' which elevates them above the common 
sick nurse, and engages them in concerns that touch on eternity, is that of read- 
ing the Scriptui^es to the sick and aged, and dropping a word of consolation 
into the languid ear, while they minister to the bodily wants. This they are 
authorized and expected to do, so that, instead of doing it bv stealth, as a pious 



NORMAL SCHOOLS FOR FEMALE TEACHERS IN PRUSSIA 



239 



sick nurse may do in our hospitals ; or, instead of railing on the poor sufferer 
who cries out in concern for his soul's health, as an impious one has sometimes 
been known to do they breathe balm while they turn the pillow, and speak of 
the way of reconc.iliaiio)i while they endeavor to lull pain. They are by the 
bed in the midnight hour, and can seize the moment of coolness and clearness 
to speak to the afflicted — a moment which neither chaplain, nor medical man, 
nor friendly visitor, may be so happy as to hit upon ; and, while they are forbid- 
den to be preachers, their living actions, their Chn'siian bearing, and their faith- 
ful advices, are calculated to drop like balm on the wounded spirit, and have, in 
many cases, accomplished good which we may justly call incalculable, for its 
consequences are eternal. 

After examining the excellent arrangement of the sick wards, we found our- 
selves in the chapel. It is placed at the lower extremity of the long range of 
buildings, and so crosses the end of four wards, two on the first, and two on the 
second story, the door of entrance to the chapel being placed in the center. 
Each ward has a folding-door of glass in the side of the place of worship, by 
opening which the Word of God can sound along even to the remoter beds. 
On communion occasions, the pastor is accustomed to convey the elements into 
these wards, so that many a fainting soul is thus refreshed, which, in any other 
circumstances, would be denied the privileges of the house of God. There are, 
on one side of the chapel, seals where the feeble can recline, and some with 
muslin curtains, behind which the unhappy or unsightly can find shelter. In 
this small, but sacred, place of worship, at three o'clock on that afternoon, 
October 5th, were the deaconesses, whose term of training was satisfactorily 
come to a close, questioned before the congregation with respect to their wil- 
lingne.ss to devote themselves to the work of mercy for the next five years, and 
having assented to the engagement proposed to them, they were solemnly set 
apart by prayer. They are now prepared to go to whatever city or country, to 
whatever hospital, or Normal Institution, or private family they may be called, 
the taste and capacity of the individual of course being consulted ; for it must 
be carefully explained that there is nothing like a monastic vow of 'obedience 
to the church' in this affair, and that the engagement is formed subject to being 
set aside by the claims of nearer domestic duties, if such should arise. Some 
deaconesses have been called away to assist their own families, some have 
been lost to the Institution by entering on the conjugal relation. In truth, un- 
fortunately for their vocation, they are rather too popular, as making excellent 
wives. But while one regards this circumstance with regret as respects the 
scheme, it is delightful to contemplate the sister of charity transformed into the 
rearer of her own children in the tear of the Lord. 

In conversing with Mr. Fleidner, before taking leave, on the utility of form- 
•ing such an institution in Scotland, he suggested, as a fundamental and absolute 
necessity, that it be ascertained that all who are admitted to the school are per- 
sons renewed in the spirit of their minds, and willing, under the guidance of the 
Holy Spirit, to devote themselves in humility and love to the service of their 
fellow-creatures for Christ's sake. 

The two Prussian provinces of the Rhineland and Westphalia are united for 
its support, and it is under the superintendence of the Protestant Provincial Sy- 
nod. Above one hundred deaconesses are now at work in different parts of 
Germany. Sixty are occupied in seventeen ho.spitals and orphan-houses at 
Berlin, Dresden, Frankfort, Worms, Cologne, Elberfeld, &c. Several are en- 
gaged for large congregations which have no hospital, and about twenty are 
sent out at the request of private families to nurse their sick members, (Sec. 
Five are now at work in the German hospital at Dalston, near London: one 
of them is matron of the establishment. It can readily be apprehended how 
uniformity of language, ideas, methods of preparing food, &c., will render these 
acceptable nurses to their sick countrymen. 

In this country we lack a little of the German simplicity, and are so nice 
about distinctions of rank, and what belongs to our supposed station in society, 
that it may excite strong displeasure if we say that there are many single wo- 
men in Scotland, of the excellent of the earth, who are not so useful in the 
church as they might be ; that the reason of this is their want of proper guid- 
ance in .selecting their work, and of support in its prosecution, and that the 
deaconess' status in society, and the style ofcharacter and bearing expected from 
her, is exactly what is wanted to confer the necessary energy and steadiness. 



240 NORMAL SCHOOLS FOR FEMALE TEACHERS IN PRUSSIA. 

At Kaiserswerth, there are scholars not only of the middle classes, but several 
of the higher ranks of life. The king of Prussia, having taken a lively view of 
the utility of the Institution, is now forming a large model hospital at Berlin — 
a baroness, trained under Mr. Fleidner, is its destined matron ; and twelve well- 
trained deaconesses are without delay to be called into active employment there. 

The principle on which the deaconess is required to act is that of willingness 
to be a servant of Christ alone ; to devote herself to the service, without the 
■worldly stimulus of pecuniary emolument, and without over solicitude about 
worldly comforts ; to do the work of charity and self-denial, out of gratitude to 
her Savior. 

Her wants are all supplied by the Institution, respectably, but without super- 
fluity; while the salary paid annually for her services by the family, parish, or 
hospital, by which she is employed, is paid to Kaiserswerth. Fiom the fund 
thus accumulated, the supplies of the deaconesses are derived, and those of them 
who have suffered in health, in consequence of their services, are by it entirely 
sustained. 

The deaconess, with her healthful, beaming, loving countenance, distin- 
guished from her neighbors only by her dark print gown, a white habit shirt, 
and cap, (a bit of head-gear that one often misses painfully, even on grey- 
headed German matrons,) looks all animation, attention, and lively collected- 
ness of spirit. 

There is at Kaiserswerth the simplicity of real life in this working-day- 
world, as exhibited by persons whose actions are under the influence of grate- 
ful love to their Lord and Redeemer, and to their fellow-pilgrims." 

In 1846, a Seminary for female teachers was established in connection 
with a new Institution for young ladies, in Friedrickstadt, Berlin. The 
course extends through two years, and includes the branches and prac- 
tical exercises before specified. In all teachers intended for governesses, 
particular attention is paid to music, drawing, and the Italian and French 
languages, as well as to the literature of the German. 

In 1847, a regulation was adopted for the examination of female teach- 
ers in the province of Bradenburg. The examination i's conducted by a 
committee consisting of one member from the school-board of the province, 
and the directors and two teachers of the new seminary in Friedrickstadt. 
It is confined, unless the applicant desires a certificate for a higher 
school, to the branches taught in the primary schools. It is conducted 
by written answers to a few questions in each branch, to be lyade out 
without books, and without conference with each other; in conversation 
on the same subjects and pedagogical points; and in giving trial lessons 
in teaching. A record is taken of the examination, and if the result is 
satisfactory, a certificate is issued by the school-board of the Province. 
If the pupils of the seminary in Friedrickstadt can pass a similar exam- 
ination before leaving the institution, they are not subjected to any 
farther examination. . 



PRUSSIAN SCHOOLS AS Tlir.V WERE. 241 

That the art of teaching, as now practiced in the primary schools of 
Prussia, was but imperfectly understood b}'' her schoolmasters only a 
quarter of a century ago, and that a knowledge of good methods was 
diffused throughout the kingdom only by the well directed efforts of the 
government, sustained by the self-denying and persevering labors of 
school officers and educators, in various directions, is evident from the 
following note appended to Prof. Stowe's address on Normal Schools 
and Teachers' Seminaries. The noble sentiment of Dinter, quoted by 
Prof Stowe at the opening of his address, " I promised God, that I 
I would look upon every Prussian peasant child as a being who could 
complain of me before God, if I did not provide for him the best educa- 
tion, as a man and a Christian, which it was possible for me to provide," 
shows the spirit with which some of the school officers of Prussia have 
acted. We append a brief notice of this excellent man, and model 
school officer, together with many excellent suggestions by other emi- 
nent teachers and officers from other sections of Germany. 

PRUSSIAN SCHOOLS, A FEW YEARS AGO. 

The following questions and answers are from Dr. Julius's testimony, before 
the Committee of the British House of Commons, in 1834, respecting the Prus- 
sian School System. 

" Do you remember, from your own knowledge, what the character and attain- 
ments of the schoolmasters were previous to the year 1819 ?" 

" I do not recollect ; but I know they were very badly composed of non-com- 
missioned officers, organists, and half-drunken people. It has not risen like a 
fountain at once. Since 1770, there has been much done in Prussia, and through- 
out Germany, for promoting a pr6per education of teachers, and by them of 
children." 

" In your own observation has there been any very marked improvement in 
the character and attairmients of schoolmasters, owing to the pains taken to which 
you have referred ?" 

" A very decided improvement." 

Dinter, in his autobiography, gives some surprising specimens of gross incapa- 
city in teachers, even subsequent to 1819. The following anecdotes are from 
that interesting work, Duders Lehen von ihm selbst beschrieben. 

In the examination of a scliool in East Prussia, which was taught by a subal- 
tern officer dismissed from the army, the teacher gave Dinter a specimen of his 
skill in the illustration of Scripture narrative. The passage was Luke vii., the 
miracle of rai,*ing the widow's son at Nain. " See, cliildren (says the teacher), 
Nain was a great city, a beautiful city ; but even in such a great, beautiful city, 
there lived people who must die. They brought the dead youth out. See, chU- 
dren, it was the same then as it is now — dead people couldn't go alone — they 
had to be carried. He that wan dead began to speak. This was a sure sign that 
he was alive again, for if he had continued dead he couldn't have spoken a word." 

In a letter to the King, a dismissed schoolmaster complained that the district 
was indebted to him 200705 dollars. Dinter supposed the man must be insane, 
and wrote to the physician of the place to inquire. The physician repUed that 
the poor man was not insane, but only ignorant of the numeration table, writing 
200 70 5 instead of 275. Dinter subjoins, " By the help of God, the King, and 
good men, very much has now been done to make things better." 

In examining candidates for the school-teacher's office, Dinter asked one where 
the Kingdom of Prussia was situated. He replied, that he believed it was some- 
where in the southern part of India. He asked another the cause of the ignis- 
fatuus, commonly called Jack-with-the-lantern. He said they were specters 
made by the devil. Another being asked why he wished to become a school- 
teacher, repUed, that he must get a living somehou'. 

16 



242 SCHOOJL COUNSELOR DINTER. 

A military man of great influence once urged Dinter to recommend a disabled 
soldier, in whom he was interestetl, as a school-teacher. " I will do so," says Dip- 
ter, " if he sustains the requisite examination." " O,' says the Colonel, " he doesn't 
know much about school-teaching, but ho is a good, moral, steady man, anJ I 
hope you will rec^pmmeiid him to oblige me." D —0 yes, Colonel, to oblige you, 
if you in your turn will do me a favor. Col. — What is that ? D. — Get me ap- 
pointed druui-major in your regiment. True, I can neither beat a drum, nor play 
a life ; but I am a good, moral, steady man as ever lived. 

A rich landholder once said to him, " Why do you wish the peasant children 
to be educated i it will only make them unruly and disobedient." Dinter re- 
plied, " If the masters are wise, and the laws good, the more intelligent the peo- 
ple, the better they will obey." 

Dinter complained that the mihtary .system of Prussia was a great hinderance 
to the schools. A nobleman replied that the young men enjoyed the protection 
of the government, and were thereby bound to defend it by arms. Dinter asked 
if every stick of timber in a house ought first to be used m a fire-engine, because 
the house was protected by the engine ? or whether it would be good policy to 
cut down all the trees of an orchard to build a fence with, to keep the hogs from 
eating the fruit ? 



(C.) 

■ SCHOOL-COUNSELOR DINTER. 

GusTAvus Frederick Dintek was born at a village near Leipsic, in 1760. He 
first distinguished himself as principal of a Teachers' Seminary in Saxony, whence 
he was invited by the Prussian government to the station of School-Counselor 
for Eastern Prussia. He resides at Konigsberg, and about ninety days in the 
year he spends in visiting the schools of his province, and is incessantly employed 
nearly thirteen hours a day for tlie rest of his time, in the active duties of his 
office ; and that he may devote himself the more exclusively to his work, he lives 
unmarried. He complains that his laborious occupation prevents his writing as 
much as he wishes for the public, yet, in addition to his official duties, he lectures 
several times a week, during term-time, in the University at Konigsberg, and 
always has in his house a number of indigent boys, whose education he superin- 
tends, and, though poor himself gives them board and clothing. He has maide 
it a rule to spend every Wednesday afternoon, and, if possible, one whole day 
in the week besides, in writing for the press ; and thus, by making the best use 
of every moment of time, thou-gh he was nearly forty years old before his ca- 
reer as an author comihenced, he has contrived to publish more than sixty origi- 
nal works, some of them extending to several volumes, and all of them popular. 
Of one book, a school catechism, fifty thousand copies were sold previous to 1830 ; 
and of his large work, the School-Teacher's Bible, in 9 volumes 8vo, thirty thou- 
sand copies were sold in less than ten years. 

He is often interrupted by persons who are attracted by his fame, or desire 
his advice ; and while conversing with his visitors, that no time may be lost, he 
employs himself in knitting ; and thus not only supplies himself with stockings 
and mittens, suited to that cold climate, but always has some to give away to 
indigent students and other poor people. His disinterestedness is quite equal to 
his activity, and of the income of his publications, he devotes annually nearly 
five hundred dollars to benevolent purposes. Unweariedly industrious, and 
rigidly economical as he is, he lays up nothing for himself He says, " I am one 
of those happy ones, who, when the question is put to them, ' Lack ye any thing V 
(Luke xxii. 35), can answer with joy, ' Lord, nothing.' To have more than one 
can use is superfluity ; and I do not see how this can make any one happy. 
People often laugh at me, because I will not incur the expense of drinking wine, 
and because I do not wear richer clothing, and five in a more costly style. Laugh 
away, good people ; the poor boys, also, whose education I pay for, and for whom, 
besides, I can spare a few dollars for Christmas gifts, and new-year's presents, 
they have then- laugh too." 

Toward the close of his autobiography, he says respecting the King of Prus- 
sia, " I live happiljr imder Frederick William ; he has just given me one hundred 



TEACHERS' CONFERENCES. 243 

and thirty- thousand dollars to build churches "with in destitute places ; he has 
established, a new Teachers" Seminary for my poor Polanders, and he has so ful- 
filled my every wish for the good of posterity, that I can myself hope to live to 
see the time when tliere shall be no schoohnaster in Prussia more poorly paid 
than a comnion laborer. He has never he.'iitatod, during the wiiole term of jpiy 
office, to grant me any reasonable request for the helpuig fcrward of the school- 
eystem. God bless him 1 I am with all my heart a Prussian. And now, my 
friends, when ye hear that old Dinter is dead, say, ' May he rest in peace ; he 
was a laborious, good-hearted, religious man ; he was a Christian.' " 

A few such men in the United States would effect a wonderful change in the 
general tone of our educational efforts. 



(D.) 

IMPKOVEMENT OF SCHOOL-TEACHERS. 

At the commencement of the late school efforts in Prussia, for the benefit of 
teachers already in the profession who had not possessed the advantages of a 
regular training, it was the custom for them to assemble during the weeks of 
vacation in their schools, and, under the care of a competent teacher, go through 
a regular course of lessons for their improvement. Of the entire course a care- 
ful and minute journal was kept and transmitted to the government. The fol- 
lowing is from the journal of a four weeks' course of this kind, which was held 
at Regei .vald in 18'21, under the cliarge of School-Counselor Bernhardt. The 
King gave liis special approbation of this journal, and caused a large number of 
copies to be printed and circulated throughout the kingdom. The Minister of 
Public Instruction expresses himself respecting it in the following terms : — 

" The view presented and acted upon by School-Counselor Bernhardt, that 
the important point is not tlie quantity and variety of knowledge communicated, 
but its solidity and acci;racy ; and that the foundation of all true culture consists 
in the education to piety, the fear of God, and Cliristian humility ; and, accord- 
ingly, that those dispositions, before all things else, must be awakened and con- 
firmed in teachers, tliat thereby they may exercise love, long-suffering, and 
cheerfulness, in their difficult and laborious callmg — these principles are the only 
correct ones, according to which the education of teachers every where, and in 
all cases, can and ought to be conducted, notwithstanding the regard which must 
be had to the peculiar circumstances and the intellectual condition of particular 
provhices and communities. The Ministry hereby enjoin it anew upon the Re- 
gency, not only to make these principles their guide in their own labors in the 
conmion schools and Teachers' Seminaries, but also to commend and urge them 
in the most emphatic manner on all teachers and pupils in their jurisdiction. 
That this will be faithfully done, the Mmistry expect with so much the more 
confidence, because in this way alone can the supreme will of his Majesty the 
King, repeatedly and earnestly expies.sed, be fulfilled. Of the manner in which 
the Regency execute this order, the Ministry expect a Report, and only remark 
further, that as many copies of the journal as may be needed will be supplied." 

The strongly religious character of the instructions in the following journal will 
be noticed; but will any Christian find fault with this characteristic, or with the 
King and Ministry for commending it ? 

The journal gives an account of the employment of every hour in the day, from 
half past six in the morning to a quarter before nine in the evening. Instead of 
making extracts from different parts of it, I here present the entire journal for 
the last week of the course, that the reader may have the better opportunity of 
forming his own judgment on the real merits of the system. 

FOURTH WEEK. 

Holiday, Oct. 22. — A. M. 6^-7. Meditation. Teachers and parents, forget not 
that your children are men, and that, as such, they have the ability to become 
reasonable. God will have all men to come to the knowledge of the truth. As 
men, our children have the dignity of men, and a right to life, cultivation, honor, 
and truth. This is a holy, inalienable right, that is, no man can divest liimself of 



244 



TEACHERS' CONFERENCES. 



it without ceasing to be a man. 7-8^. Bible instruction. Reading tiie Bible, 
and verbal analysis of what is read. Jesus in the wilderness. 9-12. Writing, 
Exercise in small letters. P. M. 2-5. "Writing as before. 5^7. Singing. 8-8|. 
Meditation. Our schools should be Christian schools for Christian children, and 
Jesus Christ should be daily the chief teacher. One thing is needful. Jesus 
ChAt, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. Tlie great end of our schools, 
therefore, is the instruction of children in Christianity ; or the knowledge of heav- 
enly truths in hope of eternal life ; and to answer tlie question. What must I do 
to be saved ? Our children, as they grow up, nmst be able to say, from the con- 
viction of their hearts. We know and are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son 
of the living God. Beloved teachers, teach no Christianity without Christ, and 
know that there cannot be a hving faith without knowledge and love. 

Tuesday, Oct. 23. — A. M. 6-7. Meditation. Cliristian schools are the gardens 
of God's Spirit, and the plantations of humanity, and, therefore, holy places. How 
dreadful is this ph\ce ! This is none other than the house of God. Teachers, 
venerate your schools — regard tlie sacred as sacred. 7-8 J. Bible instruction. 
Reading of the Bible and verbal analysis of what is read. Luke xv. 1-10. 8^9. 
Catechism. Repeating the second article with proper emphasis, and the neces- 
sary explanation of terms. 10-12. Writing. Exorcise in German capitals, with 
the writing of syllables and words. P. M. 1-4. General repetition of the instruc- 
tions for school-teachers given during the month. 4-5. Brief instruction respect- 
ing school discipline and school laws. 5-7. Singing. 8-8^. Meditation. Teach- 
ers, you should make your school a house of prayer, not a den of murderers. 
Thou shalt not kill — that is, thou shalt do no injury to the souls of thy chili Ireu. 
This you will do if you are an ungodly teacher, if you neglect your duty, if you 
keep no order or discipline in your school, if you instruct the children badly, or 
not at all, and set before them an injurious example. The children will be in- 
jured also by hurrying through the school-prayers, the texts, and catechism, and 
by all thoughtless reading and committing to memory. May God help you ! 

Wednesday, Oct. 24. — 6-6|. Meditation. Dear teachers, you labor for the good 
of mankind and the kingdom of God ; be, therefore, God's instruments and co- 
workers. Thy kingdom come. In all things approving ourselves as the ministers 
of God. 6|-8i-. Bible instruction as before, John iv. 1-15. 8^-9. Catechism. The 
correct and emphatic reading and repeating of the first section, with brief expla- 
nation of ternn. 10-12. Instruction in school discipline and school laws. P. M. 
1-3. Instruction in the cultivation of fruit-trees. For instruction in this branch 
of economy, the school is arranged in six divisions, each under the care of a 
teacher acquainted with the business, with whom they go into an orchard, and 
under liis uispection perform all the necessary work. General principles and 
directions are written in a book, of which each student has a copy. More cool- 
ing is the shade, and more sweet the fruit, of the tree which thine own hands 
have planted and cherished. 3-5. Instruction in school disciphne and school 
laws. 5^-^. Singing. 8-9. Meditation. The Christian scliool-teacher is also a 
good husband and father. Blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, 
of good beliavior, apt to teach, not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy 
lucre, patient, not a brawler, not covetous, one that ruleth well his own house, 
having his children in subjection, with all gravity. He that readeth, let him 
understand. 

Thursday, Oct. 25. — A. M. 6-6|. Meditation. Dear teachers, do all in your 
power to live in harmony and peace with your districts, that you may be ^ 
helper of the parents in the bringing up of their children. Endeavor to main- 
tain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. As much as in you lies, live 
peaceably with aU men. 6|-9. Bible instruction as before, Luke vii. 11-17. 
Reading by sentences, by words, by syllables, by letters. Reading according to 
the sense, with questions as to the meaning. Understandest thou what thou 
readest ? 10-11. Instructions as to prayer in schools. Forms of prayer suitable 
for teachers and children are copied an' I committed to memory. Lord, teach us 
to pray. 11-12. Writing. Exercise in capitals and writing words. P. M. 2-3. 
Instruction respecting prayer in the family and in the school. Forms of prayer 
for morning and evening, and at the table, are copied, with instructions that 
school children shoidd commit them to memory, that they may aid their parents 
to aa edifying performance of the duty of family worsliip ; that, as the school 



TEACHERS' CONFERENCES. 246 

tlms helps the family, so the family also may help the school. Use not vain 
repetitious. 3-5. Bible instruction. General views of the contents of the Bible, 
and bow the teacher may communicate, analyze, and explain them to his chil- 
dren, yearly, at the commencement of the winter and summer terms. 5^-7. 
Singing. 8-9. Meditation. Teachers, acquire the confidence and love of your 
districts, but never forsake the direct path of duty. Fear God, do right, and be 
afraid of no man. Tlie world, with its lusts, passeth away, but he that doeth the 
will of God shall abide forever. 

Friday, Oct. 26. — Meditation. Teachers, hearken to the preacher, and labor 
into his hands ; fur he is placed over the Church of God, who will have the 
school be an aid to the Church. Remember them that labor among you, and are 
over you in the Lord, and esteem them highly in love for their works' sake. 
Neither is he tiiat [)lanteth any thing, nor he that watereth any thing, but God 
who giveth the increase. 7-9. Bible instruction. Summary of the contents of 
the Bible, to be committed to memory by children from ten to fifteen years of 
a.o-e. 10-12. Bible instruction. Brief statement of the contents of the historical 
Dooks of the New Testament. P. M. 1-5. Bible instruction. Contents of the 
doctrinal and proplietical books of the New Testament. Selection of the pas- 
sages of the New Testament proper to be read in a country school. A guide 
for teachers to the use of the Bible in schools. 5-7. Singing. 8-9. Meditation. 
Honbr and love, as a good teacher, thy King and thy father-land ; and awake 
the same feelings and sentiments in the hearts of thy children. Fear God, honor 
the King, seek the good of tlie country in which you dwell, for when it goes well 
with it, it goes well with thee. 

Saturdai^, Oct. 27. — 6-6^. Meditation. By the life in the fjimily, the school, 
and the church, our heavenly Father would educate us and our children for our 
earthly and heavenly home ; therefore parents, teacher.?, and preachers, should 
labor hand in hand. One soweth and another reapeth. I have laid the founda- 
tion, another buildeth thereon ; and let every man take heed how he buildeth 
thereon. Means of education : 1. In the family — the parents, domestic life, hab- 
its ; 2. In the school — the teacher, the instruction, the discipline ; 3. In the church 
— the preaching, the word, the sacraments. 6^9^. Bible instruction. Rules 
whicl) the teaclier should observe in reading the Bible. In analyzing it. In re- 
spect to the contents of the Old Testament books, and selections from them for 
reading, written instructions are given and copied, on account of the shortness 
of the time which is here given to this topic. 10-12. Bible instruction. Gen- 
eral repetition. P. M. 1-4. Bible instruction. General repetition. 4-5. Reading. 
Knowledge of the German language, wit!) written exercises. 7-10-J. Review 
of the course of instruction and the journal. 10^12. Meditation. The prayer 
of Jesus (John xvii.), with particular reference to our approaching separation. 

Smidai/, Oct. 28. — 6-J— 9. Morning prayer. Catechism. Close of the term. (In 
the open air on a hill at sunset) singing and prayer. Address by the head teacher. 
Subject. What our teacher would say to us when we separate from him. 1. What 
you have learned apply well, and follow it faithfully. If ye know these things, 
happy are ye if ye do them. 2. Learn to see more and more clearly that you 
know but little. We know in part. 3. Be continually learning, and never get 
weary. The man has never lived who has learned all that he might. 4. Be 
yourself what you would have your children become. Become as little children. 
5. Let God's grace be your highest good, and let it strengthen you in the diffi- 
culties which you must encounter. My grace is sufficient for thee — my strength 
is perfect in thy weaknes.s. 6. Keep constantly in mind the Lord Jesus Christ. 
He has left us an example that we should follow his steps. Hymn — Lord Jesus 
Christ, hearken thou to us. Prayer. Benediction. 

Review of the hours spent in different studies during the four weeks. Arith- 
metic, sixty -seven ; writing, fifty-six ; Bible, twenty-five ; meditation, thirty-six; 
other subjects, twenty-si.x ; singing, twenty-eight. Total, two hundred and 
thirty-eight. From nine to ten, in the morning, was generally spent in walking to- 
gether, and one hour in the afternoon was sometimes spent in the same manner. 

Familiar lectures were given on the following topics : 1. Directions to teachers 
as to the knowledge and right use of the Bible in schools. 2. Directions to teacli- 
ers respecting instruction in writing. 3. Directions for exercises in mental aritli- 
metic. 4. Instructions respfecting schobl discipline and school laws. 8. A ool' 



246 BERNARD OVERBER6. 

lection of prayers for the school and family, with directions to teachers. 6. The 
German parts of speech, and how they may be best taught in a country school. 
7. The day-book. 

Printed books were the following: 1. Dinter's Arithmetic. 2. Dinter on 
Guarding against Fires. 3. Brief Biography of Luther. 4. On the Cultivation 
of Fruit-Trees. 5. German Grammar. 6. Baumgarten's Letter- Writer for 
Country Schools. 7. Luther's Catechism. 

That which can be learned and practiced in the short space of a few weeks, is 
only a little — a very little. But it is not of so. much importance that we have 
more knowledge than others ; but most depends on this, that 1 have tlie right 
disposition ; and that I thoroughly understand and faithfully follow out the little 
which I do know. 

God help me, that I may give all which I have to my school ; and that I, with 
my dear chUdren, may, above all tilings, strive after that which is from above. 
Father in heaven, grant us strength and love for this. 



BERNARD OVERBERG. 

Among the many devoted teachers and educators, whose example 
and teachings breathed a new spirit into the schools of Germany, we 
have been particularly impressed with the character and views of Ber- 
nard Overberg, who for thirty years was in the habit of meeting the 
teachers of the neighborhood of Munster, twice a year during their va- 
cations, and instructing them in the best modes of conducting their 
schools, and especially in imparting religious in.«truction. We make 
the following extracts mainly from a memoir of Bernard Overberg, by 
Professor Schubert, of Munster. 

In 1780, he became officiating vicar of Everswinkel, and many evt-n yet can 
remember iiis powers as a spiritual guide and teacher, and the blts>iiigs which 
attended him. His chief anxiety was for the religious education of the cliildren 
of the parish, and this at his request was v\hoily given up to him by the rector. In 
ihi-ee years his manner of teaching became so perfect, that the minister Prince Furs- 
tenberg was induced to think o) appointing him to the normal school* at Munster. 
But tirst he determined to hear the teaching himself, and getting into his carriage 
on Sunday, when he knew Overberg would catechise, he told the post boys to 
bring him to Everswinkel exactly at two o'clock. He thus got into the church 
unobserved, and listening unseen, found his expectation exceeded, and therefore 
oifered the situation immediately. Overberg's disposition and humility inclined 
him to remain amongst the countrymen who were attached to him, but the offer 
was really a command from his vicar-general, (which Furstenberg then was,) and 
he had only to comply. On being desired to name his own salary, his modesty 
asked only for 200 thalers, (about $150,) with board and lodging in the episcopal 
seminary at Munster. He entered this, March, 1783, and here he died as prin- 
cipal, in J 826. 

The leading object of his intercourse with all, both old and young, with whom 
he came in contact, was to implant and cultivate a spiritual principle ; a principle 
coming from God's spirit and continually nourished by it alone, whilst he believed 
the means for obtaining this to be clear and impressive views of the truth and 
power of the Christian religion laid deeply in the character during childhood. 
'The relation and intercourse between God and man either by natural or revealed 
means was the great object of his instruction, and being so pervaded by this god- 
liness himself, his pupils became in some degree warmed by it. " Only that which 
comes from the heart can reach the heart," was a favorite saying of his ; and all 
who have heard him, agree in stating that a tone of cheerful piety seemed to 

* Not a resular normal school, but a gathering of teachers for special iustruUion in methods 
similar to our teachers' institutes. 



BERNARD OVERBERG. 247 

accompany the studies, even the common reading, writing, arithmetic, mensura- 
tion, &o., whilst the intellectual faculties thus developed were more easily brought 
under the power of the will, when the moral faculties were in healthy exercise. 
Catechetical as his instruction generally was, he avoided the extreme in which it 
is now used and its attendant error of cultivating the memory of children at the 
expense of their reflecting, and still more, their moral powers. lie never began 
with abstract truths of religion, &c., but with the imagination and actual experi- 
ence of the children ; so that the answer was not mere words or notions of the 
memory, but the enlargement of existing. ideas. His object was not so much to 
give information, as to give such information and such views of things, as would 
draw out all the good and amiable points of the character, and repress the 
contrary. 

Tiie office of schoolmaster in the district of Munster, was at that time performed 
in the more populous parishes by men who, intending to be clergymen, had gone 
through a part of the studies at the gymnasium, and then stopped for want of 
money, talents, or other causes ; but in the smaller parishes and scattered country 
places, it was performed by laborers, who, teaching in winter, returned to their 
worli in summei'. By far the greatest number of them were, of course, very 
ignorant and unfit for any intelligent teaching ; but their pay was poor in propor- 
tion, and many, having no room, made use of some bakehouse, or even an old 
chapel without a stove, in the cold nights of winter. To tempt them to an inter- 
nal improvement, Furstenberg began with an external one ; and for this, commis- 
sioned Overberg to visit all the village schools of the district. Some of the bad, 
superfluous, and unlicensed were closed, and instead of two or three inconvenient, 
one more convenient erected ; then every schoolmaster who offered himself for 
examination, and passed it creditably, had a yearly salary secured him of twenty, 
thirty, or even forty thalers, (each about 7-5 cents,) according to the population of 
his parish. The examination was to be repeated every three years, and they who 
wished to improve themselves were advised to attend the normal school at Mun- 
ster. The expenses of this attendance were all to be paid for them ; and in order 
tliat there might be no material omiss'on of their school duties, the attendance at 
the normal school was restricted to the usual time of their vacation, from August 
21, to the beginning of November. On this being settled, from twenty to thirty 
old scliool masters attended Overberg, and most thoroughly exercised his patience 
and charity, by their indescribable helplessness and incapacity for learning ; from 
nine to twelve, and from two to five, he instructed them in the principles of teach- 
ing, in religion, in Scripture history, in reading, writing, and arithmetic. He 
carefully prepared himself for this, by one and a half hour's study ; and he spent 
the rest of the day in reading with the most backward. Hopeless as all this 
trouble seemed at first, in a few years the result was rich in blessings. 

As was mentioned in the introduction, Overberg's zeal for the welfare of the 
ignorant poor produced in many others a similar feeling. Pupils soon came to his 
lectures whose fervent wish was to become efficient Christian teachers. The 
example of these influenced some of the more indolent; and many of the school- 
masters attended him, not only as long as government paid their expenses, but for 
many years afterwards. Ignorant and unpolished as were the greatest number 
of them at first, they scarcely ever required a reproof from him, feeling respect 
and affection when they saw his estimable character shine forth in its simplicity 
and friendliness. Their studies commenced with prayer ; and the dullest heart 
must have been, in some degree, moved when Overberg entered and began, 
" Come, Holy Ghost ;" whilst his simplicity of manner, his want of all appearance 
of study or learning, with his power and fervor, struck even those most accus- 
tomed to preaching. The source from whence he obtained all this may be seen 
from a rule in his diary. 

" Let in every thing, 1st, the love of God be the moving principle ; 2d, the will 
of God the guiding clue ; 3d, the glory of God the end. When this is done, then 
wilt thou walk before God and be perfect." Or more conscisely, " Do and suffer 
every thing from love to God, according to God's will and God's glory." Again, 
November 6, 1791, at the end of the course, having thanked God for his support, 
&c., he adds, " In previous years I felt more ashamed, having more reliance on 
my own powers, and more inclination to the vanity of pleasing men. This year 



248 BERNARD OVERBERG. 

Thou hast given me a stronger feeling of my weakness, more confidence in Thee, 
and greater desire to please Thee only." 

His extreme care in previous preparation, even for teaching the children of the 
free school, will be seen by a subsequent extract ; and the following shows clearly 
the great conscientiousness with which he performed the details of his daily in- 
struction, and particularly that of the young communicants. 

"April 12, 1790. I thank Thee, O Father in heaven, for the strength Thou 
gavest me when instructing the children yesterday for the first communion ; sup- 
port, O Jesus, those whom Thou hast fhus fed with thy flesh and blood ; supply 
by thy grace what through my fault or theirs was disjileasing in their hearts to 
Thee ; and help ine to avoid those faults in future. I began too late to watsh 
their conduct, in order to know their hearts, and so prepare them for thy advent. 
I persuaded myself I could make amends by my instruction, though this evi- 
dently requires observation of the character before. Thou knowest, indeed, that T 
often strove to instruct them from the purest motives ; but how often, when teach- 
ing, did vanity come in, and how oft get conmiand over me ! I frequently ob- 
served this at the time, and, struggling against it, got confused, obscure, and 
injured the children in consequence. Often, when led captive by vanity, I said 
something or left something unsaid, which I would not have done, had thy glory 
and the salvation of the children been my sole object ; and this was particularly 
the case when strangers were present. 

'' Writing out as much as possible previously was some safeguard against this 
folly, though it took away from the freedom and more touching simplicity of the 
lecture. 

" My getting confused and annoyed when the instruction did not go on as I 
wished, showed me what mixed motives yet governed me ; my satisfaction de- 
pended not so much on my own conduct, as on the result of the satisfaction it gave 
to others ; and although I struggled against all of this, it was not so earnestly as I 
ought to have done. O Lord Jesus, have mercy upon nie, and blot out all my 
misdeeds ! Make me a clean heart, and so shall I teach thy babes thy way ! 

" In order to avoid these faults in future, I will now take down the names of 
those who will probably attend the communion next year ; so that I may observe 
the state of their heart and mind, during the whole time. I will pray for them ; 
and when I think it will do good, I will mention them in the public prayers of the 
school. But, Lord, how can I have this singleness of view ? Thou must give it, 
and the strength to act accordingly ; I will fight, unwilling though I be, and do 
Thou grant that I may endure the fight to the end !" 

The above app'ies to the Lorraine free school, to which he paid constant atten- 
tion when conducting the normal school. But to recur to his plan of teaching in 
this, we may remark his praeti'^e of explaining and illustrating, by examples, the 
principles of moral philosophy on which teachers ought to proceed. His power 
of illustrative narration being very great, he could, when necessary, fill up the 
details of the picture so faithfully, that every one entered into it, and would prob- 
ably recollect some example from their own experience. Once, when illustra- 
ting some error in teaching, an old schoolmaster, struck with the ideal picture, 
cried out in low German, " Oh, Mr. Overberg, that is just what is done amongst 
us !" Frequently his pictures were highly comical, but respect for him was such 
as to prevent any one giving way to their feelings. In short, such was the varied 
talent shown in his lectures, that persons quite indifferent to the subject would 
crowd to hear them. 

Overberg was an admirer of nature in the highest and noblest sense, and in 
the wonders of creation he saw a representation of the Deity. Every leaf, every 
flower was to him a proof of the power, and goodness, and wisdom of God, and 
he must have accustomed himself to raise his views from the creature to the Crea- 
tor from his earliest years, it having, as he said, become a second nature to him. 
He earnestly impressed upon the teachers the pious consideration of the works of 
creation, giving them directions for it, and urging them to turn the attention cf the 
children to them as farly as possible. He thought that a teacher in the country 
ought occasionally ti^ give his lessons in the open air, and so teach the children to 
observe for themseives the end for which every thing is made, and how perfectly 



BERNARD OVERBERG. 249 

it is adapted to 't •, whilst views of the power and wisdom of God should thus be 
brought into lectures on re! gion. 

Valuable, however, as was the information given to the pupils, it was not more 
60 than the example of friendliness, humility, and patience which Overberg showed 
toward themselves; as when having twice clearly explained some very simple 
thing, he would quietly go over it again, if the answer of the pupil made it proba- 
ble it was not clearly comprehended, and thus the other pupils would see in prac- 
tice what is meant by adapting a subject to the powers of comprehension of the 
hearer without omitting any principle. 

The instruction was always closed by one of the church hymns to which he was 
very partial, and professed even in one of his latter years to have been much ben- 
efitted by the German hymn in the evening service of a village church. " Were 
I an ortic ating priest, (said he,) 1 would always use such a German litany 
instead of a Latin vesper. How impressive is that one beginning ' Have pity, 
Lord,' " &c. 

At the conclusion of the course, the students were examined, and provided with 
situations, and subsequently promoted according to their merit. 

Thus was he, under God, not merely the founder but the supporter of a system 
of education rich in blessings to his country, but besides this he had also the 
peculiar merit of educating a class of female teachers to which probably there is 
nothing similar elsewhere. Young women, not from necessity but piety, attended 
some of his lectures in the normal school, and his catechising in the free school, 
and the majority resisting subsequent temptations to give up their labors, continued 
devoted to them through life. These were appointed to different girls' schools, 
and the results were so good, and subsequently so notorious, that many of them 
were sent for into other countries, whilst others as readers or governesses became 
blessings to private families. He used to say that women made better teachers 
than men, and he regretted exceedingly that there was no normal school estab- 
lished for them at the same time with that at Biiren. 

His instruction in the Lorraine cloister school consisted in some hours being 
given three times a week to religion, Bible history, and arithmetic; to this, and 
particularly to the catechising the children in the church every Sunday, there 
came persons of all ranks, thinking that they then saw in Overberg a faithful fol- 
lower of Him who said, " Suffer little children," &c. How important he felt this 
instruction of the children to be, may be seen from the following extract from his 
journal : 

" January 15, 1790. Tliis morning I went into the school without sufficient pre- 
paration. O God ! help me to improve in this. It is a delusion to imagine that 
any thing is more necessary or ought to be preferred to this ; want of preparation 
draws many faults after it, the instruction becomes dry, confused, without point, 
ranibling ; lience the children are puzzled, their attention distracted, and the em- 
ployment becomes disagreeable to them and myself I must also be very careful 
not to go too much into details ; into too extended views, and become too learned 
for the little ones ; to comprehend and retain one good point is better for them 
than to hear ten and understand none well, or to miss the most important whilst 
thinking of the others. 

" O God, help me ever more and more to imitate the manner of teaching of thy 
beloved Son, so divinely simple, short, clear, and easily remembered. Grant^tliat 
before I propose any thing to the children, I may ask myself, ' Is it necessary ? 
Is it useful ? Is there not something more useful, which ought to be preferred to 
it ? Is it sufficiently comprehensible ? What is my object in proposing it ? Will 
it, when known, give them only an appearance of learning, &c. ? If so. away 
with it.' " 

" February 7, 1790. Tliou art teaching me, O my God, more and more for my 
own experience, that of myself I can do nothing. When I fear that the teaching 
which Thou hast committed to me will not go on well, then I am surprised at its 
success, and the contrary happens when I say, 'this time I shall succeed.' Is 
not this an intimation from Thee, not to trust on my own strength ? May thy 
grace help me to translate this into practice. O God, how many are thy favors ; 
even to-day I observed that Thou tiikest away my usual impediment to clear and 
krud utterance, whenever I have to speak in the church to the children. Ever 



250 BERNARD OVERBERG. 

grant me, O Lord, the gi-aee, (undeserving tliough I be, from having so frequently 
withstood it,) the grace, that in all I do, particularly as regards these children, I 
may look to thy will alone. O Father, my Father in Christ Jesus, do Thou he 
witli me, that 1 do not make the instruction of thy little ones needlessly difficult, 
giving them hard food instead of milk ; chaff" instead of corn ; attending too much 
to some, and neglecting others. Thou hast permitted me to enter upon a new 
way of instruction ; if it be not better, if it be not thy ivill that I should go on 
in it, do thou call me back ; if it be thy will, make it so clear to me, that I err 
not, and lead the children into by-paths, from which 1 must lead them back again. 
I am unworthy of thy favor, but Thou wilt not turn away from these little ones, 
sanctified by the blood of thy Son, and hence I rely on thy assistance May 1 be 
wholly thine, and so do moi'e for thy honor and the good of others. Oh, may not 
the trust which others place in me be disappointed." 

Thus did Overberg 'perform the apparently simple and easy duty of teaching 
children with a deep and holy earnestness, as in God's sight, and in the strength 
obtained by prayer. Jle knew and confessed what an important charge is the 
education of youth in prayer and filial intercourse with God. 

Such was his earnestness in the common daily teaching, and the blessings for 
which he prayed, attended it, not merely on the sensitive hearts of the young, but 
it softened also many hardened by age ; still his earnestness was doubled when the 
time for the sacrament drew near. He latterly took down, as we have said before, 
the names of the probable communicants a year before, and began carefully to 
observe the state of each, and direct them accordingly; the more immediate in- 
struction was given during an hour and a half daily during Lent, till the Third 
Sunday after Easter. He then gave them a compendium of the doctrines of 
Christianity, and to guard himself against digressions, he wrote out his lectures at 
length daily. These were attended by many adult hearers, particularly of the 
theological students, many of whom carried away the matter in their note bonks, 
however little they miglit be warmed by all the piety which animated the author. 
On Thursdays and Sundays during Lent, no strangers were admitted, because 
these days were devoted to repetition and examination in previous lessons. Be- 
sides this public teaching, he instructed, exhorted, and warned them unceasingly 
in private, according to the character and circumstances of each. He led them as 
their confessor, to reflect on the truths of salvation, to prayer, and particularly to 
careful examination of conscience. 

From time to time he prayed in the school for these communicants, and as the 
day approached, he sent for the parents, put before tliem their duty to their chil- 
dren, particularly that of personal example, and he made them promise to fullfil it. 
AA'hilst the children promised in writing that they would walk accoi'ding to the 
gospel, avoiding the danger to their faith and virtue, and using the means of 
grace; for himself, his earnest prayer was that he might be influenced in the 
selection of candidates, by nothing but their piety, and such was his zeal and anx- 
iety in all this, that he frequently had some illness when it was over. 

During the course of the year, after the first sacrament, the communicants were 
required to go to the Lord's table, from time to time together, and he always pre- 
pared them for it. 

Thus had he labored in this, and the weekly instructioTi of the children for 
twenty-seven years, in the school of the Lorraine cloister ; when this was closed, 
and the school made parochial, and tratisferred to the parish priest, who relieved 
him from the labor. 

The following is a specimen of his manner of addressing his normal 
pupils: 

jNIv beloved friends :— If you cherish sentiments of true benevolence, if the 
welfare of your scholars be of any importance or value to you, engrave deeply on 
your hearts the recommendations which I am about to address to you, and in the 
performance of the duties of your vocation, have them constantly presented to 
your mind. 

1. If you desire to honor God, let there be no levity or carelessness in your 
conduct. 



BERNARD OVERBERG. 251 

You can not use too much caution in this respect in the presence of your 
pupils ; their eyes are always directed to you, and are certainly far more penetra- 
ting than is generally imagined. They discover in you faults which you are not 
conscious of yourself, and these faults often shuck them more, and render you 
more contemptible in their eyes, than other and much greater ones would do in 
the eyes of men of your own age. Forget yourself but in a single instance, and 
you may produce on them an impression, deeper than all your good lessons, and 
all the efforts you have made for them. Be careful, then, even in the smallest 
things, as much as possible, not only not to give them a bad e;cample, but even an 
example which can not in all points be safely followed ; for your example acts with 
great power on their character ; it may produce immense good, or intinitely greater 
evil. Children pay more attention to the example of thejr superiors than to their 
lessons, however good and salutary they may be ; and since they have not dis- 
cernment to distinguish a slight and very excusable fault from one much greater, 
or a weakness natural to humanity from an action intentionally bad, they are often 
less shocked at the last than at the first. It is for this reason tliat we never can 
be too prudent in the presence of such spectators and such judges. It is precisely 
in this company, more than in any other, that it is necessary to be 7nost watchful 
over one^s self; and their society is, consequently, an excellent means of self-im- 
provement. Avoid, therefore, not only those vices which would cover you with 
shame in the eyes of all good men, but also those defects and weaknesses which 
you would not like your pupils to imitate, if even your equals would not notice 
them. 

2. Teach, on all occasions, not only by your words, but by your conduct and 
habits. 

Instruction thus given, is for your pupils, not only the most efficacious, but also 
the most easy. Thus, would you accustom them to neatness .' let them see in you 
th's good habit, while receiving your instructions on this subject; if you are your- 
self slovenly in your clothes and in your person, what will they think of your les- 
sons on neatness ? Would you form them to continuous activity ? never be idle 
yourself; work cheerfully ; and never let them see you without occupation. 
Would you introduce order in your school ? never let them sec any disorder, 
either in your own person or your affairs. Let good order be obvious in the class, 
in your habitation, in your household. He who throws every thing into confusion, 
and who, when he wants any thing, has sometimes to seek it in one corner, and 
sometimes in another, gives to his scholars a very sorry example of good order. 
Would you wish to teach them truth and fidelity ? never let any thing contrary to 
truth proceed from your own mouth, even in playfulness, lest this playfulness be 
misunderstood ; never make a promise or a threat which you can not or will not 
accomplish ; never leave a promise or a threat unperformed which you have made 
unconditionally, lest a motive should be attributed to you which would place you 
in the eyes of your pupils in the shade of suspicion of want of integrity. 

3 Inspire in your pupils obedience to, and respect for, their relations and 
their superiors ; and take particular care not to weaken the consideration which 
children ought to have for their parents. 

Do not those tutors commit a great sin, who never display more eloquence than 
when they chatter in the presence of your pupils on the awkwardness and igno- 
rance of men of a certain age, or of old men, because they have not learned this 
or that thing which is now taught at the schools? By acting thus, they not only 
deprive their children of all respect for their parents, which leads to the most fatal 
consequences, but they also inspire them with an insupportable pride, which makes 
them despise all that may be said or done by those older than themselves. 

4. Let the fear of God be visible in your actions, and in your manner on all 
occasions, especially in teaching religion. 

Manifest always the most serious displeasure when your pupils say or do any 
thing contrary to the lioly reverence which we owe to God, and take care your- 
self not to pronounce the name of God or of your Saviour with levity. Seek to 
have your own heart deeply impressed when you speak of truths of great import- 
ance ; for example, of the paternal goodness of God toward men ; of his mercy 



252 BERNARD OVERBERG. 

to sinners ; in the sufferings and death of Christ ; of the obedience and love which 
led hirn to subiuit to tliese suti'erings and this death ; of the favor which he has 
procured for us ; of the ordinances vvhicli lie has instituted in remembrance of his 
death; of the great rewards and terr.ble punishments of eternity, &c. Your 
emotion will manifest itself in your exterior deportment; it will render your words 
impressive, and will awaken like emotions in the hearts of your auditors. A sim- 
ple tear which may start in the eye of the master, and which is not the eflect of 
art, but the involuntary expression of a heart truly softened and penetrated by the 
importance of the subject, acts very powerfully on the hearts of children, and 
often produces in them impressions and resolutions which the most Uvely repre- 
sentations could not have eitected. 

5. By active compassion for the misfortunes of your neighbors^ you can ex- 
cite in the children pity, and teach them the right manner of sympathizino- 
with their fellow creatures^ in joy and mj adversity. 

Your manner of conducting yourself toward your pupils, will contribute much 
toward making them either courteous and charitable men, or morose and indif- 
ferent to their duties. If you act toward them as a good father ; if all your con- 
duct .shows them your love ; that you labor with all your power for their real 
good, and to be useful to them as much as possible ; and (because you love them) 
that you willingly render them services, and procure pleasures for them, (which 
may be often in themselves the merest trifles,) you will awaken in many of them, 
love, and the desire to oblige, for love is contagious. They will learn also from 
you, to render voluntary service to their companions and to others; this will be 
the result of your example. In a word, each virtue will appear to them more 
amiable, and more worthy of being imitated ; and you will be more sure than 
ever, that they will seek to acquire it, if it be manifest in your conduct. 

Oh, you can do much, yes, very much, to form the hearts of your pupils, if you 
will instru(^t them at the same time by your life and by your precepts. The best 
of opportunities is offered to you ; they are confided to your care precisely at the 
age when the instinct of curiosity and imitation acts with the greatest force ; when 
yoa have them daily w.th you, and can thus instill gradually according to their 
capacity, good doctrines and good sentiments. A drop which falls incessantly 
wears the hardest stones ; and much more easily can impressions be made on the 
unformed characters of children. The faults which perhaps they may have vihen 
you enter into relation with them, are not so deeply rooted that they can not be 
removed, if you give to the work attention and zeal. Y^ou can really produce 
more substantial good in their hearts, than their pastors can at a more advanced 
age. To destroy rooted vices is a difficult task, and often impossible to be accom- 
plished, whatever efforts may be tried ; but to prevent them, to stifle them in their 
commencement, to fashion the mind when it is still pliant ; this is a much easier 
work, and one which, by the blessing of God, will succeed, if the master teach by 
his actions, as well as by precept. Do not shrink from the task ; it is the most 
noble, the most respectable, the most imposing that you can undertake. 

Do not allow yourself to be frightened or arrested in a work so excellent, by the 
difficulties which it presents, many of which exist only in your imagination. The 
duty to which I now exhort you, that of leading a life irreproachable and edifying 
before God and before the children, is a duty obligatory upon you as Christians ; 
it ought to be of importance to you even if you should not be schoolmasters ; but 
as such, as directors of youth, who are to be formed by your teaching and by your 
example, you are doubly engaged to this duty. 

If, then, you love yourselves ; if you love these little ones confided to your care, 
and placed under your responsibility ; if you love Him who is their Saviour and 
yours, follow also his example on this point, teaching like him by words and actions ; 
be to your pupils on all occasions, " a pattern of good works." (Titus ii. 7.) " Let 
your light so shine before them, that they, seeing your good works, may do like- 
wise, and with you, glorify your Father who is in heaven." 

We add a few suggestions in the same spirit by Zeller, and Becken- 
dorf— translated from " Le Miroir des Instituteurs, ou Conseils sur 
1' Education." 



C. B. ZELLER. 



253 



C. B. ZELLER. 

We have, in our brief sketch of the history of primary education in 
Germany, alluded to the enthusiastic labors of Zeiler, a pupil of Pesla- 
lozzi. The following fragment by him on the '• Influence of Example" 
in a teacher, exhibit the spirit with which he regarded the work of 
education. 

Young minds can at all times be acted upon without words, simply by example. 
The further any person is from what he ought to be, the more does he experience 
this influence. The less his mind is developed, the more is he urged by a pro- 
pensity to imitate, to direct and govern himself according to what he sees and 
hears in the society of other men, better, older, stronger, more skillful, and more 
experienced than himself. This is a truth that can not be too often dwelt upon, 
especially in these days, when we attribute so many wonders to the power of 
words. Yes ; example alone, a life of practice without display, exercises a most 
marked influence on the soul, the character, and the will ; for the conduct of a 
man is the true expression of his being, and gives a tone to (or animates) every 
thing around him ; consequently nothing can remain uninfluenced within the 
sphere of a living being. There emanates from the active noiseless life of a single 
individual, power which is to others, either " a savour of life unto life, or a savour 
of death unto death." 

This explains to us why parents, simple, and without culture, especially mothers, 
who perhaps have never opened a book on education, and speak very little to their 
children, yet offer them every day the example of a lively afFeelion, and a well- 
employed though retired life, bestow an excellent education •, while, on the other 
hand, we see the children of well instructed parents frequently turn out ill, who 
have been acted upon by words alone, rather than by example, and who contem- 
plate around them a class of beings who exercise no good moral influence. Alas ! 
that all parents and instructors knew how much power there is in being virtuous, 
and how little in only appearing to be so ! 

There can never be any efficacious or happy influence in the example of a 
hypocrite. Many people avoid showing before children what they really are ; they 
speak and act in their presence as persons of morality, modesty, and piety ; but it 
is only a cloak to cover their internal corruption, their self love, and want of 
charity. These are hypocrites ; their piety is but babbling, a tongue which they 
have learned, as we learn a foreign language, but it is not their mother tongue ; 
the fruit is of no greater value than the tree which produces it. 

It concerns all who are called to occupy themselves in education, to consider the 
holy lesson taught by a well beloved disciple of the Saviour, in these words : " Be 
thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in 
faith, in purity." 1 Tim. iv. 12. " In all things showing thyself a pattern of 
good works ; in doctrine showing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound speech, 
that can not be condenmed ; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, 
having no evil thing to say of you." Titus ii. 7, 8. 

Here we address the following exhortations to all persons, parents or tutors, 
who are charged with the task of education, beseeching them to give serious 
attention thereto. 

1 . Be what the children ought to be. 

2. Do what they ought to do. 

3. Avoid what they should avoid. 

4. Aim always that, not only in the presence of the children, but also in their 
absence, your conduct may serve them for an example. 

5. Are any among them defective ? examine what you are yourself, what you 
do, what you avoid ; in a word, your wliole conduct. 

6. Do you discover in yourself defects, sins, wanderings? Begin by improving 
yourself, and seek afterwards to improve your children. 

7. Think well that those by whom you are surrounded, are often only the re- 
flection of yourself. 

8. If you lead a life of penitence, and seek daily to have grace given you, it will 
be imparted to you, and Uirough you to your children. 



254 



SCHOOL-COUNSELOR BECKENDORF. 



9. If you always seek Divine guidance, your children will more willingly be 
directed by you. 

10. The more obedient you are to God, the more obedient will your children be 
to you ; thus in his childhood the wise Solomon asked of the Loi'd " au obedient 
heart," in order to be able to judge and govern his people. 

11. As soon as the master becomes lukewarm iu communion with God, that 
lukewarmness will extend itself among his pupils. 

12. That which forms a wall of separation between God and yourself, will be a 
Bource of evil to your children. 

13. An example in which love does not form a chief feature, is but as the light 
of the moon ; it is cold and feeble. 

14. An example animated by an ardent and sincere love, shines like the sun ; 
it warms and invigorates. 



BECKENDORF. 

The following questions were prepared by School-Counselor Beck- 
endorf for the teachers of primary schools in Prussia. 

I. On awaking this morning, did I think first of God, or of the things of the 
world ? 

■ 2. In commencing the day, have I consecrated myself anew in prayer to my 
God and Saviour ? 

3. Have 1 implored his blessing on the l.ibors of the day, especially seeking his 
favor for the children confided to my care ? 

4. Have I besought him especially for such of the children as have the greatest 
need of assistance ? 

5. Have I commenced the day full of strength and confidence in God ? 

6. Have I sufficiently reflected, before school hours, on what I have to do 
through the day ? 

7. Have I suitably prepared myself for my duties ? 

8. Are my cares extended equally to all my pupils, or do I manifest more inter- 
est in some than I do in others ? 

9. Has my attention been more particularly directed, and according to their 
need, to those among them who were weaker or more idle than the rest? 

10. Or, consulting only my own taste, have I occupied myself more willingly 
with the most intelligent, and those most desirous of being instructed ? 

II. In what manner have I influenced their moral progress ? 

12. With regai'd to that which is exterior, have I required order, quietness, 
suitable manners, cleanliness ? 

13. Have I not been guilty of any negligence in these respects, from idleness 
or inattention ? 

14. Have I not from disgust, abandoned to their evil propensities, some children 
who resisted all my efforts ? 

15. Have I not, without confessing it to myself, condemned some among them 
as incorrigible? 

16. And have I not thus neglected one of my most important duties; that of 
never despairing of the improvement of a single child confided to me ? 

17. When it has been necessary to censure, punish, or recall to duty by exhort- 
ation, have I done it with calmness, reflection, and in an impressive manner ? 

18. Or have I yielded to precipitancy, impatience, anger, and want of charity ; 
or, on the other hand, have I been too indulgent ? 

19. Am I in general just with regard to my pupils ? 

20. Have I not an ill-judged aversion to some, and predilection for others? 

21. On what is this partially founded ? 

22. And if I can not in my heart excuse myself for these sentiments, ought I 
to allow them to have any influence on my conduct ? 

23. Have I not thus given to the children themselves reason to accuse me of 
partiality ? 

24. Do I not yield in general to the influence and disposition of the moment, and 



SCHOOL-COUNSEiOR BECKENDORF. 255 

am I not thereby unequal, and capricious ; sometimes veiy kind, and sometimes 
causelessly in a bad humor, or even passionate and violent ? 

25. When it is necessary to i-eprove or punish, do 1 seek always to bear in mind 
the particular character of the pupil with whom I have to do, in order to guide 
myself aocoidingly in my reproof or punishment? 

26. D<j 1 always distinguish offenses which proceed from levity, indolence, or 
rooted habits, fi-oni those which are the result of evil dispositions? 

27. Have I not sometimes unconsciously excited the desire of praise, and pro- 
moted vanity or selfishness ? 

28. Have I not been to-day an occasion of stumbling and scandal to my pupils ? 

29. Has there not been in my conduct, thoughtlessness, levity, harshness, and 
want of love, or even pleasure in inflicting pain ? 

30. Have I not given proofs of egotism, vanity, attachment to my own interests, 
or of self sufficiency ? 

31. Have I sought to obtain over the parents of my pupils, the influence which 
I ought to endeavor to acquire if I am faithful in my vocation ? 

32. Have I not allowed myself to be led astray in the fulfillment of this duty, 
by pride, self love, or a misplaced sensitiveness ? 

33. Have I sufScient confidence in Him, without whose will not a hair of my 
head falleth, and who knoweth what I have need bf ? 

34. Do I, in the difficult position and sphere of action in which God has placed 
me, wish for more ease, simply for the pleasure of enjoying it ? 

35. £)o I not in my heart feel mortified at the directions of my employers ; and, 
on these occasions, do I manifest ill humor ? 

36. Am I ready to remain inflexible in the confession of truth ; and, if it be 
the will of God, to suffer for this confession, without tm-ning fi-om the right path, 
either to one side or the other ? 

37. Have I been faithful to the resolutions renewed this morning? 

38. Have I not fallen into old faults and habits, which, even to-daj', I had 
determined to renounce ? 

39. And if I have sinned anew, ought I not to implore a double measure of 
strength to surmount happily at last those obstacles which have opposed my pro- 
gress for so long a time ? 

40. In fine, have I made to day any progress in knowledge and virtue ? 

41. Have I labored to improve myself in my vocation, even out of the hpm's in 
which are presented to me positive and regular occupation ? 

42 Have I read any portion of Holy Scripture, or other useful books ? 

43. Have I there learned something which I can consider as the profit of the 
day, for my spiritual advancement ? 

These are a few questions which a conscientious tutor may address to himself, 
some of them every day, others at longer intervals ; and those who would give 
themselves the trouble to examine their own hearts, would be able to add to them 
many more. 

We intended to have added a few additional remarks respecting the 
system of school inspection as administered in Prussia. We will sim- 
ply remark, that religious ministers are, ex-nfficio^ inspectors of the 
schools of their respective religious sects, and ohliged to visit the same, 
and report on their condition to the Kreishul or union inspector, of which 
there are two in each union — both of whom are ecclesiastical digni- 
taries, one in the Protestant and the other in the Catholic Church. To 
secure the requisite qualification for the duties of school inspection, the 
Prussian government has, within a few years, made a law that every 
young student for holy orders shall in future produce, at his examination 
for, and before his admission to the same, a certificate of his having 
passed an examination in pedagogy, conducted by the principal of the 
college and his professors. This is an important step in the right direc 



256 SCHOOL INSPECTOR. 

tion. To be able to conduct the examination, whether of teachers or 
schools, in a satisfactory and profitable manner, requires a familiar and 
practical acquaintance not only with the studies, but with the best meth- 
ods of classification, discipHne, and instruction. To this end, inspectors 
should be selected from the best educated, and most efficient and suc- 
cessful school teachers. An additional grade will thus be added to the 
scale of promotion open to teachers, and the stimulus will be felt through 
the entire profession, and at the same time the work of school inspection 
will be more thoroughly attended to. 



SAXONY. 



The constitution of Saxony, although monarchical, isbased upon repre- 
sentative institutions. The members of the lower chamber are elected 
by freeholders, and almost every head of a family is a freeholder. 

Saxony was one of the earliest of the German states to convert the 
parochial schools of the old ecclesiastical organization into public schools, 
and to provide for the special training of teachers to the duties of their 
profession. In the cession of a large portion of her territory to Prussia in 
181G, several of her best teachers' seminaries, and higher literary institu- 
tions, were transferred to that power, and with them went several of her 
most devoted and distinguished educators, and among them the celebrated 
School Councilor Dinter. 

The present school law was given in 1836, and since that time more 
has been done in Saxony for the improvement of common schools than 
in any other German state. Particular attention has been paid to the 
regular attendance of children at school ; to the supervision of both public 
and private schools, and to the qualification and compensation of teachers. 

A number of common schools, corresponding to the wants of the people, 
is insured by a division of the kingdom into school circuits (schul-bezirke,) 
and all the children residing in each circuit must attend the school there 
established. No boy can be apprenticed until after the age at which he 
may lawfully leave school. Congregations of different religious persua- 
sions are allowed to establish schools in their circuit, and if no other school 
exists than one so established, all the children of the circuit are bound to 
attend it ; they are not, however, required to take part in the religious 
instruction. 

Every school circuit must furnish a school-house, and a dwelling for the 
teacher. The schools are supported from funds of the church, from the 
interest on donations to the school fund, from fines levied on parents who 
neglect to send their children to school, from a payment made to the 
school fund in purchases of property, from collections, from the fees paid 
by the pupils, and from direct taxation. These funds are chargeable with 
the jnaster's salary, with the furniture of the school, books and slates for 
poor children, prizes, insurance, and incidental expenses. 

Primary schools in Saxony, as in Prussia, are of two grades. In the 

17 



258 PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN SAXONY. 

lower, or elementary school, pupils must receive instruction, by law, in : — 
1. Religion. 2. Exercises of speech and reading. 3. Caligraphy and 
orthography, with written exercises on subjects relating to the affairs of 
common life. 4. Mental and written arithmetic. 5. Singing. 6. The 
most important portions of natural history, geography, and history, espe- 
cially those of the country. The details of the school plan are left to the 
teacher and local school inspector. 

In the higher grade, or lower burgher school, the amount taught in 
these branches is increased, and exercises of style, geometry, and draw- 
ing, are added. 

The books used in the Protestant schools are, the Bible, Luther's Cat- 
echism, the hymn book, and three reading books, the selection of which 
is made by the local school inspector. In the Roman CathoHc schools, 
the selection of books is left to the ecclesiastical authorities. 

The regular time for attendance is six hours on three days in the week, 
and four on two other days, making twenty-six hours per week. The 
vacations are regulated by the church festivals, and last about a week^t 
a time. Children above ten years of age, in the country, are exempted, 
during harvest time, from attendance at school. 

The punishments are chiefly addressed to the moral sentiments, but 
corporeal chastisement, in extreme cases, is allowed. The code of dis- 
cipline is required to be placed in a conspicuous situation in the school- 
room. 

Every child must attend school for eight years, (from the age of six to 
fourteen,) and there is attached to each school a person whose duty it is 
to ascertain the causes of the absences of pupils, and who is entitled to a 
small fee from the parents for each call he makes upon them. According 
to statistics in the " German School Gazette," every child of a suita- 
ble age and of sound capacity was in some school, public or private, for a 
portion of the year 1846. 

The kingdom is divided into four circles, in each of which there is a 
school board, which has charge of all primary schools, and teachers' sem- 
inaries, and regulates all appointments of teachers, and all pecuniary al- 
lowances — subordinate only to the Minister of Public Instruction. 

Next in authority is a district board of inspectors, having charge of a 
certain number of schools — subordinate to the school board of the circle. 
The district board consists of a superintendent, the highest ecclesiastical 
and civil authority in the district, and a representative of the patrons of 
each school. The superintendent is the district inspector ; who must 
counsel with the board, visit all schools, and report on the fidelity and ca- 
pacity of each teacher. 

The lowest authority is a committee for each school circuit, composed 
of four persons, one of whom must be a clergyman, who must assemble 
on fixed days to consult together for the interests of the schools, must 
hold semi-annual examinations in the presence of the district inspector, and 
report annually on the condition of the classes. 

No person can be licensed who has not attained twenty-one years of 



PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN SAXONY. 259 

age, passed one examination as a candidate, served two years as an as- 
sistant, and passed a second examination of a higher grade ; as, by the 
law of 1825, he must have graduated at a teachers' seminary. There 
are now nine of these institutions, besides a seminary for classical teachers, 
which was established in Leipsic in 1784, by Beck, and in which Her- 
mann and Klotz subsequently gave instruction, for twelve students in 
philology, meeting twice a week. The annual graduates of these Normal 
Schools are now sufficient to supply all vacancies which occur in the 
schools. The state appropriates 14,050 thalers, (about S12.000.) annually 
to the support of these seminaries. 

The prescribed course of instruction occupies four yeafs, and no one 
can now receive a certificate of qualification as a teacher without having 
gone through this course, or showing an* amount of attainment and prac- 
tical skill which shall be deemed its equivalent. 

The seminaries were located as follows in 1848: 



Twn at Drp'idcn J ^^^ Royal, with 7 teachers and 71 pupils. 

iwoat uresaen, ^ The Fletcher, " 6 " " 21 " 

One at Freiberg, 

One at Zitlau, 

One ai Bredissin, 

One at Plauen, 

One al Grimma, 



One at Annaberg, 
One at Waldenberg, 



4 " " 73 

2 " " 13 
6 " " 42 

5 " " 45 

6 " " 70 

3 " " 12 
2 " " 15 



The Royal Seminary at Dresden was founded in 1785, by Elector 
Augustus IV., and formerly possessed the celebrated Dinter as one of its 
directors. It was intended for fifty pupils, with a staff of four oflicers, in- 
cluding the directors. All the pupils, except those whose parents live in 
Dresden, board and lodge in the institution with the officers. Calinisch, 
one of the highest educational authorities jn Germany, is vice-director. 
Coimected with the seminary are six common schools, of the city, in 
which the pupils of the seminary acquire practice. 

The Fletcher Seminary was founded by Baron Fletcher in 1825, .ind 
has its own administration, although it is aided by the government. Pro- 
vision is made in the institution for twenty pupils, who, for the annual 
charge of about Sj^SO, receive board, lodging and instruction, and in the 
second and third year of their course, a still larger allowance is made, 
especially to the poor and deserving. There is an institution for deaf 
mutes in the same building. 

The government makes its appropriation in aid of local eflfort, and funds 
and graduates its payments according to the character and standing of 
the several teachers — providing that no teacher shall receive less than 
130 thalers in the country, and 140 in the towns, besides a residence. In 
1846, out of 2,142 teachers, only 315 received less than 130 thalers, 
(equivalent here to $130,) and all but 687 were engaged not only through 
the year, but permanently, and had a residence. 

The government has also established, on a foundation of 30,000 thalers, 
an institution, commenced in 1840, by Dohner, for superannuated teachers, 



260 PRIMAKT INSTRUCTION IN SAXONY. 

and the widows and orphans of teachers. To secure the benefits of the 
fund, teachers of the first class, (teachers in gymnasia, real schools and 
seminaries,) pay at their admission 4 thalers, and annually from 4 to 8 
thalers. according to their salary. Teachers of the second class, (of 
common schools,) pay 2 thalers, and yearly from 1 to 4 thalers, accord- 
ing to their salary. The state takes care of the funds, and makes up 
any deficiency of the revenue of the fund to meet the demand upon it, 
besides a contribution of 2,000 thalers toward the capital. The fund 
yields : — 1. To the widows of teachers of the first class, yearly, 60 thalers. 
2. To orphans of teachers of the same class. 12 thalers until they reach 
iheir eighteenth year. 3. To widows of teachers of the second class, 30 
thalers, and to their children 8 thalers. Teachers are thus not only 
provided against want while living, but from anxiety for their families, 
when dead, or incapacitated for active exertion. The result of these wise 
provisions on the part of the government, is seen in the improved and 
improving condition of the schools, and the higher attainments, profes- 
sional skill, and social standing and influence of the teachers. 

With a population of 1,809,023 in 1846, there was one university with 
85 professors and 835 students ; six academies of the Arts and Mining, with 
43 professors and teachers, and 1,400 pupils ; eleven gymnasia, with 131 
teachers, and 1,590 pupils; six higher burgher and real schools, with 18 
teachers, and 270 pupils ; three special institutions for commerce and 
military affairs, with 43 teachers and 240 pupils ; nine teachers' seminaries, 
with 41 teachers, and 362 pupils ; seventeen higher schools of industry 
or technical schools, with 72 teachers and 779 pupils; sixty-nine lower 
technical schools, with — teachers, and 6,966 pupils ; twenty-four schools 
for lace-making, with 37 teachers and 1,928 pupils; and 2,155 common 
schools, with 2,175 teachers and 278.022 pupils ; besides one institution lor 
the blind ; one for deaf mutes; three orphan asylums; and a number of 
infant schools and private seminaries. 

The following account of the Royal Seminary, or College for Teach- 
ers, in Dresden, is taken with some alterations from Kay's " Social Con- 
ditum and Education of the People in England and Europe,^'' 2 vols., 
published by Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1850. We 
have appended to this account remarks by the same author, on the 
practical working of the system of public instruction in Saxony, espe- 
cially in its relations to the teacher. 



ROYAL SEMINARY 



TEACHERS AT DRESDEN. 



The Royal Seminary, or College for Teachers, at Dresden, was 
fountled in 1785. and celebrated its 50t.h commemoration day on the 31st 
October, 1835. and at the end of 1842, it had educated and sent out 
above 655 teachers, who had pursued a four years course of study and 
practice, a course which Mr. Kay, a graduate of Oxford, pronounces 
much more liberal, than nine-tenths of the undergraduates of either 
Oxford or Cambridge, receive. In 1843. there was one thoroughly ed- 
ucated and trained teacher for every 588 inhabitants. In consequence 
of their thorough, liberal, and practical education, the common school 
teachers of Saxony, occupy a social position, which is not accorded to 
the profession in any other country. 

The number of students who attend the lectures and classes of the college, is 
limited to seventy ; of these, sixty are lodged gratuitously in the institution ; the 
remaining ten dwell with their parents or relations in the town. Twenty of the 
places in the college have been endowed by the government, and are therefore in 
its gift. The ablest of the candidates for admission are elected to them. 

The examination of candidates for admission to the college is held every Easter. 
As the life in the norinal college costs little or nothing, the lodgng and education, 
if not the whole expenses, being given gratuitously ; and, as a young man, who 
distinguishes himself in the college is certain to be chosen by some school commit- 
tee af erward as teacher, there are always plenty of candida:es for admiss'on from 
the middle and lower classes of .society. All these are subjected to a rigorous ex- 
amination ; their acquirements, their character, and their past life, are most care- 
fully scrutinized; and, from among them all the most promising are chosen for 
preparation for the teacher's profession. No candidate can be elected who is not 
healtiiy and strong, who has not a powerful and clear voice, or who is lame, short- 
sghted, or deaf. Every one must be at least sixteen years old, and must present 
to the examiners a certificate of a medical man of freedom from all organic com- 
plaints, and of sound health. 

The course of education in this college, as in all the other colleges in Saxony, is 
of FOUR year's duration : no student can leave before the end of this time, and 
even then, he can not obtain admission into the ranks of the teachers, unless he 
can pass the prescribed examination for diplomas. 

The students are divided into three classes ; each young man remains, during 
the first two years of his residence, in the third and second classes; but, during 
his third and fourth years' residence, he pursues his studies in the first class. The 
staff of professors and teachers in the college consist of, — 

1st. The Director, (Dr. Otto, in 1845.) 

2nd. A Vice-Principal. 

3rd. A Professor of Mathematics. 

4th. A Professor of Music. 

5th. Daily Teachers for Writing, Drawing, and Violin playing. 

The director gives, every week, fourteen, the vice-principal sixteen, the third 
professor seventeen, and the fourth professor twenty-three houi-s' instruction t« 
the students. 



262 



PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN SAXONY. 



The following table will show what the subjects of instruction are in the college, 
and how the time of residence is divided between them. 



TIME TABLE IN TEACHERS' COLLEGE IN DRESDEN. 





Silmmei 






Winter 








Half Year. 


Half Yea 




Classes. 




^ 


umber 


of 


Number of 


Hour 


s each 
n Claes 


kVeek 


Hours each 
in Class 


Week 


4 




I. 

2 


11. 

2 


III. 
2 


2 


n. 
2 


III. 

2 


1. Religion. 







1 


1 


2 


1 


1 


2. Explanation of the Scriptures, 







1 


1 





1 


1 


3. Scripture history. 




3 


1 


1 


3 ■ 


() 





4. Catechism. 




1 








1 








5. Religious exhortation. 




2 








2 








6. Pedagogy. 







3 


3 





3 


3 


7. Special methods of teaching. 




2 


1 


1 


2 





( 


{ 8. I. Rhetoric and reading exercises; II, | 


1 and III. Mental calculations. 




1 


I 


1 


1 


1 


1 


9. Recitation. 




2 








2 








10. Natural philosophy. 







2 


2 





2 


2 


11. Natural history. 







1 


1 





1 


1 


12. Geography. 




1 

















13. Mathematical geography. 




1 


1 


1 


1 


1 


1 


14. History. 




1 


2 


2 


1 


2 


2 


15. German language. 




2 








2 








16. Latin language. 




2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


17. Writing. 




? 


2 


1 


2 


2 


2 


18. Arithmetic. 




a 


1 


2 











19. Geometrical drawingi 




1 








1 


1 


1 


20. Geometry. 




2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


21. Drawing. 










1 


1 


1 


2 


22. Singing.' 




1 


1 


1 


1 


1 


1 


23. Choral singing. 




1 


1 














24. Quartet singing. 




2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


25. Concert singing. 




6 


3 


2 


3 


1 


6 


< 26. Organ playing ; II. and III. 
I playing. 


Violin 


13 


19 


19 


7 


12 


6 


27. Preparation and exercise hours. 




2 
52 


2 
51 


2 
50 


2 
42 


2 
40 


2 
40 


28. Gymnastic exercises. 




T»tal number of hours per week. 



The students rise in summer at 5 o'clock, and in winter at 6 o'clock, in the 
morning : as soon as they are dressed, they meet in one of the class-rooms, where 
the director reads the morning prayers ; their hours of study are from 7 to 12 
A. M., and from 2 to 5 P. M. 

Connected with the college is a primary school for children of that district of 
the city, in which the college is situated : this school is under the dii'ection of a 
regularly appointed and experienced teacher, and is attended by 105 children, who 
are divided into three classes, to each of which is assigned a separate class-room 
in one part of the college buildings. In these classes, a certa>in number of students 
from the college first practice teaching under the eye, and aided by the advice of 
the teacher. 

At the end of this long and careful preparation, they are called before the board 
of examiners. If the young man is a Protestant, his religious examination is con- 
ducted by the board of examiners themselves ; but if he is a Romanist, a priest it 
jdned tb the bf>ard, and coliduets the feligioue part of the examination. 



ROYAL SEMINARY AT DRESDEN 263 

The examination last three days. 

On tlie first day the subjects are — 

From 1 to 10 o'clock, A. M. Scripture history. 

" 10 to 12 " " Pedagogy, 

" 2 to 4 " P. M. Mathematics and the theory of ttiusic. 
The answers to the questions of the first day's examination are given in writing. 
On the second day the subjects are — 

! Catechising a class of village school 
children on some subject of elementary 
TBstruction. 
{Reading ; 
Arithmetic; and 
An object lesson given to school chil* 
dren. 
A viva voce examination — 
In religion ; 
1 to 2 " P. M. "{ The Scriptures ; 

I Luthers catechism ; and 
I Pedagogy. 

! German language ; 
Logic ; and 
Psychology. 
{History ; 
Geography ; 
Natural philosophy ; and 
Natural history. 
On the third day the subjects of examination are — 
Organ playing ; 
Singing •, 
Piano-forte ; and 
Violin. 
If the young candidate, who had been educated for four years in a teachers* 
college, can not pass this examination so as to satisfy the examiners, he is obliged 
to continue his studies until he can do so. But if he passes the exaniiiiatron in a 
satisfactory manner, the examiners grant him a diploma, which is marked '' ex- 
cellent," " good," or " passable," according to the manner in which he acquilted 
himself in his examination. 

If the young candidate does not obtain a certificate marked " excellent," but 
only one marked " good," or "passable," he can notoflSciate as teacher, until he 
has spent two years in some school as assistant to an experienced teacher. 

At the end of this time, he is obliged again to present himself to the board of 
examiners, who examine him again in the most careful and searching manner. If 
he passes this examination, he receives another diploma marked " excellent," 
" good." or " passable," according to his merit, and if he obtains a diploma 
marked " excellent" he is enrolled among the members of the teachers' profes- 
sion, and is allowed to officiate either as a private tutor or as a village teacher. 
But if he can not obtain this diploma, he is obliged to continue to act as an assist- 
ant teacher until he can do so. Seminar Director Dr. Otto, the principal of the 
normal college, and a member of the board of examiners, assured me, that it was 
a common thing for candidates to be examined four or five times, before they suc- 
ceeded in obtaining a teachers' diploma. When they have at last succeeded, they, 
as well as those, who obtained the diploma marked " excellent" in the first examin- 
ation, are eligible as teachers. 

The school committee of the different parishes elect their own teachers. The 
only condition, to which this right is subjected, is, that they mtiy not elect any 
person, who has not obtained a diploma of competence from the board of ex- 
aminers. 

When a teacher dies or vacates his situation, the .school committee is required 
by law to elect another within two months to fill his place. All candidates for the 
vacant office are examined in the preEcnce of the Ecbool committee and of those 



264 



PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN SAXONY. 



inhabitants of the parish or town who desire to be present ; and after the 
examination, the school committee proceed to elect the candidates whom 
they consider the best qualified to fill the vacant situation. But even after 
this examination before the paroch'al or municipal school authorities, the suc- 
cessful candidate is generally obliged to present himself to another committee in 
Dresden, called the Landeonsistorium, for examination, before he can finally be 
inducted into his hard-won office. Such is the great the seemingly exaggerated 
precautions, which are taken by the Saxon people to secure good and efficient 
teachers for the schools. If, at any of these different examinations, any thing is 
discovered against the moral or religious character of the candidate, he is imme- 
diately rejected. His moral as well as his religious character is carefully scruti- 
nized before his reception into the Training College, and by each of the different 
bodies of examiners, before whom he is obliged afterward to appear. If his pre- 
vious life can not bear this scrutiny, or if the principal or professors of his college 
can not bear testimony to his morality and to his religious demeanor during his 
residence, he is rejected, and is not permitted to enter the profession. 

It is easy to perceive how high a teacher, who has passed all these examinations 
and scrutinies, must stand in the estimation of his country and of those who sur- 
round him more immediately. As Dr. Otto said to me, " The great number of 
examinations, that a young man must pass through, before he can become a teacher, 
is important, not only in preventing any unworthy person ever bi-ing admitted 
into the teachers' profession, but also, and more especially, in raising the profes- 
sion in the estimation of the public. The people have a great respect for men, 
who have, as they know, passed so many and such severe examinations. They 
attend with more attention and respect to their counsels and instruction." And 
certainly, until the teacher is respected by the people, his teaching will be produc- 
tive of but little profit. To be a teacher in Germany is necessarily to be a man 
of learning and probity. None but such a person can be a teacher. Can we 
say the same in England ? How many of our teachers are only uninstructed wo- 
men, or poor uneducated artizans ; or rude and unlettered pedagogues ; or even 
immoral and low-minded meti ? How many have never been educated in any 
thing more than reading, writing, and a little ciphering ? How many have never 
been into a teacher's college ? How many have only been instructed in such a 
college for the ridiculously short period of six months? How many have never 
been educated at all ? And yet over Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, 
Holland, and France, every teacher has been carefully trained for some twelve or 
fourteen years, in preparation for his duties ; has passed at least two, generally 
three, and often four years, in a teachers' college, under the instruction of learned 
and high-minded men, conscious of the importance of their work ; has passed 
with credit several severe examinations, and has only finally been received into the 
teachers' profession, after a most careful scrutiny into his character and accom- 
plishments has given an assurance to his country of his fitness for the important 
duties of his profession. 

But strange and humiliating as is the contrast between the care, that is taken in 
Saxony and in England to prepare and elect efficient teachers for the village 
schools, the contrast between the situations of the teachers in the two countries, 
after election, is no less sad. In Saxony, as indeed throughout Germany. Sv\itzer- 
land, Holland, Denmark, and France, great pains are taken to make the teacher's 
rank in society, and his situation, worthy the acceptance of an educated man. The 
ti acher is never left dependent upon uncertain charity. If his salary is sometimes 
small, it is at least fixed and certain. The minimum is fixed by goverment, and 
no parish or town-committee may offer less than this salary to its teacher. More- 
over, the teacher is never degraded into being his own tax-gatherer. The pari.sh 
or town is obliged to arrange with the teacher, before his appointment, how much 
he shall receive, when he shall receive it, and how he shall receive it. The com- 
mittee is obliged to collect the funds necessary for cleansing, warming, repairing, 
and furnishing tTie school-buildings, and for faying the teachers. If they neg- 
lect to pay the teacher regularly, he can always appeal to the county magistrates, 
who oblige the parochial or town-committee to perform its duty. 

Wlien a teacher has become too old, or too weak to perform all his accustomed 
duties in the Bchool-room, tiie inspector of the disti-iot decides, whether he shall 



ROYAL SEMINARY AT DRESDEN. 265 

be dismissed with a pension ; or, whether the committee shall engage an assistant 
teacher, to aid him in the school-'oom. The widows and children of deceased 
teachers are pensioned oft' in Saxony, in the same manner as in Prussia, and the 
funds for this purpose are raised by the same means. 

Another most important regulation is, that no person or persons in immediate 
personal connection with a teacher, shall Lave the power of dismissing him, after 
he is once elected. It must be evident to all, how much this is tending to lower 
the independence and respectability of the teachers of England. A pi'ivate pat- 
ron, a clergyman, or a committee of parishioners has the power in almost every 
case, in our country, of dismissing a teacher. How often this has been done 
merely on account of some personal pique, or because the teacher would not sub- 
mit to their crude notions of how a school ought to be managed ; or fi'om misrep- 
resentation ; or from mere village squabbles, 1 have no need to remind any of my 
readers. That such a dismissal is possible, every one will admit. How such a 
piisiibility must often damp a good and earnest teacher's energy, or undermine 
his honesty and destroy his usefulness, or at least lower his profession in the eyes 
of the people around him, is but too evident. But in Germany, no person in im- 
mediate connection with the teacher can dismiss him on any pretext whatsoever. 
His judges are distant, unprejudiced, and impartial persons. In Sa.\ony, after the 
parish has elected its teacher, it loses all direct power over him. The parochial 
minister or committee can inspect the school, when he or they please. Indeed, it is 
their duty to do so at stated times. They can advise the teacher and counsel him, 
but they can not directly interfere with him. He is supposed to understand, how 
to manage his school, better than any other person in his parish. If he did not, 
his long preparatory training would have been of little avail. 

If the clergyman, or any of the parishioners, have any cause of complaint to find 
with the teacher, and desire to have either dismissed or reprimanded, and obliged 
to change his plans of proceeding, a complaint must be made to the county edu- 
cational magistrate, and by him, to the minister of education in Dresden, who, in 
Saxony, is the only person, who can dismiss a teacher. The county magistrate, 
on I'eceiving the complaint, immediately sends an inspector to the spot, to inquire 
into the ground of complaint or dispute ; and after having received his report, the 
complaint of the parish, and the defense of the teacher, sends them to the minis- 
ter of education in Dresden. It remains with the minister alone to pronounce the 
final judgment. This impartial mode of proceeding tends to raise the teachers' 
profession in the eyes of the people. They see that the teachers are men, who 
are considered worthy of the protection and support of the government. But 
above all, it enables the teachei's to act honestly and fearlessly, to follow out the 
plans they know to be the best, and to devote their whole energies and minds to 
their duties, without any embarrassing fears of offending employers or patrons, or 
of endangering their continuance in office. 

There are 2,925 teachers in Saxony, or one teacher to every 588 inhabitants ; 
which is not large enough for the wants of the country. In Saxony, as through- 
out Germany, they will not make any use ol monitors. As they will not avail 
themselves of the assistance of educated monitors in the more mechanical parts of 
school teaching, they have therefore been obliged to adopt the forovving expedient. 
The law ordains, that when there are more than sixty children in any parochial 
school, and the parish can not afford to support more than one teacher, the chil- 
dren shall be divided into two classes, when there are not more than 100, and 
into three classes, when not more than 150 in number: that when there are two 
cLosses, the teacher shall instruct one in the morning, and the other in the after- 
noon ; that when there are three classes, he shall instruct each class for three 
hours daily at separate times ; and that all the children not under instruction shall 
not attend the school, while either of the other classes is there. 

From inquiries made by Dr. Otto, of Dresden, it appears that 2,119 
of the primary schools of Saxony receive the following salaries, inde- 
pendently of the lodgings, fuel, and garden, &c. : GUT receive not more 
than £30; 531 not more than £50 ; 543 not more than £71; 206 not 
more than £90; 78 not more than £95; 25 not more than £105; 12 
not more than £120 ; 9 not mbre thlm £130 ; 7 not mc/re tlmn £138; 1 
not mote than £W}. 



266 PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN SAXONY. 

Mr. Kay makes the following observation on the public schools of 
Saxony: 

Each parent is obliged to begin to educate his children at home or to send them 
to some school at the commencement of their sixth j'ear, unless the child is sickly 
and unfit to bear any mental exei'tion. After a child has once commenced attend- 
ing a school, it must continue such attendance regularly, summer and winter, for 
eight years; and even on the attainment of its fourteenth year, it may not discon- 
tinue such attendance, miless it has obtained a certificate, s'.ating that it can read, 
write, and cipher, and that it is well acquainted with the doctrines of its religion 
and with the truths of the Scripture history. The examinations for these certifi- 
cates are conducted by the religious ministers, in conjunction with the teachers. 
In some few cases, however, where the parents are very poor, the school commit- 
tees are empowered to permit the parents to remove their children from school at 
the end of their tenth year, if they can read, write, arid cipher, and know the 
leading facts and doctrines of the Scriptures. But before they have attained this 
age, they can not be taken from school, except when they are too sickly or too 
weak to attend the classes. 

No child may be employed in any manufactory, or in any manual labor, before 
it has attained the age of ten years. The Saxons consider the education of young 
children as a matter of primary importance, to which all else must be made to give 
way. The morality and the liberty, as well as the social and physical condition, 
of the people are all considered to be dependent on the early and full development 
of their moral and intellectual faculties. To the attainment of this end, therefore, 
every other consideration is made to yield. The Saxons are, as is well known, a 
commercial people. But still commercial requirements have not outweighed 
moral considerations. From the age of six to the age of fourteen, every chijd 
must receive a sound, eflScient, and religious education. Those children, however, 
who are wanted to work in the manufactories, and who have attained a tolerable 
proficiency in Scripture history, reading, writing, and arithmetic, are permitted to 
discontinue their attendance on the daily classes, at the age of ten ; but are re- 
quired to attend afternoon classes, two or three times a week, during the next four 
years. Thus, even the factory children receive regular periodical instruction from 
highly educated teachers, until they attain the age of fourteen.* 

The most minute and particular regulations are in force in Saxony respecting 
the school buildings. The law prescribes that they shall be situated as nearly as 

• The following section, (143) of the School Law, relates to the neglect of school attend- 
ance. 

1. In every parish where there is a school union, there shall be a school messenger. In 
large parishes which are divided into many schiiol districts, every school shall have a partic- 
ular mes.senger, besides one for every school district. 

2. Excepting on the common vacations, and on those weeks and days when there is no 
school, the school messenger must ask the teacher, on every school day, after the school 
hours, what children have been absent without an adequate excuse. 

3. In places where there is bnt one school, the school messenger must ask this question at 
least twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and require an account of the last three 
davs. 

4. The next morning, not later than an hour before the beginning of the morning school, 
the school messenger of every place must go to the parents of the absent and unexcused 
child, and demand him for the school, or else the reason for his absence. For every such 
visit the parent must give the messenger six pfennings. 

5. If a child does not come after this demand, but remains away unexcused for two days, 
the school messenger must take him on the third day and conduct him to the school. The 
fee from the parents shall be one grofchen. 

6 A child of a place where there is but one school, who does not come on the Monday or 
Thursday after the visit of the school messenger, and remains unexcused ; also if he stays 
away six days without adequate excuse, must be taken by the mcssetiger and carried to the 
school, and the fee from the parents s:iall be two groschen. 

7. If the child slays from the school with the knowledge of its parents after being thus car- 
ried to it by the messenger, measures for punishment must be taken. 

8 If the messenger can not collect his fees, he must apply to the magistrates, whose duty it 
is to coerce the payment. 

9. If the parents are actually too poor to pay the same, the magistrates must demand pay- 
ment quarterly from the school chest. 

10. The magistracy must lend their assistance to the messenger if. without good reason, he 
is prevented from taking the child to school ; or, if he js improperly treated while executing 
the duties of his office. ■ 



PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN SAXONY. 26Y 

possible in the center of the parish, and that a quiet and perfectly healthy site shall 
be selected. To use the words of one of the regulations of the f~axon Chambers 
on this subject : " If there is any building which deserves the careful considera- 
tion of the architect, it is that which is intended for the village school." The 
government has prepared several plans, with specifications of the cost, &c., for 
the guidance of the county authorities and village committees. 

To follow the words of the regulations themselves : " Every school-room must 
be sufficiently roomy, lofty, well lighted, perfectly dry, and free from damp, of a 
convenient and suitable form for the management of the school-classes, and in a 
healthy, open, and quiet situation." • 

On each of these several heads, a great number of minute and most carefully 
digested regulations have been made, for the purpose of insuring the attainment 
of these ends. The minimum of the size and of the height of the school-room 
has been laid down, and very particular regulations have been made relative to the 
warming, cleansing, and ventilating of the school-rooms ; to the proper draining 
of the land upon which the school is to be built and upon which the play-grounds 
are to be aid out ; to the lighting of the class-rooms ; to the disposition of the 
de.sks ; and even to the position and construction of the doors. Nothing which 
regards the school-rooms or school apparatus has been deemed too unimportant, to 
deserve the most careful consideration, or too insignificant to require the most 
minute and scientific regulations. The school-rooms in Saxony, as indeed through- 
out Germany, are well supplied with parallel desks, forms, maps, illustration 
boards, and all the apparatus necessary to enable the teacher to instruct his chil- 
dren in an effective manner. In the towns the schools generally contain eight or 
nine classes. A separate room is provided for each class. A learned teacher, 
who has received fourteen years' preparatory education, presides over each sepa- 
rate class. One of these teachers is the general director and superintendent of 
the whole school. 

Each of the class-rooms contains about sixty children. The law forbids any 
teacher to allow more than sixty to be instructed in the same class-room. Each 
of these rooms is fitted up along its length with parallel desks and forms, facing 
the teacher's desk, which is raised on a platform about a foot high at one end of 
the room. They are continually whitewashed and scoured, and are well venti- 
lated. They are lofty, and always well lighted. The children are never kept in 
the rooms more than about two hours at one time. They are all taken down into 
the pfay-grounds at the end of every hour and a half, for ten minutes' exercise, 
and during this time the windows of the class-rooms are all opened and the air 
purified. 

The law requires every school committee in Saxony to furnish their school 
rooms with at least the following apparatus : 

1. A supply of school-books, slates, slate-pencils, lead-pencils, pens, paper, &c. 
for the use of those scholars, whose parents are too poor to buy these things for 
their children. 

2. Some black painted, smooth, wooden boards, on which the teacher may 
assist his class-lessons by delineations or writing. 

3. A moveable easel on which to raise the blackboards. 

4. Some maps, and among these one of the Holy Land ; also some large copies 
for drawing and writing. 

5. A reading machine, like those now used in some of the best of our infaat 
schools ; and 

6. The school committees are advised to furnish, whenever they can afford to 
do so, a collection of objects for the illustration of the lessons in natural history and 
physical geography. 

Besides this apparatus, many village schools are supplied with a library of 
reading books, from which any villager can take books home, on payment of about 
a halfpenny a week. 

To give a general idea of the subjects of instruction in the schools, where the 
children of the people are brought up, I subjoin a table, which will show what is 
taught in the primary schools of the city of Dresden, and how the hoiu's of the 
day are apportioned to the various subjects of instruction. 



268 



PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN SAXONY. 



The following Time Table in the Dresden Primary Schools, shows the number 
of hours devoted each week to the different branches of instruction. 



Class 
I. 


Class 
II. 


Class 

III. 


Class 
IV. 


SUBJECTS OF INSTBCCTIOW. 


Bqjs. 


Girls. 


Boys. 


Girls. 


Boys. 


Girls. 


Boys. 


Girls. 


6 
1 
3 
3 

3 

4 

3 

2 
1 


2 


6 

1 

3 
3 

3 

4 

3 

1 
1 

10 

2 


6 

1 

4 
4 

3 

4 

3 

2 
1 



1 


6 
1 

4 
4 

3 

4 
3 



1 

6 

1 


6 
1 
6 
3 

3 

4 

2 








6 
1 
6 
3 

3 

4 

2 




4 




5 
1 
8 
3 

2 

3 










5 
1 

8 
3 

2 

3 










Religious instruction. 

Recitation. 

Reading. 

Writing, 
j German language. IV. Men- 
l tal and viva voce exercises. 

Arithmetic. 
( Geography, history, and natural 
I history. 

Drawing. 

Singing. 
( Instruction in feminine duties, 
I such as sewing, knitting, &c. 
i Preparation for the classes under 
< the superintendance of one of 
( the teachers. 


28 


37 


29 


33 


25 


29 


22 


22 


Total number of hours in each 
week devoted to instruction. 



To explain this table it is necessary to remark, that in the town schools, there 
are generally eight classes instructed in eight separate class-rooms, four for boys 
and four for girls ; that the fourth class contains the least and the first class the 
most advanced of the children ; that each class is under the charge of a separate 
teacher ; and that the girls generally remain in the afternoons for an hour and a 
half after the boys have left, in order to be instructed in sewing, knitting, &c., by 
a woman who is paid to conduct this necessary branch of feminine instruction. 

Since the revolution of 1848, the education in all the primary schools has been 
made perfectly gratuitous, so that every parent can send his children to any 
school free of all expense ; except that, which is incurred by providing them with 
respectable clothing. 

Besides the day schools, there is still another class of schools, which merits our 
attention. These are the Saxon Sunday schools. They are to be found in all the 
towns, in the great parishes, and in the manufacturing district.s. They are opened 
on the Sunday mornings or Sunday evenings, and are intended for the instruction 
of all persons of whatever age they may be, who desire to continue their educa- 
tion, and who are prevented, by their week-day duties, from attending any of the 
primary or superior schools. They are frequented principally by adults, or by 
young people above the age of fifteen, who have left the primary schools. These 
classes are opened every Sunday for about three or four hours, and are conducted 
bysome of the district teachers, who are paid for this extra labor by the county 
authorities. The education given in them is not confined to religious teaching. It 
comprehends besides this, instruction in reading, writing, arithmetic, history, 
geography, the physical sciences, drawing, and the new inventions of the age. 
These classes generally assemble on the Sunday evenings, in one of the day- 
schools of the town or district. The incidental expenses necessary for warming 
and lighting the room, and for the purchase of the necessary books, &e., are gen- 
erally defrayed by the voluntary contributions of the students, who attend the 
classes, and by the benevolence of rich people, who are interested in promoting 
these useful institutions. When the funds derived from these soui'ces do not suf- 
fice, the minister of public instruction is empowered to assist the town or other 
locality, in perfecting and suppoi"ting these schools. In many towns and parishes, 
however, they are entirely maintained by public subscriptions, and in these cases 
the students do not pay any thing for their education. 



PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN SAXONY. 



269 



So eager are the Saxon people to gain knowledge, and so well do they under- 
stand its value, that wherever any of these schools are opened on the Sundays or 
other holidays, they are, as in France, immediately filled to overflowing, with peo- 
ple of all ages from eighteen up to fifty, v.ho are desirous of increasing their stock 
of information, and of unfolding the powers of their minds. Ihe importance of 
these institutions can not be over estimated. By their means, the people of Sax- 
ony are always learning, that they have more to learn, and are always renewing 
the instruction given in the primary schools. The lessons of the primary schools 
are here continually enforced ; morality and prudence are inculcated ; the union 
between the teachers and the people is continually strengthened ; the value of 
education and intelligence is each week shown in a still clearer light; the people 
are continually brought into a closer connection with persons of a much higher 
order of intelligence ; the tastes and habits of the people are raised ; and by these 
means, their independence of character, their prudence, their energies, and all 
their political as well as social virtues, are progressively developed. 'Ihey do not 
pretend to supply the place of day-schools. They contain scholars of all ages, 
young and old, and their teachers are persons, who have studied pedagogy as a 
science, and who are. in every sense of the word, qualified to teach. 

As an example of what a Sunday school is in Saxony, 1 may mention one of those 
instituted at Dresden for adults. It is supported partly by charitable subscription 
and partly by the municipal authorities of Dresden. Five paid teachers tonduet 
the instruction given in it. It is open every Sunday morning from 8 o'clock until 
12, during which time the teachers attend and instruct the different classes. The 
instruction is perfectly gratuitous, and a great part of the necessary materials, such 
as paper, pens, ink, and drawing materials, are provided for the scholars free of 
expense. The object of the institution is to awaken the religious feelings of the 
scholars ; to strengthen their moral principles ; and instruct them in reading, 
writing, the German language, geography, history, arithmetic, and drawing. The 
way in which the four hours of study are divided between these diflferent studies, 
may be seen from the following table : 

LESSON PLAN OF A SUNDAY SCHOOL AT DRESDEN. 



Murnin^. 


1st Class. , 2d Class. 


3a Class. 


4>h Class. 


From 

8 to 8^ 


Prayers and Religious Instruction. 


From 


Arithmetic and Ele- 


Mental and Slate 


Geography and History of 


8i to 10 


mentary Geome- 


Arithmetic; frac- 


Germany ; Use of the 


o'clock. 


try ; Extraction 


tions, both com- 


Globes and Physical Geo- 




of Square Root 


mon and decimal. 


graphy, especially as re- 




and the Rules of 




gards Germany and Sax- 




Proportion , and 




ony 




their application 








to mechanics. 






From 


Drawing; with con- 


Drawing ; Light 


German Lan- 


Arithmetic, 


10 to 11 


structive Geome- 


and Shadow Ex- 


guage ; Or- 


both Mental 


o'clock. 


try and Archi- 


ercises in Lead, 


thography, 


and Slate 




tectural Drawing. 


Chalk, Pen and 
Ink, and Colors. 


Etymology, 
and Dicta- 
tion Exer- 
cises. 


Exercises. 


From 


German Language; 


German Language; 


Drawing prin- 


Writing and 


11 to 12 


various Exercises 


various Exercises 


cipally from 


Elocution. 


o'clock. 


in Composition. 


in Composition. 


Models. 





No person may officiate as teacher in any school in Saxony, until he has ob- 
tained from a committee of learned professors, expressly appointed for the pur- 



2Y0 PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN SAXON V. 

pose of examining candidates, a diploma certifying in precise and definite terms 
his fitness for admission into the profession. And, even when a candidate has 
passed this examination, hfe can not be appointed head teacher of any school, until 
he has been tried, for two years, as assistant teacher in some elementary school, 
and until he has after this passed another severe examination.* The preparation 
for these examinations continues fur many j'ears. It begins at the elementary 
echools. If a boy wishes to enter the teacher's profession, he must gain a testi- 
monial from his teacher, stating his diligence and his success in his studies. After 
leaving the village school, he still continues his studies, either in one of the higher 
burgher schools, or in one of the real schools or gj'mnasia, until he attains the age 
of fifteen. When he has attained this age, he lays testimonials of his character 
and his acquirements, signed by his teacher and his religious minister, before the 
magistrates of his county, lie is then examined before these magistrates, together 
with all the other candidates, at the yearly entrance examinations of the *normal 
colleges of his county, in all the subjects of instruction in the elementary schools. 
The most promising are then chosen out, and are sent by the magistrates to fill up 
the vacancies in the normal colleges, of which there are always one or two in 
each county. 

The young students remain four years in these colleges, continually engaged 
in preparing for their entrance into the teachers' profession. The education given 
in thes(^colleges is, however, perfectly gratuitous, or it is manifest no poor young 
men would be able to bear the expenses of such a training. 

In a Saxon class-room one finds a learned professor, who has been educated 
for many years in preparation for his duties, standing before his class lecturing 
his children, as if they and he were rational beings. The aim of a German 
teacher is to avi^aken the njinds of his scholars ; to enable them to think, and to 
teach them to instruct themselves. lie never tries to cram. The method which 
is pursued is the suggestive one. The teacher selects the subject of the lesson, 
whether it be on history, natural history, geography, arithmetic, or grammar; and 
after the class has read some few pages together, the teacher commences his les- 
son by questions. When a question has been put by him to the class, all those 
children, who think they can answer, hold up their hands ; the teacher calls upon 
them by turns to answer his question, or to correct the answers of theii- companions. 
If the lesson is in history or geography, the teacher increases the interest of the 
children by anecdotes or descriptions, and enlists their sympathies on the side of 
virtue, heroism, and patriotism, by pointing out for notice the brilliant deeds of 
their country's heroes, and the exploits of their ancestors in resisting the foreign 
invader, or in conquering the national foes. The teacher addresses his children 
as thinking beings ; as those, who will one day be men, and who will one day 
themselves influence the destinies of their nation. The scholar will one day 
become a citizen ; that is the truth engraven on the German teachers' minds ; 
their duty and their a*im is to awaken and to nurse into maturity the virtues of 
the people. 

As soon as the teacher has been appointed, he and the local inspector are re- 
quired to prepare a plan of daily instruction, to apportion the ditforent school 
hours to the difftsrent studies, and to arrange the order and the time for holding 
' the different classes. When this so-called lesson-plan has been once determined, 
the teacher is bound by it, and can not vary the order of his class-instruction, 
without again consulting with the inspector. 

The school duties are commenced every morning, and closed every afternoon 
with prayer and singing. 

* In the literal words of flie law — 

" No one can bt! appoiiitKi teacher, , 

" Isl. Who has not satisfied the examiners appointed by the minister of education, of his 
fitness to be admitted into the teachers' profession, by passing an examination conducted by 
them. 

"2d. Who has not, after the above-mentioned examination, practiced fnr two ycarx as 
asxistant teacher, or, at least, as private tutor, under the direction, if pdss ble, of an able 
teacher ; and wlio has not, during this time continued his education, and obtained the entire 
approbation of his superior teacher. 

" 3d. Who has not, after these two years, satisfactorily passed a second examination con- 
ducted by the above-mentioned body of examiners. 

■ '4th. Who has not attained his twenty-first year." 



PRTMARV INSTRUCTION IN SAXONY. 271 

A public examination of all the children is held once every half year in the 
Bchool-room, and under the direction of the local inspector. Notice of the ap- 
pointed day is given by the religious ministers from their pulpits; and all the in- 
habitants of the parisn are invited to attend. The school committee is required 
by law to be present at these public examinations. These examinations serve to 
stimulate the efforts cf both teachers and children, to interest the parents in the 
schools, and to encourage a spirit of healthy emulation among the scholars. At 
the end of the examination, the inspector pronounces I is opinion on the progress 
of the children in the presence of the assembled parish ; but all remarks upon the 
teacher himself are given to him in private, so as not to diminish the respect of 
the children for him, by showing them that he does not fully understaijd how to 
instruct them in the most effective manner. 



272 



NORMAL 5E.MINARY IN DRESDEN. 



a 

c 

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a 
a 

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t 

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n :. 
2S o 

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fa 2 

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5.M 

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<^ 
eg 

li 

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'k s 

|J 

^S 

$.1 


X 


1st class. 2d class. 

common to both. 

4h. 
common to both. 

2h. 
2h. 

2h.' 
common to both. 
2h. 


— n CI 1-1 — c^ SI — CI CI n -H 

„• 2 • • „• 2 ■ -• ° 

"3 CI 5 . . " 3 

E ■ ■ . E S ^ . _. 

g ■= s s --=- 

rt 1-1 -1 -i 






X 


1st class. 2d class. 

2 h, ' "2 h. 

4h. 

common to both. 

2 h. ' 

'2 h." 
common to both. 

3h. 


1 h. 

common to both. 
4h. 

2h. 
1 h. 1 h. 
2h. 
com.non to both. 
2h. 

3 h. 
21.. 

'2 h." 

common to both. 

2 b. 

1 h. 2 h. 

1 h. 2 h. 

1 h. 1 h. 


"S 

1 


1 

J= 
1. 
a 

h 
c 
2: 




>. 


1st class. 2d class. 

'4h. 
2 h. 2 h. 

2h. * 
common to both. 


■^•Vn del -^ <^'r-l dCICIr.( 

• 2 ■ • 2 • 

do cj 

S ■ . E . ■ . • ... 

C J5P.SJ5 JZJZJZ 
1-1 CI 1-1 d SI -H 




>-. 


1st class. 2d class. 
4h. 
4h. 
2h. 

2 h. ' 

2h. 

• 


2h. 
common to both. 
4h. 
3h. 

2h. 

1 h. 1 h. 

2 h. 2 h. 

1 h. ' '2 h. 

2h. 

2 h. 

2 h. 1 h. 
2 h. 2 h. 
1 h. 1 h. 




1 


1st class. 2d class. 

common to both. 

4h. 
common to both. 
2h. 
2 b. 

common to both. 
2h. 


Ih. 
com.iion to both. 
3h. 

'1 h." 

common to both. 

2^h. 

I h. 1 h. 

2h. 

common to both. 

' 3 h. 
2h. 

2h. 
1 h. 2 h. 
1 h. 2 h. 
1 b. 1 h. 




1 


1st class. 2d class. 

2 h. " ' 2 h. 

4h. 
common to both. 

2h. ' 

'2h.' 
common to both. 

3h. 


Ih. 
common to both. 
4 h. 

'2 h.' 
common to both. 
2 1.. 

1 hr 1 h. 

2h. 
common to both. 
2h. 

3h. 
2h. 

2h. 
1 h. 2 h. 
1 h. 2 h. 
1 h. 1 h. 




rz 


1st class. 2d class. 

' 4 h. 
2 h. 2 h. 

2h. ' 

4h. 
common to both. 


2h. 
common to both. 
4h. 
3h. 

2h. 

1 h. 2 h. 

2h. 
coinmon to both. 
2h. 

11..' '2 h. 
Ih. 

2h. 

2 h. 2 h. 
2 h. 2 h. 
1 h. ,1 h. 




X 


1st class. 2d class. 
4h. 
4h. 
2h. 

2n. 

2h. 


2h. 
common to both. 
4h. 
3h. 

2h. 

1 h. 1 h. 

2 h. 2 h. 

1 h. ' ' 2 h. 

2h. 

2h. 

2 h. 1 h. 
2 h. 2 h. 
1 h. 1 h. 




3 


Biblical Knowledge 
Biblical History 
Bible Explanation , 

Catechism . . . 

Art of Ciuestioning 
Catechetical Exeri'ises 
Exercises in Thinking 
Psychology and Art of 

Teaching. 
School Discipline . 
General History . . 

German and Saxon 

History. 
Eatin . . .■ . . 


Composition . . . 

Arithmetic . . . 
Geography . . . 
Natural Philosophy 

•Writing .... 

Violin 

Singing .... 

History of the Church 
Geometry .... 
Grammar . . . 
Reading .... 
Natural History 

Drawing .... 
Thorough Bass . . 

Organ 

Piano 




1 -i-H— — -^-<-.— — — SlddCIc'lCISISICI 





ORGANIZATION AND INSTRUCTION 



BURGHER SCHOOL IN LEIPSIC, SAXONY. 



In Leipsic the public primary schools are of three sorts, the first for 
the use of the children of the poor who receive supplies from the public; 
the second for those who, not belonging to this class, would still be 
burthened by the payment of a school fee ; the third, the burgher class. 
Many of the schools are endowed. The Burgher school is considered 
by Dr. Bache one of the most complete in its plan of organization in 
Germany. He thus describes it : 

This school is designed to educate children of the middle ranks of society, and 
those of the upper ranks whose parents wish them to receive a public education. 

It is composed, 1st. Of an elementary school for both boys and girls, which 
pupils should enter at six years of age. There are three classes, in the lowest of 
which the two sexes are taught in the same room. The pupils are retained, in 
general, a year and a half to two years, leaving this department at eight years of 
age and proceeding to the next higher. 

2d. The burgher school proper. Here the boys and girls receive instruction 
separately. There are six classes for boys, each of which occupies a year. After 
passing through the three lower classes, the sixth, fifth, and fourth, the pupils 
begin separate courses, according to their inclination or supposed destination in 
life. This is at about eleven years of age. Those who are intended for trades, 
and whose school education must finish at fourteen, to enable them to begin their 
apprenticeship, pass through the remaining classes, the tihird, second, and first of 
the burgher school. 

Other boys who are intended to pursue higher departments of mechanical oc- 
cupations, or for manufacturers, clerks, miners, foresters, stewards of estates, mer- 
chants, artists, civil officers, &c., pass into the department called the ^^real 
school,^'' terminating their course there at about sixteen years of age. Others 
who are intended for the learned professions go at eleven to a gymnasium, pass 
through its classes at eighteen, and enter the university, being prepared for a pro- 
fession at twenty-one. 

3d. The '^real schooV or higher burgher school. In this there are four 
classes, intended to occupy together about five years, and to prepare the pupils to 
enter a commercial, polytechnic, architectural, or mining academy, according to 
his vocation. 

Omitting the girls' school, the scheme thus marked out will appear better by the 
following skeleton : 

Elementary School. — Three classes. Pupils 6 to 8 years of age. 

Burgher School. — Three classes. Pupils 8 to 11 years of age. 

Higher Burgher School. — Three classes. Pupils 11 to 14 years of age. 
The pupils are apprenticed on leaving the school. Or, 

Real Schools of four classes. Pupils 11 to 1 6 years of age, and pass to a 
polytechnic, commercial, mining, architectural, <^c., academy. Or, 

Gymnasium (grammar school) of six classes. Pupils 11 to 18 years of age. 
They pass to the university, where, after a course of three years, they may be 
admitted to one of the learned professions. 

A plan at once convenient and rational is thus marked out for a youth's educa- 
tion, depending upon the views of his parents, their circumstances, and his own 
talents and dispositions. The first four named schools are united in one building, 
erected by the liberality of the town of Leipsic, and have the same director. 

The subjects and the order of succession of the different courses are good ; 

18 



274 



BURGHER SCHOOL IN LEIPSIC. 



there is a constant reference to the ultimate object of the instruction, and no 
branches are inserted in the programme merely for the purpose of preparing 
pupils for the higher classes of other schools. It is, on the contrary, considered 
better that pupils should obtain access to them through the lower classes of the 
same school. By detaining them here, injury would be done to both schools. 
The primary instruction which is common to all the pupils, embraces a moderate 
number of branches, and terminates at an age when experience has shown that 
the culture by the ancient languages should be no longer postponed, in the case 
of those who are intended for the learned professions, and when the studies of 
others destined for the arts should take a different direction. The question, 
whether the proper age has been adopted for this separation is wholly one of experi- 
ence, and the facts in reference to it will be submitted in speaking of secondary 
instruction. 

The subjects taught and the time they occupy in the elementary school agtee 
very closely with those of the first two classes* in the seminary school of Berlin. 
Drawing on slates and singing are both introduced here, constituting an advan- 
tage over the other ; they are brought in as a relief from intellectual exercises, 
and as objects of direct attainment. The number of hours of duty is but four on 
four days of the week, and two on each of the others. These might, I think, be 
increased to the standard of the primary schools, twenty-four hours per week, 
without fear of over-tasking the pupils ; and if a portion of the time were be- 
stowed on judiciously arranged exercises, the physical as well as moral education 
would be improved. The moral training of the play-ground is not as yet an ele- 
ment in any of the German systems. The same master teaches in succession all 
the studies of his class. 

The pupils pass from the third to the second class at the end of six months, a 
change which is favorable to their progress, since at this early age strongly marked 
differences appear soon after entering the school. With a similar view of fitness 
m regard to their age, the plan of daily exercises is not rigorously prescribed, but 
is merely indicated to serve as a general guide in relation to the time to be devoted 
to the different subjects. 

I found occasion in this school to remark the danger of defeating the exercises 
of induction, by making them merely mechanical, by the reception of fixed 
answers to invariable questions ; and, also, the necessity of selecting very simple 
melodies for the early exercises in singing; beyond these, the exertion of the 
voice of the child, so far from being a physical benefit, is a positive injury. My 
preference for beginning arithmetic with a reference to sensilile objects, that is, by 
denominate numbers, was again strongly confirmed. 

It might seem impossible to determine how many pupils of a definite age might, 
with advantage, be inti'usted to the care of one teacher under a given method of 
instruction. The average for branches of the same kind is not, however, so wide 
from the extremes as might at first be supposed. In the simultaneous method, 
the skill of the teacher is the chief determining quality. The various subordinate 
ones depending upon the pupil, the particular exercise, the arrangements in refer- 
ence to ventilation, warmth, &c., will readily suggest themselves. In the midst 
of all these, the average shows itself to attentive observation. It is easy to see 
how many pupils are attending to what is going on, and if the teacher be skilled 
in his art, the number is thus obtained, which a class should not exceed. For the 
intellectual exercises, I obtained in this way from thirty-five to forty in the Ger- 
man schools as the maximum number of an elementary class ; the observation in 
reference to the classes of the best teachers here confirmed these numbers. In 
the mechanical branches, the number of pupils may be very much increased, 
without material injury to the instruction, and hence, the classification which suits 
them is not adapted to the intellectual departments. 

The principal subjects of instruction in the burgher school, including both the 
lower and higher departments, are religion and morals, German, French, arith- 
metic, geometry, natural history, history, geography, calligraphy, drawing, and 
vocal music, and to these are added in the highest classes technology and physics. 
The list differs from that of the Dorothean higher city school, and the seminary 
school of Berlin, in the omission of Latin and the introduction of technology and 

• See page 133. 



BURGHER SCHOOL IN LEIPSIC. 



275 



physics, both which differences mark the proper character of the school. It is 
not intended that the upper classes shall prepare pupils for the higher classes of the 
gymnasium, but that those who are to be trained in the classical studies shall have 
previously passed to the lower classes of the gymnasium, where they properly 
belong, and where they can obtain the instruction appropriate to their objects. 
The distribution of time is shown in the annexed table, which is similar in its 
arrangement to those already given. 



PLAN OF INSTRUCTION IN THE HIGHER AND LOWER 


BURGHER SCHOOLS OF LEIPSIC. 


8UBJE0T3 


BURGBEK SCHOOL FOR BOTS. 




HiGHBR School. 


Lower Scbool. 
















a, 


?n 


& 


& 




& 




OF 












































s ° 




INSTRUOTION. 


** >. 


M-a 


% 2 


•s >^ 

b-9 


^1 


in ■a 


H 




c 


M 






§ 


» 






^ 


■" 


"■ 




4 




24 


Religious Instruction, 


4 


4 


4 


4 


4 


German Language,* 


5 


6 


8 


6 


8 


6 


39 


French, 


2 


y 


y 








6 


Arithmetic, .... 


4 


4 


4 


4+ 


6 


6 


28 


Geometry, ..... 


2 


y 


2 








6 


Natural History, 


U 


3 


2 


2 


2 


2^ 


12 


Technology, ..... 


2 












2 


Physics, ..... 


2 












2 


Geography 


y 


y 


2 


2 




2 


10 


History, ..... 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 




lU 


Writing, 


1 


2 


2 


3 


3 


4 


15 


Drawing, 


4 


4 


3 


3 


2 


1 


17 


Singing, 


a 


2 


2 


2 


1 


1 
26 


10 


Total, 


33 


33 


33 


28 


28 



The increase in the number of branches as the pupils rise to the upper classes, 
seems to me judiciously made in this plan. At the same time, the number of 
hours per week is gradually increased, and perhaps beyond the due limit, though 
it would require longer attention than I could give to this institution to affirm pos- 
itively that this is the case. Comparing the programme with that of the classes 
of corresponding age in the seminary school of Berlin, a general similarity appears 
throughout, although each has distinctive features. In the sixth class, of which 
the pupils are of the same age with those of the fourth in the seminary school, a 
few lessons of natural history and geography (" knowledge of home") are given, 
and with advantage. The number of hours per Week devoted to the different 
studies is nearly the same in both schools. 

In the fifth class, natural history and history are introduced in the burgher 
school, and in its corresponding classes in the seminary school, Latin, French, and 
geometry. The number of hours of arithmetical instruction is greater in this 
school than in the other. 

A similar difference continues in the fourth class, as it is not the object to begin 
French until after those who leave the school at ifourteen have terminated their 
course. The elementary exercises of geometry are begun in this class of the 
burgher school. 

The third class is the first or lowest of the higher burgher school, and the pro- 



• This includes the exercises of reading. 

t In this is included an hour of preparatory exercises for geometry. 

J Anthropology. 

§ Elementary natural history and natural philosophy. 



2*JQ BURGHER SCHOOL IN LEIPSIC. 

gramme of this and of the second agree in the main with those of the seminary 
school. Greater attention is devoted to religious instruction, to arithmetic, and 
drawing, and less to French, in the burgher than in the seminary school. The 
number of hours given to the first named branch in the burgher school is double 
that in the other, and the number to the last only one-half, which is, probably, too 
small an allotment for the object. Technology and physics are taken up in the 
first class of the Leipsic school, and Latin is continued through all those of the 
Berlin institution. 

In regard to the plan of treating the subjects of instruction, the following is a 
comparison of the two schools : 

1. In religious instruction, the general train is the same, being more detailed 
in the burgher school, and having a special course of morals in the higher classes. 
In general, the German institutions are very free from an objection urged to a 
course of religious instruction, in a former part of my report, namely, that it was 
addressed rather to the understanding than to the heart. There is no express 
instruction in morals, but it is because the morals of the Scriptures mingle with 
their daily lessons, and no special course is needed, until a more advanced age, 
than that embraced by these schools in general. 

2. The course of German language (including composition) and reading, is 
parallel with that of the Berlin seminary school, except in the two higher classes, 
lu these a turn is given to the compositions to adapt them to the peculiar destina- 
tion of the pupils, who are also exercised in speaking, by reading dialogues and 
brief dramatic pieces. In a country enjoying a constitutional government, the art 
of public speaking may not be neglected by its citizens. 

3. The course of French, in the burgher school, struck me as rather defective, 
probably from the small amount of time which is devoted to it, as already stated. 

4. Matheinatics. — The courses of arithmetic and geometry are also parallel with 
those in the seminary school. The mathematical studies here are extended further 
in Algebra, and include logarithms, mensuration, and surveying. 

5. Natural history, physics, and technology. — The early beginnings of this 
OMirse are exercises in induction, directed particularly to awaken habits of obser- 
vation and reflection. Later, some of the more interesting parts of natural history 
are taken up, and, finally, the subject is treated somewhat systematically, and a 
technological direction given to it. The physics consists of such popular notions 
of natural phenomena as should be possessed by all. The technology explains the 
processes of some of the common arts and trades. 

6. The course of geography begins like that already described at Halle, but 
subsequently pursues the inverse order, giving an idea of the earth as a part of 
the world, its form, motions, &c. Director Vogel has conceived the plan of pre- 
senting the parts of the earth always in their just proportions, as upon the sphere, 
and has contrived for this purpose a globe which may be divided through the 
equator or through a meridian. The hemisphere being suspended with its plain 
surface against the wall, presents the convex surface, with its delineations, in true 
proportion. This idea he proposes to extend, by substituting for maps, in the early 
recitations, portions of spherical surfaces, with the delineations of the countries 
upon them. 

After taking a general survey of the different countries, especially those of 
Europe, the pupils pass to the geography of Germany. They then enter more 
into the details of the countries of Europe, draw maps, and, finally, study mathe- 
matical and physical geography in a scientific form. To carry out his views of 
the connection of history, natural history, and ethnography with geography, 
director Vogel has prepared a school atlas upon a new plan. The vignettes sur- 
rounding the maps contain illustrations of these different kindred branches, and 
address the eye of the learner, thus impressing the memory with their connection 
with the countries delineated. For example, around the maps representing the 
different quarters of the globe are the characteristic plants, animals, and men of 
the different regions near to the portions of the country where they are found. 
The more detailed maps of the countries give a view of their natural productions, 
represent the more prominent or characteristic qualities of the nation, the arts which 
flourish more particularly among them, and give medallions portraying their great 
historical characters, or including the names of their distinguished men, or the 
dati:s of impwtaut historical events. 



BURGHER SCHOOL IN LEIPSIC. 277 

7. The historical course, as far as it is distinct from that last mentioned, agrees, 
in its general features, with that of the Berlin seminary school, being, however, 
more minute. 

8. Writing and drawing. — In learning to write, the classes begin with small 
hand, and succeed better than is usual upon that plan, probably from the atten- 
tion, at the same time, to drawing. The last named branch is taught by Schmidt's 
method. The teacher has made an admirable collection of models in wood and 
plaster, of geometrical solids, of machines, of buildings, bridges, and the like, of 
ornaments, &c., and brings his class forward in this kind of drawing very rapidly. 
Only the more elementary parts of these collections, however, are used for the 
classes of the burgher school. 

9. Vocal music is taught as in the other schools 

The particular method which the teacher pursues in his instruction is left much 
to the individual, the director remarking, justly, that if he is competent to his 
place, his method must be good. He has for his guide, however, a programme 
indicating the degree of proficiency which his class must show at the end of the 
year. 

In the lower classes of a school like this, if the pupils have been previously well 
trained, a larger number can be instructed by the simultaneous method than in 
tile elementary classes, in a subject of the same kind. This advantage is lost as 
the course becomes higher, and the scale turns again in proportion as individual 
teaching becomes more desirable, with mcreased individual development and dif- 
ferences in mental quality. The simultaneous method requires watchfulness on 
the part of the teacher, not to deceive himself as to the progress of his class. It 
is, of course, rarely that a question can not be answered by some of them, while 
the mass may be entirely ignorant in relation to the subject. I have seen both 
skill and attention fall into the mistake to which I refer. 

Between each of the hours of recitation there are a few minutes of interval, 
during which the classes leave the school-rooms. This is an arrangement favora- 
ble to health, and vi'orthy of imitation. 

The lower classes have each a teacher for all the subjects, a system which is 
gradually changed in the higher classes for that of a teacher for a single subject. 
Drawing and singing are taught by special instructors in the higher classes. 

The classes for girls are similar to those described, the instruction being modi- 
fied so as to render it more applicable to the sex. 

The plan of instruction in the "Real School,^^ the highest of which this estab- 
lishment is composed, can hardly be said to have received, as yet, its ultimate 
form. The school belongs to the class of secondary instruction, running parallel 
with the gymnasium, and preparing for the university of the arts, or polytechnic 
school, as the other prepares for the imiversity of the learned professions. The 
branches taught, and which I may enumerate, to complete the description of the 
institution, are, 

1. Religious instruction. 2. German. 3. French. 4. English. 5. Mathe- 
matics, including algebra ; geometry, trigonometry, plane and spherical ; practi- 
cal surveying ; a review of arithmetic and technical arithmetic. 6. Physics and 
chemistry. 7. Natural history. 8. History. 9. Geography. 10. Calhgraphy. 
11. Drawing. 12. Vocal music. 

The separate branches in this school are in general taught by special instruc- 
tors. The methods of Pestalozzi are considered by the director as less applicable 
to the higher than to the lower courses. But 1 doubt this, for though much less 
frequently applied, I have seen them used with good effect in advanced courses. 
The opposite method takes up less time if the object be to conununicate positive 
knowledge, and the importance of this object certainly increases, and even be- 
comes paramount, in the later parts of the student's career. The objection 
urged to this plan does not apply in the case of those subjects which are contin- 
uous through a series of years, but to such as are broken up into a number of 
kindred branches, the elements of which are to be taught at different, and even 
at advanced stages of the course. 

The plan of special study hours for those whose parents wish them to be pre- 
pared for their lessons under the direction of a teacher, has been adopted in this 
school. 



278 BURGHER SCHOOL IN LEIPSIC. 

Mr. Kay thus speaks of the public schools of Leipsic and Dresden. 

It was delightful to enter one of these well classified German schools, in which 
all the children are divided according to their acquirements, into as many classes 
as the school contains rooms ; one educated teacher is placed over each class, and 
by having only children of the same degree of knowledge under his care, he is 
able to give his class-lessons to all his children at one time, without being obliged 
to divide them, and his thoughts and attention also. Every thing showed us, 
that all the details of instruction had been thoroughly and carefully considered. 
The size, careful ventilation, and cleanliness of the rooms ; their arrangement 
and furniture, and the character of the apparatus, with which they were filled, 
all told us, that the Saxon people and the Saxon government understood the im- 
portance of the great work of the people's education, and knew that its perfection 
depended on a scientific regulation of all the details of school management. I 
visited, also, several of the primary schools in Dresden, and found them equally 
admirable for their classification, for the number, size, cleanliness, ventilation, and 
good arrangement of their class-rooms ; for the character and numbers of the 
teachers connected with them ; for the scientific character of the instruction given 
in them ; for the order, quiet, and excellent discipline of the class-rooms ; ' for the 
suggestive and awakening nature of the methods of instruction pursued in the 
classes ; for the gentlemanly and intelligent bearing of the teachers ; for the 
cleanly, healthy, and comfortable appearance of the children, and for the friendly- 
relations of scholars and teachers. 



SECONDARY EDUCATION 



SAXONY. 



We are indebted for the following account of the gymnasium or 
school for secondary instruction in Saxony, mainly, to Dr. Hermann 
Wimmer, of Dresden. Dr. Wimmer* was educated in the common 
school, gymnasium, anduniversity of his native country; was trained for 
a classical teacher in the philological seminary of Hermann and Klotz, 
at Leipsic, and was for several years professor in the Fitzhum gymna- 
sium or Blochmann college at Dresden, one of the best classical schools 
in Germany. 

The gymnasia of Saxony are partly boarding and partly day schools. 
The most celebrated of the former at Meissen. Grimma, and Schulpforte, 
were established at the date of the Reformation by the electors of Sax- 
ony on the foundation of the old monasteries or cloisters, the buildings 
and funds being thus diverted from ecclesiastical to educational purposes. 
These schools are known as Furstenschulen, or Prince schools, or 
Klosterschulen, or Cloister school, from the circumstances of their founda- 
tion. These old boarding gymnasia are called, by Dr, Wimmer. the 
hearths of classical learning in Germany. The gymnasium of Pforta, 
(schola Portensis,) was opened for pupils in 1543, the funds of the old 
monastery having been sequestered by the electoral Prince Maurice, on 
the advice of Luther, for this purpose. In 1815, the school passed with 
the province in which it is located into the dominions of Prussia. The 
foundation yielded, in 1838, a revenue of $30,000, on which one hundred 
and seventy beneficiaries (intraners) were lodged, boarded, and in- 
structed. In most of the boarding gymnasia there are a class of pupils, 
(extraners,) whose tuition is free, but who board, at their own expense, 
with the professors. Besides the Fursten, or Prince schools, there were 
in all the large cities, a gymnasia supported by municipal taxation and 
private tuition, and managed by the municipal authorities. But within 
the last few years most of the gymnasia have been merged in the bur- 
gher or higher elementary school, leaving eight or ten to be aided and 
controlled by the government, and which are continued as classical 
schools. These are open day schools, and are situated in the larger 
cities, where the parents of most of the pupils reside. 

Between the Fursten, or strictly boarding schools, and the open or day 
gymnasia, there are two of a peculiar character — the Thomas school 
at Leipsic, and the Blochmann-vizthum gymnasium at Dresden. The 

* Dr. Wimmer is now (1852) engaged in preparing for the press in Dresden, his observa- 
tions on " Education and Religion in the United States" — the results of his visit to this couij. 
try in 1850-.'jl The work will be sold by B. Westermann & Co., 290 Broadway, New York. 



280 SECONDARY EDUCATION IN SAXONY. 

Thomas school is partly a classical and partly a musical institution ; more 
than half of its students form the great vocal choir of the Thomas 
church, and is celebrated for its performances on Saturday's and Sun- 
day's. Those students called alumni, have their. tuition and board free, 
and in the latter part of their college life earn some money by their oc- 
casional singing. A similar musical class exists in connection with other 
city gymnasia, but the musical instruction is not carried so far. We 
give a more particular account of the Blochmann institution. 

BLOCHMANN-VIZTHUM GYMNASIUM AT DRESDEN. 

The Blochmaim-vizthum gymnasium combines within itself a classical, and a 
real or scientific school, and a preparatory school, or progymnasium. It is both a 
boarding and day school, and pai-takes of a public and private character, 
being under the direction of the government authorities as a public school, and 
supported in part out of funds left by Covint Vizthum at the beginning of the 1 7th 
century, for the education of children of the Vizthum and other noble families, 
and for a number of poor boys who are clothed, boarded, and educated as com- 
panions of the young nobles to stimulate them by their zeal and diligence. 

All the boarding students, about eighty, are distributed into nine rooms. The 
bccupants of a room are under the special care of one of the teachers, who has 
generally an adjoining dvt'elling-room. He is interested in their moral and intel- 
lectual welfare, is applied to by the teachers who see any thing in their pupils to 
commend or to blame, and by the parents who wish to hear something about 
their physical or spiritual health ; he gives the allowance of money for buying 
books, clothes, or whatever they want ; briefly, he is the representative of the 
absent parent, and enjoys usually the respect, confidence, and love of his pupils. 
They come but occasionally and for a few moments to their room, to get books or 
something else out of their secretaries, or in stormy days they are allowed to pass 
a leisure hour there ; but the neighboring teacher has no oversight of them, unless 
he is disturbed in his studies by their noise, and then he gives them to under- 
stand, by knocking at the door, that he is at home, which generally suffices to 
prevent any further interference. The order of the day is exclusively committed 
to the Inspectors of the day. For every day two professors are intrusted with 
this responsible ofiiee, so that every oflicer has the ambiguous honor and the tire- 
some task of sharing with a colleague for one day of the week the command over 
the whole. On that day he must see that the students rise (at 5 o'clock in the 
summer, at 6 in the winter,) must be present at the first breakfast, superintend 
the study hours from 5f A. M. to 8 P. M. (all study in four adjoining class-rooms,) 
lead singing and praying in the chapel, keep order before the lessons begin, ascer- 
tain whether all the teachers in the nine classes are present before he leaves for 
his recitation or lodging-room, must be in the garden at the time of second break- 
fast fi'om 9 J to lOy, in stormy days go over the classes and rooms, and so again 
froom 11 or 12 till 3, when the lessons commence again and continue till 4f ; and 
again from 5| till 8 are study hours, in which he must be every where and nowhere, 
and on Wednesdays and Saturdays he must be the walking or bathing-compan- 
ion of half the section. At 8 is supper time ; at 9, the great mass must go to bed, 
and only such students of the superior classes as are to be trusted, are permitted 
to study until 10, when the tired inspectors take their last round through the 
bedrooms, to ascertain whether all are asleep or are likely to be in good order, 
and then, imless something extraordinary has happened during the day, satisfied 
vrith themselves and their day's work, they retire to their rooms. Except the 
day scholars, no pupil is allowed to leave the house to make a social visit without 
a ticket of permission from his special tutor, signed likewise by the director, where 
the time of leaving is mentioned and the statement of the time of arriving and 
leaving again is expected fi-om the hand of the visited person. 

Besides the three or four study hours, under the superintendence of the two 
inspectors, which are considered sufficient for the necessary preparation and repe- 
tition, the students are bound to be in the garden, walking, running, playing, or 
exercising in some way. It is in this free time, also, that lessons on the piano, in 



SECONDARY EDUCATION IN SAXONY. 281 

singing, gymnastics, fencing, dancing, and riding, are given. Only the last houi* 
of the evening is allowed to the older students for staying in their rooms. In this 
respect the Vizthum gymnasium takes the extreme view, and, for aught we know, 
the practice of studying in the room, adopted by the other colleges, seems to be 
generally preferable to that of studying in full classes. But it is the authority of 
the older^Btudents, on which the practicability and the success of studying in 
common rooms, without the inspection of quite as many tutors, chiefly depends, 
and the character of the institution as well as the demand of rational supervision, 
seem to have been the causes of an arrangement not sufficiently comfortable to 
make studying the great pleasure of life, as one might experience in the common 
rooms of the Fiirstenschool, or in the private chambers of students in city gymna- 
sia. There is a conference of the twelve chief teachers on Saturdays, the Direc- 
tor being Chairman and the youngest professor secretaiy, in which the events of 
the week are spoken of and disciplinary measures taken. The private teachers 
have no access but in cases where they are particularly concerned. Every pro- 
fessor has the right of punishing, and the private teachers may apply for it to the 
inspector. To make use of that painful right, the teacher as such is but rarely 
forced, oftener in the quality of inspector, and it will be understood, almost nevei- 
as special tutor. Corporeal punishment is forbidden. The common penalty is de- 
privation of one of the meals ; the highest is imprisonment. It happens in the 
Bloehmann institution, that to malefactors of inveterate habits flogging is applied, 
but only to those of the two preparatoiy classes, and by decree of the conference, 
and in presence of the directors. In the common gymnasia, where professors 
and students meet with each other only in the recitation rooms, there is less 
chance of transgressing laws, the law of the class-room being but one, and that 
every moment impressed upon the mind of the would-be-transgressor by the pres- 
ence of the law-giver and judge, but habitual indolence and laziness will meet 
with something more than a sermon on diligence, which would be like casting a 
brilliant pearl before a swine ; a few involuntaiy study-hours for making a Latin 
ode appeals better and more successfully to the stubborn heart. It is never too 
late to mend ; hence expulsion from the college is and ought to be a rare case, and 
such a victim has usually gone, before, through the dark hole called career, which 
is known to ninety-nine per cent, of the gymnasiasts more by name than by sight. 
There is generally speaking, in the German gymnasia, a strict discipline, without 
any Spartan severity and without Basedow's philanthropical sweetness. Of 
course, there have been a great many students who never, in their college life, 
heard a harsh word nor saw a stern look ; but others, who are not well prepared, 
or are inattentive, or noisy, or have written their compositions carelessly, or com- 
mitted a misdemeanor that comes to the ears of professors, are generally dealt with 
in good, plain German, and " without gloves," and a repetition may lead, by a 
long graduation, or rather degradation, to the hole. In the common gymnasia, 
the professors do not interfere with the private hfe of the students, unless some 
charge is brought against them by a citizen. 

A gymnasium ordinarily consists of four classes, called Prima, (the highest, or 
seniors,) Secunda, Tartia, and Quarta, (lowest^ or freshman,) and each of these 
classes are usually divided into two parts, upper and lower. In this institution 
there are six classes, including the progymnasium. 

Pupils are received into the progymnasium at nine or ten years of age, and 
with the attainments of the elementary period. In this school, which has two 
classes, they remain until from thirteen to fourteen. Its courses are the following : 
Bible history, and religion, the German language, the Latin, French, history, arith- 
metic, knowledge of forms, geography, natural history, drawing, and writing. 
From the upper class of the progymnasium, the pupils pass to the gymnasium, in 
which there are four classes. The courses are of religion, Latin, Greek, German 
language and literature, French, mathematics, history, geography, natural phi- 
losophy, natural history, music, and drawing. From the fourth or lowest class of 
the gymnasium, the pupil who is not intended to go to the university enters the 
" real gymnasium," or scientific school, in which there are two classes, and the 
duration of the studies of which is one year less than that of the classical g|Tnna- 
sium. In this the French and English, and the scientific studies, replace the 
classics, except a portion of Latin, which is still kept up. The comses consist of 
reUgion, German language and literatui-e, Latin, French, English, mathematics, 



282 



SECONDARY EDUCATION IN SAXONY. 



physics, chemistry, natural history, mechanics, history, geography, drawing, auJ 
music. The distribution of the time of study in the principal branches agrees en- 
tirely with that of the two upper classes of the Royal Real School at Berlin, 
already described. 

The arrangements for the superintendence of the pupils in this institution are, 
in the main, like those of Pforta. Pupils called inspectors are selected, apd super- 
intend their fellows when in the play-ground and at study, and there are two mas- 
ters always on duty as superintendents. The physical education of the pupils is 
very well attended to, and the alterations of exercise and study have a very gno.^ 
effect. These alterations will appear by the following order of the day : 

The boarders rise at six o'clock, and breakfast at a quarter to seven. From a 
quarter to seven to a quarter to eight, study under the superintendence of the two 
teachers on duty. Pupils living out of the house join in this study hour. Prayers. 
From eight to a quarter to ten, instruction. Quarter to ten to quarter after ten, 
play in the garden, and a light second breakfast. Quarter after ten to twelve, in- 
struction. Twelve to one, instruction in instrumental and vocal music, gymnastic 
exercises, dancing, or free to play in the grounds under the charge of the two 
superintendents, At one, the day scholars leave the institution. Quarter after 
one to two, dinner. Two to three, play under charge of the inspectors. Three 
to quarter of five, instruction. On Wednesday and Saturday, walks. Quarter 
to five to quarter after five, lunch and recreation. Quarter after five to eight, 
study under charge and aided by the inspectors. Eight, supper. At nine the 
younger pupils retire, the older ones study until ten. 

The mathematical instruction in this school is continued, even in the higher 
branches, upon the inductive plan, and is the most effective which I have ever 
seen. It consists of a mixture of explanation and question, and of oral and writ- 
ten exercises in the class-room. The recitations are upon the previous lessons, 
and upon questions given to be solved out of the class-room, and the written exer- 
cises are solutions of questions and notes of the explanation of the previous lesson. 
The collections in natural history are superior to those possessed by any other 
gymnasium which I visited. Both this and the physical apparatus afford very 
considerable means of illustration in these departments. The chemical laboratory, 
in a building apart from the house, is very conveniently arranged, both for instruc- 
tion and experiments by the pupUs. 

The time of a gymnasium life varies with the progress of the student in literary 
acquirements. There are generally semi-annual transfers from one division to the 
other, and in very rare cases it might happen that an excellent student would 
finish his course in four years, remaining in each division but half a year, and on the 
other hand, a first-rate idler might stay as long as eight years. Hence, the average 
number of college years is six. The student, advancing from one class to another, 
finds there a remaining stock of students superior to himself, if not in talents, at 
least in acquaintance with the studies and with the professor of the class. After 
a three months' study and experience, the able student may leap over that 
boundary and put himself on a level with his older companions ; and then he will 
be transferred with them to the next class. It is easier to do so in the inferior 
classes (lower gymnasium, IV. and III.,) where the order of the students is 
arranged according to their studies in the class, but in the upper gymnasium more 
respect is paid to the time and common order, though some capital scholar will 
break through, while some sluggard will be left behind. There is, also, a good 
deal of difference in this respect between the different schools, some having only 
annual translations, while only a part of the classes are divided 5 however, the 
way of advancement is in all the same, except only in the Blochmann gymnasium, 
where four regular courses of one year and a half each, carry the student in six 
years through the four undivided classes. 

History flourishes in the German colleges to a high degree, not only the history 
of ancient Greece and Rome learned by reading the various authors, but also the 
universal history of the civilized world. The professor of history may be sure to 
have an attentive class, eager to hear of old German liberty beside the Roman 
despotism, of the Teutonic race conquering the Roman Europe, first running wild 
in their braveiy, then grafting Christian civilization on the healthy stems of the 
great empire imder Charles the Great, or Charlemagne, and under the Hohen- 
staufen, of the Franks and Normanns in Gallia, of the Saxons and Angles in 



SECONDARY EDUCATION IN SAXONY. 283 

Britain, of the Longobards in Italy, of the sea-power of the Northmen, of the 
free cities of the Middle Ages, of the Reformation, and of the American Revolu- 
tion. In history and mathematics generally, the divisions of a class are united. 
However, in those gymnasia where semi-annual transfers are in use, the teacher 
of mathematics may have a good deal of trouble, whereas history may be taught 
in short periods, and easily made intelligible to any one by brief introductions or 
Bome private study. We pass by geography, natural history, and philosophy, 
which have only a short life in the lowest or highest classes. 

The circumstances, that mathematics and history are usually taught by one pro- 
fessor each, facilitates somewhat the teaching, as it at least gives free scope to the 
professor to make his arrangements as he pleases, while the Greek and Latin are 
mostly taught by class-teachers. The average number of teachers is eight, five 
or six of them called professors in some gymnasia, upper-teachers in others ; or 
according to their rank Rector or Director, Prorector or Rector, Collega III. (Ter- 
tius,) Collega IV. (Quartus,) etc., and two or three Adjunct! or Collaboratores. 
Each one of them has his respective class, with several lessons in the adjoining 
classes. "' It will be understood that this matter depends on the agreement of the 
conference, and that the colleges, therefore, differ from each other in this respect, 
sometimes considerably. But to a certain degree it exists even in the Blochmann 
College, where there is no difference of rank among the professors, and the 
teachers are appointed not for classes but their respective branches. However, 
there being four teachers of ancient languages, they have each, besides teaching 
in all, one class in which they have their chief work. "Wliat ! four and more 
teachers, only to instruct in the ancient languages ? Yes, and all these have their 
good week's work. And the ancient languages are not only equally taught 
throughout the whole college, but even to a greater extent in the highest classes. 
Besides, an American student has only three recitations a day, a German at least 
five lessons ; hence it is obvious that a greater nimiber of teachers is wanted in 
German than in American schools. 

We have arrived now at an important point of difference. It lies in the char- 
acter of recitations and lessons. In Germany the student prepares for the les- 
son ; here the student prepares by learning the lesson. In Germany he receives 
his entire lesson from the teacher ; here he recites his lesson to the teacher. 
There he repeats his lesson at home ; here he repeats it before the teacher. 
Briefly, there he learns almost every thing from the teachers ; here he learns the 
greater part from his books. We hope not to be misunderstood ; it is the con- 
struction of the machine, not the managing of it, which we have drawn here in 
sharp lines ; too sharp, indeed, to be entirely correct, as it is the case with all dis- 
tinctions of that kind, and yet evidently characteristic. Generally speaking, an 
American student has for preparing his lesson double the time of the recitation hour ; 
a German but half the time ; besides that, private study being supposed and required 
as well there as here. Here the class or lesson-book is the fireman who makes 
the steam power, and the teacher the engineer who makes it run. There the 
teacher is both fireman and engineer, and the student need to do no more than re- 
member his last trip, and bring a suppljtof fuel for his fui-ther progress. Hence 
the greater number of lessons and teachers. It follows, likewise, that a German 
student usually has his pen in hand to make notes for recording and repeating, 
and on the other hand that the professor has the most unlimited liberty in teach- 
ing what and how he pleases. There is naturally a great deal of danger in that, 
but a method prescribed to the teacher in spite of his will, disposition or capacity, 
would bear even more bitter fruits than a method of his own choice, though it 
were not the best. Yet he is not free in choosing the author, at least so far as he 
might interfere with other classes, or transgress the established rule of the college 
on account of the successive order to be observed. That order, adopted by most 
of them according to the agreement of the most competent judges, is generally 
the following : 

IV. Cornelius Nepos, (Phaedrus.) IV. Jacob's Reader. 

HI. Caesar. Ovid's Metamorphoses, (Tristia.) III. Xenophon. Lucian. Odyssey. 
II. Cicero's Orations, or Cato and Laelius. II. Herodotus. Plutarch. Plato's Crito or 
Sallust or Livy. Virgil. lo. Iliad. 

J. Cicero's Rhetoric or Philos, Tacitus. I. Thucydides. Demosthenes. Plato. (Eu^ 
Horace. ripides.) Sophocles. 



284 SECONDARY EDUCATION IN SAXONY. 

The two diflferent methods of reading the classics, the thorough and the cur- 
sory, and the third running between them, are promiscuously used. Let us com- 
pare the first with the artillery, the second with the cavalry, and the third with 
the infantry, as the head, the feet, and the large body of the army. The first is a 
hea%'y, cumbersome mass, moving slowly yet reaching far, and the only means to 
make a fortress surrender. It requires both learning and skill, and, if well di- 
rected, it breaks the battle-array of the enemies. So the fii'st method is the chief 
instriunent for making the pupil master of the classical field. It may appear tedi- 
ous to stay long on the same spot, where the prospect invites to proceed, but the 
present place must be wholly conquered with all its environs, while the charms of 
the view around, the safety from an attack of enemies in the rear, and the con- 
sciousness of a sure and safe progress, will conquer the worst enemy, the vagrant 
laziiii';s of mind. No grammatical point, which is not entirely subdued, is to be 
passed by, no beauty of style to be overlooked, no nicety of thought to be slighted. 
It is true, not a little learning and taste is required from the oflScer, to make it in- 
teresting and useful ; for how can he make others at home where he himself is a 
stranger ? Or how may he avoid the danger of dwelling long on those points 
with which he has been made acquainted just before, and of caring little about 
those which did not attract his special attention, as already known to him super- 
ficially ? Instances of abuse have not been rare in Germay. Some dictated nil 
the later notes of the best commentators ; perhaps one whole page to explain a 
single verse, and added at last their own judgment ; others made the foreign vns- 
dom their own, indeed, but it was not well digested, it could not inspire much 
interest in classical learning. Still, notwithstanding all this, the danger was not 
so great as one might imagine, there being a variety of classical teachers in every 
gymnasium, who bold one another in check, or rather who supply the deficiencies 
of each other. Thus it happens even, that their foibles turn out as so many ad- 
vantages for the student. 

The cursory method we have compared with tlie cavalry. It is good to recon- 
noitre the battle-field, to take possession of open places, and to destroy the enemy, 
\\'hen he is put to flight. No one should expect more from cursory reading. On 
the whole, it is not often used in the German colleges, because it contains not 
much of educational element, either for character or for learning. However, we 
think it the best way to let it precede, and follow the first method. It acquaints 
the pupil somewhat with the language and tone of the writer, and thereby makes 
the following more thorough reading easier and more interesting. Here the pro- 
fessor must carry the student over the fences and ditches. It should follow not 
only that the pupil may enjoy the reading of a larger piece of poetry or prose, 
and excite lasting attachment to the author, but that it may throw light upon the 
past subjects, make suggestions better understood and confirm the knowledge of 
language and style by silent repetition. Here the student must carry the profes- 
sor, who, however, will make a wise use of bridle and spur. Rapidity of mind 
and elegance of taste are the chief requisites for giving to the third method of 
X'eading the right turn and the best success. Every thing good lies between ex- 
tremes. Most teachers are common foot soldiers, neither laden with learning nor 
rapid in tastefal perception ; neither fond of standing too long, nor of running 
too quickly, but they go duly on, as they are commanded by learning or custom. 
In modern times much has been done toward improving the method by uniting 
the obvious advantages of the thorough and cursory plan, in order to read more 
of the author without losing the right understanding and the acquisition of the 



For " author-lessons," a student is required to know all the necessary words 
and be able in some degree to translate the following chapter. Four or five per- 
haps get parts of it for translating. This being done, the teacher commences ex- 
plaining by asking whatever the character of the passage and the standing of the 
students allow. In the lower gymnasium the Latin prose is used for repeating 
and applying the rules spoken of in the Syntax lessons ; in the upper gymnasium 
grammatical remarks occur seldom, more frequently rhetorical, assthetical and his- 
torical ones. Etymologj' is never lost sight of, but it is confined to Latin and 
Greek stems. The students are expected to make notes, to read them over at 
home, and are sometimes directed to learn the passages that have been read by 
heart. 



SECONDARY EDUCATION IN SAXONT. 285 

The editions of the classics used in the lessons are commonly without notes, and 
the use of such, as have all somewhat difficult passages explained is forbidden dur- 
ing the lesson-time. A good teacher keeps the whole class alive chiefly by ques- 
tioning, and only when nobody has found the right or could find it, he formally 
begins to instruct. For although the professor is the only source of instruction, 
the character of classical teaching is such, that it may be easily interwoven with 
any kind of examination, and few questions, proposed by an experienced and skill- 
ful teacher, will be so difficult as not to find among the many youths of different 
acquirements and abilities, at least one who could give a satisfactory answer. We 
mean an answer that gives a part of the point in question, and leads successively 
to the full explanation, which afterward the professor in a few words recapitulates. 
But however correct the single remarks may be, that instruction only deserves to 
be called skillful and elegant, where every following question seems to originate 
from the preceding, and the whole series of remarks appears to be more or less 
internally connected. 

In Prima, criticism is practiced to some extent, and, we believe, not unsuccess- 
fully. To be sure to discern hair-breadth philological niceties, or to judge of the 
genuineness of a passage or a single word, belongs to the sphere of the professional 
study of philology ; yet not only to give the result with some suggestions about 
the foregoing researches, but also to lay before the seniors such critical points to be 
decided as are not beyond the reach of their learning, will undoubtedly strengthen 
the power and acuteness of judgment in an interesting and profitable manner. 
But the judgment of the professor himself respecting the choice of the critical 
point of discussion, and the manner in which it is managed, are in the depai'tment 
of education, where method is every thing, the chief point to be inquired after. 
That young men of about twenty years acquainted with language and literature, 
are qualified to play sometimes the part of critics, is evident, and they ought to be 
practiced in it. 

There will be more doubt about the utility of speaking Latin in Prima and 
partly in Secunda. Of course, the authors are translated into German, but gen- 
erally explained in Latin. Besides, there is one hour a week set apart in some 
colleges for Latin conversation. It is true that the students become more familiar 
with the language in many respects, but the correctness of language and elegance 
of style are not always much improved by it. Agreeable as that acquirement is, 
and even necessary as yet for the students to understand the Latin lectures in the 
university, it is to be considered as subordinate to the achievement of a correct 
style, and only when the speaking is well balanced by continual exercises in writ- 
ing, will it exert a great and wholsome influence, and become an essential part of 
the classical discipline of mind. 

The exercises in writing Latinare duly appreciated in the German gymnasia. In 
Quarta and Lower Tertia, where the syntax is accurately reviewed in three or four 
hours a week, short exercises, suitable to fix the learned rules by application, are 
made during and between the lessons. A translation-book, not unlike the English 
Arnold with rules, is often used besides Zumpt's gi'ammar, but the right under- 
standing and the best exercises come from the teacher. In Upper Tertia and 
Lower Secunda the German text for translation is prepared by the teachers, in 
which some care is taken of the weekly reading and of the still fluctuating gram- 
matical precepts. But in Upper Secunda and Prima, at least for two years, the 
Latin exercises are free compositions on a given theme. They are not always 
weekly, but half-monthly and monthly, in order to allow a longer time to larger 
compositions of six to ten pages, while the review of the same is going on usually 
two hours a week. These free exercises are not only an important, but also a 
pleasant task to the advanced scholar, who is beyond the reach of a grammatical 
blunder, in the possession of all the necessary words, and fond of moving freely in 
imitating what he has read and in expressing what he thinks best. And Only to 
him they are useful to whom they are easy. Another help for writing Latin are 
the " Extemporalia,^'' in which the students, as the name indicates, is obliged to 
write immediately down in Latin what they are told in German. This quiet com- 
bination and exchange of the two languages promotes greatly the faculty of think- 
ing in Latin, necessary to speaking and writing. In one gymnasium we noticed 
the usage of spending in Prima one hour of the week in making a brief composi- 



286 SECONDARY EDUCATION IN SAXONV. 

tion on a given subject, read in Cicero or spoken of during the week. The short 
time does not allow deep reflection, still it is long enough to the eager student, to 
make a few periods chiefly with regard to the form, and to apply some elegancies 
of style remembered from the last Cicero-lesson. It is a matter of course, that 
free corapo.sitions in the German are made besides, and that they rank quite as 
high. 

The teaching of the Greek reveals naturally a somewhat different character, as 
no reproduction either for speaking or for writing is intended. There is some 
writing in and for the grammar-lessons throughout all classes, {Rost and Wustc- 
mann^s Exercises are much used,) but it is easily perceived that the writing is by- 
work, and tends only to make authors and language better understood. Thus it 
happens that a young man who reads Homer without wanting the aid of a lexi- 
con, is sometimes in some perplexity to find a common Greek word, if asked in 
Gerjnan. And the Greek is not the worse for it, provided that on the one hand 
is gained, what on the other is lost. It may be supposed, however, that the philo- 
logist in the university is so well acquainted with the language by reading and 
explaining Greek writers, that he will be able to write and even to speak Greek 
tolerably, if compelled to do so. 

In order to understand and enjoy poetry, one hour is appointed in every class for 
prosody and metre. The student of Tertia who commences reading Ovid, is pre- 
pared for it by a long practice of the rules of prosody and of the laws of hexameter 
distichs. In Secunda it is required of the student to make free verses, hexameters 
or distichs. Having been introduced into the variegated world of lyrical forms, 
and enabled to read and appreciate the odes of Horace, the " Primaner" makes 
little poems of whatever metre, heroic, lyric or dramatic. We hold these lessons 
and exercises to be very useful, not only to get a correct idea of the poetical but 
also of the general rhythmical laws of the languages, without which a nice under- 
standing of prose as well as of poetry is next to impossible. 

Let us add a few words in regard to private studies. Our readers who have 
rightly inferred from the large number of lessons, that a German gymnasiast has 
plenty of work in order to do his public task conscientiously, and very little time 
left for fancy-studying, provided that he takes a suflScient time for meals, rest, and 
exercise. On the other band, it is obvious, that not all the authors mentioned 
above can be read. Yet some acquaintance with all of them is required, and the 
view is generally taken by the professors, that the reading which can not be done 
in the lessons ought to be supplied at home. The student, therefore, must work 
pretty hard to be well prepared for the lessons, to have his weekly exercises, as 
German and Latin compositions, Greek, metrical and mathematical lessons, ex- 
actly studied, and to give, as it is required in some colleges, every month a good 
account of his private studies. There he presents extracts of an author with com- 
positions of any kind he pleases, in prose or poetry ; and where no such account 
is given publicly, private studies of the same sort are nevertheless expected. 
Besides the morning and night hours, the free afternoons of Wednesday and Sat- 
urday aff(:>rd a longer series of study-hours. There are in the whole about eight 
weeks vacation. The results of the home-studies are, of course, soon perceived by 
teacher and pupil, and the loss of time is doubly compensated by the rapid progress 
and by the ability to make the best exercises in the shortest time. Still, we do not 
mean merely free and independent reading and working, but chiefly the free spirit 
of diligence Used independently of the necessities of school, )'et in doing the 
school-work. 

The boy of fourteen is now a young gentleman of twenty years. Having made 
his la^vful run, and having the permission of tlie professors to graduate, he must bite 
a sour apple and get examined. This " examen maturitatis" is somewhat more diffi- 
cult and more important than the usual semi-annual or annual examinations, for it 
will declare him prepared for independent and professional studies, and also decide 
on the degree of his maturity, ( imprimis," " omnis," " satis," dignus.) All 
however have laid a good foundation for any kind of scholarship, or likely to read 
with ease the New Testament (such as are to be theologians are taught the Hebrew 
in Prima,) the Corpus Juris and Celsus, can understand a Latin lecture or oration, 
and retain so much during their professional life in the university, as to be able 
generally to speak Latin after three years, iu the theological, juridical or medical 
examinations. 



SECONDARY EDUCATION IN SAXONY. 



287 



The classical education, as common to all scholars, is here closed. But for those 
who iuteiid devoting their lives to classical learning and teaching, the philological 
training continues in the universities. 

TABLE OF LESSONS IN THE BLOCHMANN-VIZTHUM COLLKGE, (1840,) AT DRESDEN. 



1 Religion 
2. Languages: 

A Greek 

B. Latin 

(a) Coi-neliusNep. 

(b/ Grammar 

(c) Prosody 



1. Religion 

2. Languages: 
A. Greek. 

fa) Homer 

(b) Lucian 

(c) Grammar 
B Latin, 

(a) Caesar 
(bj Ovid 



1. Religion 
2 Languages : 

A. Greek, 

(a) Iliad 

(b) Herodotus 

(c) Grammar 

B. Latin, 
(a) Virgil 



3 


C. German 




D. French 


6 


3. Mathematics 




(a) Algebra 


4 


(b) Arithmetic 


3 


(c) Geometry 


I 


4. History 




III. 


2 


(c) Grammar 




(d) Prosody 




C. German 


2 


D. French 


2 


3. Mathematics : 


2 


(a) Algebra 




(b) Arithmetic 


4 


(c) Geometry 


2 


4. History 




II. 


2 


(b) Cicero 




(c) Sallust 




(d) Grammar 


2 


(e) Prosody 


2 


C. German 


3 


D. French 




E. English 


2 


3 Mathematics: 



5. 


Natural Hist. 


1 


6. 

7. 


Geography 
Drawing 


2 
2 


8. 

9. 

10. 


Singing 

Gymnastics 

Dancing 


2 
2 
2 



(a) Algebra 

(b) Arithmetic 

(c) Trigonometry 

4. History 

5. Natural Hist. 

6. Gymnastics 

7. Singing 

8. Dancing 



40 



5. Natural Hist. 


1 


6. Geography 


2 


7. Drawing 


1 


8. Singing' 


2 


9. Gymnastics 


2 


10. Dancing 


1 



40 



1. Religion 


2 


B. 


Latin, 


E. 


English 


2 


2. Languages : 




(a) 


Tacitus 2 


3. 


Mathematics: 




A. Greek, 




(b) 


Cicero, phil. cursor. 1 


(a) Stereometry 


2 


(a) A) Sophocles P 


2 




A) Cic. philos. P 2 


(b) 


Higher proport. 


2 


B) Euripides S 






B) Cic. epis. \ 


4. 


History 


2 


'b) A) Thucydides ; 
B) Demosthen. \ 


2 


(c) 


Horace 2 


5. 


Natural phil. 


2 




(d) 


Exercises 2 


6. 


Gymnastics 


2 


(c) Homer cursor. 


1 


(e) 


Latin speak. 1 


7. 


Singing 


2 


(d) Exercises 


1 


C. 


German lit. 3 


8. 


Dancing 


2 


(e) Greek Antiquit. 


1 
II. 


D. 


French 2 

PROGYMNASIUM. 
I. 




II. 


40 
I. 


Religion 


4 




„ Hot., Zool., Min., 


2 


ji 


Latin 


6 




9 Drawing 




2 


1, 


German 


3 




„ Calligraphy 




2 


J, 


French 


4 




„ Gymnastics 




3 


2 


Arithmetic 


3 




}) 




— Singing 


2 


Geography 


8 




»» 




34 


X 



SCHOOL OF MINES 

AT 

FREVBERG, SAXONY. 



This celebrated school is one of the richest mining districts of Saxony, and the 
proximity of the mines permits an easy combinati(«n of practice with theory. Its 
first object is to furnish educated young men for the corps of mines of the king- 
dom, but it also admits strangers to its courses at a triding expense for their in- 
struction, the pupils boarding in the town. 

General government. The school of mines is under the imrqediate govern- 
ment of the directory of mines (oberbergamt,) and is thus a branch of the minis- 
try of finance. The professors form a board for the execution of the general reg- 
ulations, and one of them is specially charged by the directory with the superin- 
tendence of the instruction of discipline. 
, Admission. Applications for free admission to the institution are made to the 
directory of mines, and must be accompanied by certificates that the applicant is 
between sixteen and twenty-three years of age, is of good moral character, in 
sound health, writes German correctly, and understands the grammar of the 
language ; has made some proficiency in geography and history, can read easy 
Latin authors, is acquainted with arithmetic, the elements of geometry, and has 
made a beginning in drawing. If he understands the French or English language, 
it is a recommendation. The testimonials must be handed between the months of 
January and June, and the directory decide which of the applicants may present 
themselves for examination before the professors of the school. Those found 
qualified in all the courses enter, and others may, in particular cases, be allowed to 
join the classes, undergoing subsequently an examination in the studies in which 
tliey were defective. According to an edict of the German diet, in regard to the 
attendance of foreigners upon the scholastic institutions of any of the German 
states, strangers must apply to the minister of finance for permission to attend the 
school and present a testimonial of character and proficiency, and the written ex- 
pression of their parents' wish that they should attend the school. Admission is, 
however, freely granted. Those pupils who are in part, or entirely, supported by 
the goverment, are divided into two classes. The first division includes the regu- 
lar students, called beneficiaries (beneficianteu,) who pass through a course of four 
years at the school, and become candidates for the corps of mines ; the other is 
composed of those who enter for places not requiring more than one or two years 
of study, or who have passed a superior examination for admission, but can not 
enter as regular students, in consequence of the want of a vacancy in the corps. 
Besides these there are two other divisions, namely, Saxons, who pay their own 
expenses at the school, and foreigners. These diflferent divisions are distinguished 
by characteristic differences in the uniform which they wear. The gratuitously 
educated students come under an obligation at entering, in event of leaving the 
service of the government, to refund the pay which they may have received, and 
to pay the cost of their tuition. The regular pupils receive a pay proportioned in 
general to the length of time which they have been in the school. The first class 
receives from twenty-two to thirty dollars per annum ; the second, from fifteen to 
twenty-two; the third, from seven to fifteen. The fourth class receive only the 
compensation to which they maj' be entitled for their work in the mines. 

Instruction. The courses of instruction are divided into those which are to be 
pursued by all the pupils, or general, and those which depend upon the branch to 
wh ch they intend devoting themselves, or special. The first consist of elementary, 
higher, and applied or mixed mathematics, mechanics and the machinery of mines, 
general, analytical, and special or technical chemistry, physics, drawing, general 
and topographical, of shades, shadows, and perspective, and of mining implements, 
of mining and metallurgic machines and constructions, oryctognosy (mineralogy,) 

19 



290 SCHOOL OF MINES AT FREYBERG, SAXONY. 

geognosy (geology,) crystallography the art of mining, metallurgy, civil engineering, 
mining jurisprudence and correspondence, the French language. The second of 
special courses consist of the surveying of mines and land surveying, the keeping 
of books, registers, &c., of fossil geology, for those who are intended as miners, 
and of the examination of minerals, and analytical chemistry, with special refer- 
ence to the ores of Saxony, for those who are to serve at the furnaces. 

These courses are pursued by the regular students according to the following 
plan : — The first year is devoted to elementary mathematics, to physics, to geog- 
nosy, to general and topographical drawing, to French, and to general practical 
operations of mining and metallurgy. All these pupils are allowed at certain times 
to be present in the mines and at the furnaces, under the charge of miners and 
smeltors, who act as instructors, and who report at the end of the year upon the 
character of their pupils. 

During the second year the courses pursued are — higher mathematics, general 
chemistry, mineralogy, with practical exercises, crystallography, the art of mining, 
civil engineering, drawing, French, practical mining, and geological exerci.ses. 

After this year the student determines whether he will devote himself to mining 
or metallurgy, and receives special instruction accordingly. 

The general courses of the third year are — applied mathematics, the art of min- 
ing, analytical chemistry, metallurgy, technical chemistry, drawing, practical exer- 
cises in mining and metallurgy, geology, with practical exercises, and fossil 
geology. 

The courses of the fourth year are — machinery of mines, theory and practice, 
mining jurisprudence, examination of minerals, analytical chemistry, and practi- 
cal exercises of mining and metallurgy. During this year, the pupils who intend 
devoting themselves specially to mining attend solely to practice in that branch, 
and thus also with the metallurgists. The particular operation in which they en- 
gage is regulated by tlie lectures, that the practice of each operation may be ac- 
quired at the same time with its theory. 

In relation to the amount of study to be pursued, the government pupils are 
divided into three classes, those who aim at entire qualification for the coVps, and 
who, on graduating at the school, go to the university for one year, and those who 
intend to connect themselves with the department of metallurgy. 

Among the apparatus for carrying out these courses is an admirable collection 
of models of machines and of mines. The collection of minerals and geological 
specimens is large, and besides that of the school, the students have the use of the 
cabinet of the celebrated Werner, which is kept detached from the other as a 
memorial of that great man. The library and reading-room, the collection of 
physical and chemical apparatus, and the arrangements for the study of analytical 
chemistry, and the assay of minei'als and ores, are all suitable to their several objects. 
The course of assaying with the blovv-pipe has become quite celebrated. 

The lectures are continued from October to July, with holidays of from one to 
two weeks at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide. During the summer vacations, 
the regular pupils make excursions into the other mining districts of Saxony, and 
even into foreign countries, for their improvement in mining, geology, &c., and 
are expected to keep a journal of their tours. The short vacations are employed 
at the school in practical exercises and in lit€rary compositions, unless leave of 
absence is obtained. There is also one day of each week on which there are no 
lessons, (Monday,) to allow the pupils to take part both in the mining and smelting 
operations of the district of Freyberg. 

Thei-e tire eight professors and five teachers attached to the school, among 
whom the different departments are divided according to the following plan, in 
which the number of lectures per week is also noted : — One professor has charge 
of the three departments of general and technical chemistry and of metallurgy, 
lecturing on the first, five hours; on the second, three hours ; and on the third, 
three hours. The professor of theoretical and practical mineralogy lectures on the 
theory for students of the first and second courses, each three times a week ; gives 
a ri'petition of one hour, and practical exercises two hours per week. The pro- 
fessor of geology and crystallography lectui'cs on the first, five hours, and on the 
second, two hours per week. The professor of physics and fossil geology lectures 
on the first, four hours, and on the second, t\'io Lours per week. The professor 



SCHOOL OF MINES AT FREYBERG, SAXONY. 291 

of the elementary and higher mathematics gives instruction in the first, four hours, 
and in the second, two hours per week. The professor of mining jurisprudence 
ai:d correspondence gives two lessons per week to each of his two classes. Mixed 
mathematics, mining machinery, and general surveying, are under one professor, 
who teaches the first and second, four hours, and the third two hours per week. 
Mining surveying is taught by a surveyor of the corps two hours per week. 
Drawing and civil architecture by an instructor, the former, six hours, and the 
latter, three hours per week. Registry is taught by a superintendent of mines. 
The assay of minerals by an overviewer, five hours per week. The teaclier of 
French gives four hours of instruction per week. 

The subjects are in general tiiught by lectures, combined with interrogation after 
each lecture, and, when the courses admit, with practical exercises. Ihe pupils 
are expected to write out a fair copy of their notes, and to keep a journal of their 
practical exercises ; these are from time to time, with the essays which they are 
directed to write, submitted to the professors, and are presented at the examina- 
tions. The subject of each recitation, the character of the pupils' answers, and of 
the exercises, drawings, and journals, are reported to the directory of mines by 
the professors. At the close of each of the four years there is an examination of 
the students in the several branches, and they are classified according to its results, 
and tlie estimate of their work during the year. Students who do not pass satis- 
faclorily, remain an additional year in the same class, after which, if they are not 
found proficient, they are dismissed. These remarks apply of course only to the 
regular students. There are three prizes for proficiency in the upper classes, and 
two in the fourth, varying in amount from two up to twenty florins, (eighty cents 
to eight dollars.) 

Graduation. Graduates of the school are candidates for the corps of mines, 
and receive the pay of this grade until appointed in the corps. Permission may 
be obtained to go to a university for one year, after graduating, in which case the 
candidate, on his return to duty, must show satisfactory certificates of study and 
conduct. This study of one year at a university is essential to certain situations in 
the corps, and hence is expected from those who intend to have the whole career 
open before them. 

Discipline. The discipline of the school is regulated by laws emanating from 
the directory of mines, and whicli are very minute. All the pupils without dis- 
tinction, are subject to these regulations. The means of repressive discipline con- 
sist of admonitions of various grades, report to the directory, mention in the report 
to the king, obligatory work in the mines, deprivation of pay, and dismission. 

This school, from the character of its officers, government, instruction, and loca- 
tion, offers great inducements to students who wish to become adepts in the prin- 
ciples of mining and metallurgy, and the sciences introductory to them. 



GRAND DUCHY OF BADEN. 



There are four Normal Schools, or seminaries for teachers, in the Grand 
Duchj' of Baden, viz. : at Carlsruhe, Ettingen, Meersburg, and Miillheim. 
Before giving a brief outline of the course of instruction pursued in the 
Normal School at Carlsruhe, we will give a condensed analysis of the plan 
upon which the primary schools of Baden are organized — drawn from the 
laws and ordinances now in force. The Grand Duchy is one of the most 
advanced constitutional states of Germany, and one the best provided with 
educational institutions. 

With a population in 1844 of 400,000, there were — 

Two Universities — one at Heidelberg, with 710 students. 
" at Freiburg, " 485 " 

Four Lyceums, or High Schools — a grade below the University. 

Six Gymnasiums — devoted mainly to high classical instruction. 

Six Pedagogiums, or Schools preparatory to the Lycea. 

Fourteen Latin Schools — preparatory to the Gymnasium. 

Eight Seminaries for young ladies. 

Four Normal Schools — one at Carlsruhe, for Protestant teachers. 

Catholic " 

One Institution for the deaf mutes. 

One Veterinary School. 

One Polytechnical School, with 200 pupils. 

One Trade School. 

One Military Academy. 

2121 Common Schools, each with different grades or classes. 

School Authorities and Inspection. — These institutions are all under 
the general supervision of the State, from which they receive in some form 
aid annually. Their supervision is committed to the Department of the 
Interior, subordinate to which there exists an Education Department or 
Council, consisting of one member for each of the four districts or circles, 
into which the State is divided. In all regulations respecting religious in- 
struction, the highest authorities of the Protestant and Catholic churches 
are consulted. 

For the primary schools, there is a School Board, or committee for each 
of the four districts, which must be consulted by the local school authornies 
in the founding of a new school, or suppression of an old one, and respect- 
ing all changes in the appointment of teachers. The board has the appoint- 
ment of a School Visitor for all the schools of the district, who holds his 
office six years, and is paid out of the State appropriation for educational 
purposes, and a School Inspector for the school or schools in each town and 
rural parish. 

The lowest school authority consists of the Inspector as cliairman, the 



294 PRIMARY EDUCATION IN BADEN. 

nif.jrqr, or hig-hest civil officer of the locality, the vestry of the pnrish among 
Protestants, the trustees of all ecclesiastical foundations in Catholic com- 
munities, and the directors of synagogues in Jewish comnuini.ies. These 
constitute a local or parochial school committee. In large towns, on special 
applicalion, the State Education Department can appoint a special board to 
take charge of all the schools, and of any separate school for a particular 
religious denomination. 

School ATTENDA^'CE. — Children whose sixth year terminates between the 
'23d of April of one year and the 23d of April of the year following, are 
bound to commence their schooling with Easter of the second year. A year 
is allowed where infirmity or similar disabling causes are proved to the sat- 
isfaction of the school authorities. 

The parish clergy, who keep the registers, have to furnish the school au- 
thorities with a list of all children whose schooling begins at the next fol- 
lowing Easter. To this a list is added of all children not born in the phce, 
and which has to be drawn up by the school authorities. These lists are 
to be handed to the schoolmasters; and one fortnight after the school is 
opened, the schoolmaster has to return to the authorities the names of such 
children as attend the school, as well as those of the absent children. The 
latter are to be forced through the police to attend school, except where thoir 
absence is excused or explained for reasons hereafter to be stated. 

Children leave schools also at Easter. Boys on having completed their 
14th ye.'ir, and girls their 13th year, or expecting to complete it before 25th 
April of that year. If by that period children who have attained these ages 
are not sufficiently advanced in the objects of instruction specified, they 
may be kept one or two years longer. Every scholar obtains a certificate 
on his leaving school. 

Children who have private instruction, or who attend higher institutions, 
for the purpose of obtaining better instruction, are free of the school, but 
require a certificate from the school inspectors. Private seminaries must be 
authorized by the upper school authorities. This authorization cannot be 
refused where the applicants are in every respect approved candidates as 
masters ; but such establishments must make good the school money which 
they abstract from the regular schoolmaster. 

Every week the schoolmaster is required to give to the school authorities 
a list of such children as have been absent without leave, or who, having 
absented themselves, did not satisfactorily account for their so doing, to- 
gether with number of days' absence. This list is handed to the burgo- 
master, who forwards it to the parents of the children, and imposes a fine, 
varying from 2 kreutzers (frf.) to 12 kreutzers (8c?.) for every day of non- 
attendance. * 

Studies in Primary Schools. — The studies in the elementary schools 
are — 1. Religion. 2. German language. 3. Writing. 4. Arithmetic. 
5. Singing. 6. General instruction on subjects of natural history, natural 
philosophy, geography, and geometry ; also on points appertaining to health 
and to farming. 7. Where there are sufficient means, drawing is to be 
taught. The last-named subjects are to be treated in such a manner that 
the more essential first five points are not to suffer by the attention be- 
stowed upon them. 

Internal Organization of Primary Schools. — 1. Schools that have 
but one teacher are to be divided into three classes, to be counted from the 
lowest afijirsl upward. 

In the summer half-year the third or highest class has two morning hours 
of schooling daily ; the second class has also two morning hours, and the 
first or lowest class has two hours in the afternoon. 

In the winter half-year the third or highest class has three morning hours 
of iustruction daily. The second olasa the first afternoon hour alone, and 



PRIMARY EDUCATION IN BADEN. 295 

the second in conjunction with the first class or beginners. One of these 
classes is to be employed in wri.iiig, under tlie inspection of a proper mon- 
itor selected from the scholars, while tlie other class is taught by the teacher. 
On half-holidays (Wednesday and Saturday) the morning hours, three in 
summer and four in winter, are to be proportionally divided among the three 
classes. 

2. When there are two teachers, the elder scholars are to be placed under 
one teacher and the younger half under the other. The school is tlien di- 
vided into four classes, each teacher taking two, and each class has instruc- 
tioa fur three hours daily, boiii in summer and in winter, excepting on half- 
holidays, when each class has but one hour and a half in the morning. 

If the number of pupils does not exceed 210, they may be divided into 
three classes, wiJi the consent of the school authorities. If boys and girls 
are instructed simultaneously, the division indicated above, into higher and 
lower classes, each under a se[>arate teacher. 

Where tiiere are three teachers, one is to instruct the beginners in the 
two first classes. Where the upper classes are composed both of boys and 
girls, the elder pupils are under one teacher and the younger ones under the 
other, or-. the sexes may be separated. 

With four teacliers, two distinct schools are formed, of four classes each, 
the arrangements being such as are already indicated. 

These arrangements, being fixed by the Education Department, in confer- 
ence with the parochial school authorities and the Inspector, may be modified 
to suit the exigencies and the means of larger towns or villages, provided 
that nothing be so arranged as to interfere with the rules that no class is to 
exceed 70 in number ; that each class is to have three hours' instruction 
daily, and the upper boys' class to have four in winter, with the exception 
of half-holidays, when the instruction is to be for them two hours, and for 
the others half hours. 

In places where industrial schools for girls are established, no change in 
these arrangements is to be made in consequence. Changes made, in con- 
sequence of the aid of an assistant being required from the ill health of the 
master, or an increase in the number of children, are to be reported to the 
Inspector, who will report upon them when submitting the results of his in- 
speciion to the Education Department. 

3. The advance of children from one class to another takes place after the 
examination, wiih the approval of the Inspector, and with due regard to the 
age and natural powers of the pupils. When the parents do not consent, a 
child can only be required to continue at sciiool beyonti the legal age on an 
authorization of the Education Department through the Inspector. 

4. Care is to be taken that the pupils assemble punctually at the fixed 
hours, and they are clean in person and attire. They must also behave with 
propriety both on their way to and from school and while at school. The 
injunciions concerning their conduct are to be publicly read to the pupils at 
the beginning of every half-year, and are to be hung up in every school-room. 

The pupils can be placed in their respective classes, according to their 
conduct and diligence, every week or month; but in the first classes oftener, 
if the teacher thinks it advisable. 

Permission to absent themselves from a single lesson may be granted by 
the teachers ; for more than one, the permission must be obtained from the 
school Inspector. 

Punishments consist in reprimands, in giving a lower place in the class, in 
tasks after school hours, and, where obstinate persistence in ftxults i* ob- 
served, in blows with a cane on the hand in a manner that is not dangerous. 
The teacher only takes cognizance of faults committed in school, or on the 
way to and from school. Bad conduct at other times is only punished at 
adiool whero the parents and guardians palpably neglect their duty. 



296 PRIMARY EDUCATION IN BADEN. 

6. The school-rooms should have ten feet in bight, and be built on a 
scale of six square feet to a pupil. 

Plan of Instruction. — The aim of the primary school is to cultivate 
the intellect of the child, and to form his understanding and religious prin- 
ciples, as well as to furnisli him with the knowledge requisite for his station 
in life. Instruction must, therefore, be imparted in such a manner as shall 
improve the mind. 

The pupil must have his attention sharpened, and his intellectual energies 
must be brought into activity. He must learn nothing mechanically. The 
memory must not be cultivated, except in connection with the understand- 
ing and the feelings. The formation of every idea is to be preceded by the 
requisite insight into its fundamental principle, whether exemplihed by ob- 
jects or figuratively. In all explanations the elementary principles must 
precede the complex views. What has been learnt must be made familiar 
by frequent application and illustration. The instruction given in the differ- 
ent classes must correspond with the plan here laid down. 

Religious Instruclion. — Care must be taken that the lesson in religion 
does not degenerate into a mechanical learning of sayings and of chapters 
from the Bible. The pupil's insight into all points must be clear and well 
grounded ; his feelings must be roused, and his good propensities must be 
confirmed. 

The nature of the instruction given in religion is to be regulated in detail 
by the higliest authority in the various confessions ; it is to be communicated 
through the catechism and school books approved by these authorities and 
sanctioned by the State. In this lesson the duties of the citizen are to be 
enforced. 

The school is to open and close daily with a short prayer or hymn, and 
the children are to be kept to regular attendance at church, the subject of the 
last sermon being a matter for the catechist to examine them upon. 

Grammatical Instruction. — Grammatical instruction must be connected 
with exercises in correct thinking, as well as in the fittest mode of giving 
expression to thoughts. The consideration of the correctness of an idea 
must precede that of the mode of expressing it. 

The organs of speech must be exercised until completely formed, and a 
due modulation of the voice must be cultivated. The writing lesson must 
teach neatness and a love of form. 

Arithmetical Instruction. — Comprises the four rules, preceded by proper 
explanation of the properties and nature of figures, and simultaneously ex- 
ercised, mentally and in wri.ing. The mental calculation is to precede the 
written sum on all occasions. After practicing the rules in whole num- 
bers, fractions, and with given simple or compound quantities in examples 
applicable in common life. 

In the second class the construction of simple geometrical figures is to 
be taught both to boys and girls. In the highest class the use of the square 
and compass, and the mode of reducing to proportionate dimensions, is to 
be taught. 

Musical Instruction. — The classes range as follows : — 

First class. — Exercises of the ear and the voice. Simple solo airs. 
Second class. — Duets and easy chorus singing. 
Third class. — Chorus and ornamental singing. 

General Instruction. — In natural history and philosophy, geography, his- 
tory, sanitary points, and agriculture, will be imported by the pieces selected 
in the reading-books, and can be enforced and illustrated by addiiional ex- 
amples and reasoning on the part of the teacher. 

Division of Time. — Half an hour daily must be devoted to religious in- 
struction, but this time may be prolonged or abridged, according to the 
Bubiect-matter treated of. 



PRIMARY EDUCATION IN HADEN. 



297 



The study of the mother-tongue, combined with reading and writing, is 
to occupy a portion of 8ix days in the week, in nddivion to copies to be 
written out of school hours. Arithmetic is to be taken four times, and 
singing twice in the week. Instruction in matters of general interest is to 
be given to the second class once and to the highest class three times in 
the week. 

The plan of the school is to be arranged between the teachers and the 
Inspector for every half-year, and a draft of it must be laid before the school 
authorities once a year, together with the results of the inspection. When 
the children appear behindliand in particular points of instruction, more time 
must be appropriated to those in the following year. 

If the scholars of one school be of different religious confessions, care is 
to be taken that they receive their religious instruclion at the same hour. 
If the school belong exclusively to one confession, but is also attended by 
children of another confession, the instruction in religion must be fixed in 
the last hour of attendance, that such as do not participate in it may go 
home, or wherever such instruction may be provided for them. 

Beside ttie primary schools, the following classes are established by 
law as part of ttie educational system of this Duchy, and are provided lor 
in the priauiry school-iiouses. 

EvK.MNG Classes. — Twice a week, during the winter, in every vil- 
lage and town, an evening class must he opened under the proper 
sciiool authority, when young persons who have completed iheir four- 
teenth year, and have left the primary school, may continue their 
studies. 

!Si!NDAY Classes. — All young people who have completed the pri- 
mary school course, are obliged to attend, in tiie towns for two years 
and in the villages for three years, a class every Sunday morning, not 
only for religious, but for secular instruction. 

Industhial Classes. — As a general rule, men are employed both 
as principal and assistants in the primary schools, and boys and girls of 
the same age and proficieticy are taught in the same class-roonis. To 
enable the girls to acquire the arts of sewing, knitting, &c.. the school 
committee are obliged to engage some suitable person to attend every 
school ill which a female assistant is not employed, for an hour at least 
every aflernoon after tiie boys are dismissed, to instruct the girls from 
the completion of their eleventh year in the mysteries of stitching, hem- 
ming, darning, shirt making, knitting. &c. If their mothers wish it. tlie. 
girls bring ilieir sewing from home with them lor this practice, but if 
tliey do not bring any material, the committee must provide it. No fee 
is cliarged lor this industrial training. The inspectors are required to 
report on the state and progress of these as well as the other classes of 
the schools. 

Factoky Schools. — No child may be employed in any manual oc- 
cupation, until it has completed its eleventh year; nor may any child, 
even at ihe completion of its eleventh year, be employed in a ftictory, 
or in an industrial occupation, unless it then attends the so called •' Fac- 
tory iSchuols." 

'I'he laws prescribe, that in these schools — 

No greater number of children than seventy may ever be educated 
together at the same time. 

The secular education given in them, must correspond to that pre- 
scribed by law, for the primary schools in general. 

No person may be selected, as a teacher of one of these schools, who 
has not obtained a diploma from the committee of public examiners for 
tlie Duchy. 

Each child attending a factory must receive, at least, two hours' 
instruclion in the factory school. 
The hdurs of inrtructiOn Bhciuld prtetfede the morning and aflbrndon's 



298 PRIMARY EDUCATION IN BADEN. 

working hours; but where this is impossible, an hour's relaxation must 
intervene between the hours of labor and the commencement of the 
hours of study. 

In the middle of the above-mentioned morning and afternoon work- 
ing liours, ihe children must be allowed to take a quarter of an hour's 
exercise outside the mill, and in the middle of the day. there must be 
an interval of a full hour between the morning and the afternoon work- 
ing hours. 

Young people under the age of fifteen, are not to be employed more 
than twelve hours a day in the factory and factory school together. 

Such young people are not to be employed in labor before five 
o'clock in the morning, nor after five in the evening, nor on Sundays or 
holidays. 

All masters of factories, who employ young people under the age of 
fifteen, must render periodical lists of the children employed by them ; 
giving the names, ages, places of residence, and names of the parents of 
such children. 

Any infringement of any of the above regulations will render the 
manufacturer offending liable to fines, the amount of which is fixed by 
law. 

The county magistrates are charged with the strenuous enforcement 
of these regulations. 

All the expenses of the education of the children attending a factory 
before the completion of their fourteenth year, must be borne by the 
owner ol' the tlictory which they attend. 

Teachers' Conferences. — In each union (district or circle) the 
union inspector is obliged, every September, i. e., during the holidays, 
to send notices to every teacher in his district, to assemble at a place 
and time specified in the notice. 

Every teacher, who receives the notice, is required by law to assem- 
ble at the place and time therein mentioned. 

Notices are sent also to each of the religious ministers of the union, 
that (those, who are able, may meet the teachers. The educational 
magistrate of the county, or some one representing him, is also always 
at the meeting. 

The notices are .-ent round as early as the month of May. preceding 
the meeting. The inspector, when he issues them, sends at the same 
time to each teacher in his district, one or two questions on .«ome jioint, 
connected either with the practice, or the methods of teaching, or with 
some of the various subjects of instruction, and upon which there has 
been some difference of opinion or practice. 

Each teacher is required to send to the inspector an answer to these 
que.'-lions by the month of August. 

Vt'lien (he inspector has received these answers, he reads them care- 
fully through, and writes a short and concise criticism of each answer, 
and reads it to the teachers when assembled at the conference. 

After the inspector has read the answers and criticisms to the meeting, 
the leachers proceed to debate the subject among themselves, rising one 
after another, and addressing the meeting upon it by turn. 

V\ hen this debate is concluded, three teachers, who had been chosen 
by the previous meeting, are then called upon to instruct a class of chil- 
dren before the rest of the assembly, in different branches of instruction. 
Their performances are then criticised and discussed by the others, who 
had 'been looking on as spectators. 

This plan serves two important ends: 

1st. It stimulates each of the teachers to aim at continual self-improve- 
ment, in order that he naay excel his competilors at the yearly meet- 



PRIMARY EDUCATION IN BADEN. 



299 



ings, and prove himself worthy of recommendation by the inspector to 
the more hicrative situations as they fall vacant, and also that he may 
win the respect and approval of his professional brethren. 

2d. It obliges the teachers to think over the various methods of in- 
struction ; to consider how they may teach in the most effective manner; 
to avoid bad and slothful habits with their scholars, and to observe how 
best to catch and retain the attention of their' scholars, and how most 
effectually to interest them in the subjects of instruction. 

At these meetings, also, the teacher.s arrange the affairs of their book 
clubs. Every teacher in each union is a member of the teachers' union 
book club. They each pay a small sum monthly, and with the sum 
thus collected, a few books are purchased and sent round from one to 
another. At the September meetitjgs. they choose the treasurer of 
their book club, and determine what books are to be purchased. 

Before tiie meeting is dissolved, a short account of all the proceedings 
is drawn up; and is then signed by the inspector, the magistrate present 
at the meeting, and all the teachers, and forwarded to the chief magis- 
trate of the county, in which the union is situated. 

The expenses of each teacher, incurred by attending these yearly 
conferences, are defrayed by the state. 



800 



NORMAL SEMINARY AT CARLSRCHE. 



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WIRTEMBERG. 



WtRTEMBERO was One of the earliest, of the German states to establish 

a graduated system of public instruction, from the common school to the 
university, and has always shared largely in all the educational move- 
ments of Germany. The framework of the school system in operation 
in 1848, was substantially the same as it was in 1538, enlarged from time 
to time to meet the demands of the age for new institutions and a more 
liberal and practical instruction. With a population of 1,750.000 there 
were the following institutions, aided by the government, in 1847 : 

One University at Tubingen, with six faculties, seventy-one professors, 
and ^00 students. 

Nine Real Schools, with seventy teachers. 

Six Gymnasia, each with ten professors and three assistants, (that at 
Stuttgart has twenty-six professors.) 

Five Lycea, each with seven teachers. 

Eighty-seven Latin Schools, in which eighty-six classical teachers, sixty- 
six real teachers, and forty-four assistants are employed. 

One Protestant Theological Seminary at Tubingen, with fifteen teach- 
ers, and four preparatory theological schools in other parts, each having 
six teachers and thirty pupils. 

One Catholic Theological Seminary. 

One Polytechnic School, with twenty-one teachers and a course of in- 
struction embracing four years, for engineers, architects, &c. 

One Institute for Agriculture and Forestry at Hohenhein, the most 
complete agricultural establishment in Europe. 

One Veterinary School, with five professors. 

Two Orphan Houses, each having 278 orphans. 

Seven Schools of Art and Drawing. 

One Superior Seminary for Protestant girls, at Obenstenfeld, with 
eleven teachers. 

One Superior Seminary for Catholic girls, at Stuttgart, with thirteen 
male teachers, and thirteen female teachers. 

One Institute for Deaf Mutes and the Blind. 

One thousand four hundred and fifty-five Protestant Common Schools. 

Seven hundred and eighty-seven Catholic Schools. 

Six Teachers' Seminaries. 

These institutions, providing on a liberal scale for the educational 
wants of the whole community, are all in some way aided by the govern- 
ment, and subject to its supervision through the Home Department. 
Subordinate to this department is the Evangelical Consistory, having 
charge of the Protestant, and the Church Council, having charge of the 



302 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN WIRTEMBERG. 

Catholic seminaries, of the higher grade. Below these, for each of the 
four circles, or districts into which the kingdom is divided, there are Su- 
perintendents of each denomination, for the Real and Latin Schools; and 
School Inspectors for the Common Schools; and Directors of School 
Conferences, (Teachers' Institutes,) which are held four times in each 
year, for the improvement of the teachers, at different points. 

Each locality, comprisinrr thirty families, is compelled by law to have a 
primary school. Localities containing a population of less than thirty fam- 
ilies, are compelled by law to unite with a neighboring locality in the 
establishment of a school. If the neighboring locality is at a distance of 
more than two and a half English miles, or the road thereto dangerous, 
then the Government Committee of Education can decree the establish- 
ment of a separate school even for fifteen families. 

If in a community of different religious confessions the minority com- 
prises sixty families, they may claim the establishment and support of a 
school of their own confession at the expense of the whole community. 
The expenses are paid by the whole community, without regard to reli- 
gious confessions, and by each individual in proportion to the amount of 
taxes paid by him. In poor communities the government contributes in 
part toward the salary of the schoolmaster and repairs of the school. 

The salaries of the schoolmaster are, in places containing 4000 inhabit- 
ants, 350 florins* and house-rent ; in places containing less than 4000 and 
more than 2000 inhabitants, 300 florins, and house-rent. In a school 
where more than sixty scholars attend, 2.50 florins, and house-rent. In a 
school where less than sixty scholars attend, 200 florins, and house-rent. 

Second schoolmasters receive a salary of 150 florins, and are allowed 
one room and fuel. An assistant schoolmaster (candidate) receives a 
salary of 120 florins. In a school Avhere the number of scholars exceeds 
ninety, two schoolmasters are allowed ; if more than ISO scholars, three 
schoolmasters; if more than 270 scholars, four schoolmasters; and so on 
in proportion. 

The school hours are, in summer, four hours per day ; in winter, six 
hours per day. 

The school is under the inspection of the clergyman of the confession 
to which the schoolmaster belongs, and under the control of the pres- 
bytery. 

There is in each district a special school inspector, who is a clergyman. 
The visitation of the schools is made by the school inspector of the dis- 
trict, the clergyman, and the presbytery of the community. The attend- 
ance of every child at the primary school is compulsory, unless he fre- 
quents a superior school, or receives private instruction, such as he would 
obtain at the primary school. If parents forbid their children's attendance 
at the school, or do not allow their receiving private instruction, they subject 
themselves to a fine, and even imprisonment; and if afterward thev should 
still refuse to allow the children to attend the school, then the police is re- 
quested to adopt such measures as will compel the children to visit the 

* A florin is thitty-eight cents. 



PTTBLIC INSTRUCTION IN WIRTEMBERG. 303 

school. If a child, by reason of health or otherwise, is unable to attend 
the public school, then the parents or guardians are obliged to see that he 
receive private instruction, and, if unable to pay for it, the community is 
obliged to supply the means. Children who have not frequented the pri- 
mary schools, are equally obliged to attend the public examinations. 

The right of selecting a teacher for a vacant school belongs to the local- 
ity, but in many instances, the locality has ceded this right to the author- 
ities having the supervision of the semin;iri3s. The professional tunning 
and improvement of teachers in public institutions are provided for by six 
Teachers' Seminaries, sixty Teachers' Associations or Conferences, and 
twelve annual courses of one or two weeks duration, similar to our 
Teachers' Institutes, held at twelve different places in the kingdom. 

Tlie candidates for the post of schoolmaster are not permitted to enter 
the seminary before they have reached seventeen years of age ; nor does 
their education for that most responsible situation, nor the proofs of their 
capability (or it, begin at their entrance into the Normal School. Long 
before that period they must give notice of their intention to devote them- 
selves to such pursuits, and must undergo a previous preparation of two 
years ere they are allowed to enter the seminary. 

The course lasts two years, tuition is free, and the poor receive assist- 
ance as to board. 

The Seminary at Esslingen, under Director Denzel, isone of the oldest 
and most celebrated seminaries in Europe. It was founded in 1757, and 
with only sixty pupils, it has a director, two chief masters, and three 
assistants. The director is the author of the most complete treatise on 
education in any language. It is entitled the " Introduction to the Sci- 
ence and Art of Education and Instruction for Masters of Primary 
Schools^ Six volumes, Stuttgart, 1839. The author thus explains the 
reason of his undertaking the work in his preface to the last edition : 

'• When, three and twenty years ago, I entered upon my present occu- 
pation, great exertions were already in progress for the improvement of 
'the elementary schools of Germany. Much had been accomplished in 
particular states, and much active discussion was going on with respect 
to the methods pursued, and the best means of raising the qualifications 
of the schoolmaster. But the times required something more than had 
yet been done for the popular schools. It came more and more to be 
understood that the school was not merely a place of instruction, but of 
education ; that the common and necessary acquirements of the arts of 
reading, writing, and ciphering were not to be the sole or the principal 
objects of its care, but rather the unfolding and strengthening of the 
mental and bodily powers of the child conformably with nature and cir- 
cumstances. When this began to be held to be the province of the ele- 
mentary school, a new era broke upon it. Viewed In this its new and 
loftier position, it a.ssumed a totally different aspect, and all relating to it 
required to be dealt with in a more serious and scientific manner. This 
salutary change of view respecting the real character and destiny of the 
elementary school, though long in progress, became at length universal, 
chiefly through the genius and exertions of Pestalozzi. wliose principles, 
even where only partially adopted, faciUtated and infused a new spirit 
into the processes of teaching." 



304 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN WIRTEMBERG. 

He proceeds to state that, being called at that period to the duty of 
training schoolmasters, and therefore desiring to find some manual or trea- 
tise which embraced the entire subject, according to the enlarged views 
then entertained of it, he was unable to meet with any that satisfied his 
wishes. Those that he found, either merely embodied the old views or 
contained fragments only of the new. After many fruitless attempts to 
compose out of those fragments something that would serve as a ground- 
work for his course of teaching, he found himself compelled to form a trea- 
tise for himself; which has grown, with the experience of twenty years, 
into the valuable '^ Introduction," now widely known by his name. The fol- 
lowing is the summary of his introdactory course of instruction to teachers: 

Part I. 

Chap. 1. Man as an organized, sentiont, and intellectual being. 

2. Constitution and qualities of the body and mind. 

I) 1. Of the body. 

^ 2. Of the mind and its principal faculties. 

A. The feelings. 

B. The understanding. 

C. The will. 

Union of the highest powers in a Christian faith. 

Varieties ofnatural const! tul ion and disposition, and their causes. 

3. On the liability of the faculties and disposition of childliood to lake a wrong 

direction. 

4. On the natural course of development in childhood, boyhood, and youth. 

(j 1. On the frradii-il development of llie mental powers. 

5. Man in his socl;il slate. 

6. Man as an immortal being. 

Part II. 

1. On education in general. 

2. On the training of the body. 

3. On the training of the mind. 

^1. On the regulation of the feelings. 

^ 2. On the strengthening of the understanding. 

Observation and attention. 

Imagination. 

Memory. 

Judgment. 
§ 3. On the regulation of the will. 

The moral sense. 

Force of habit. 

The love of what is right. 

Obedience. 

Perseverance. 

Order and punctuality. 
§ 4. Religion— The best means of fixing religious impressions on the mind 
of a child. 

4. On educating boys and girls together. 

5. On rewards and punishments. 

6. On elementary instruction. 

6 1. Sulijects— On the proper periods for commencing each. 

^2. Method— The synthetic. . 
Requisites of good teaching. 
Apparatus, &c. 
In his second volume, the author enlarges on some of the principles laid down in the 
first, and on the spirit and object of the primary school, the best modes of organization 
and management, &c. The third and remaining volumes form a School .Manual of four 
complete "courses," for children between the respective ages of six and eight, eight and 
ten. ten and twelve, twelve and fourteen. The sulijects treated of at length, for the guid- 
ance of teachers, are object lessons, instruction in readinsi, writing, and ciphering, reli- 
gious instruction, grammar and etymology, geography, elements of geometry, singing, 
elements of natural phiio-;ophy and natural hisloiy, composition, &c. General exposi- 
tions of the principles to be kept in view, and the ends to be aimed at, are given, together 
with specimens of the lessons in detail, and the substance of a useful course under each 
head. 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN WlRTEMBERf!. 305 

The following notice of education in Wirtemberg, is taken from 
Kay's "' Social Condition and Education of the People.'''' 

I traveled through the kingdom of Wirtemberg from Ulm to a town in the in- 
terior by night. My companions in the eilwagen, or diligence, were an Oxford 
Fellow, a German, and a Frenchman. The subject of our conversation, during 
one part of the night, was, the efforts of the Germany governments and people to 
educate the children of their poor. The Oxford Fellow would not credit the ac- 
count I gave him of these efforts, and affected, moreover, to laugh at them as 
useless and chimerical. 1 saw it would be impossible to make a convert of him 
by argument, and so, to save words, I ended the conversation by saying, " NN ell, 
if you arc ever in the streets of a German town between eight and nine o'clock, 
or between twelve and one o'clock, in the morning, observe what is then going 
on. and remember what I told you." 

The next morning it so happened, that we stopped about eight o'clock to change 
horses, in a small town, about half way between Ulm and Stuttgard. It was just 
before the primary schools commenced their morning's work. All the children 
we-e on their way to their respective classes. I made the " Fellow'' get out of 
the diligence, and regard what was going on in the streets at that early hour. 

The street in which we had drawn up, was full of clean, neatly-dressed chil- 
dren, each carrying a small bag of books in his hand, or a little goatskin knapsack 
full of books on his back.. There were no rags, and no unseemly patched and 
darned clothes. The little girls were neat, their hair was dressed with a great 
deal <^ taste, their frocks were clean and tastefully made. Their appearance would 
have led a stranger to imagine, that they were the children of parents belonging 
to the middle classes of society. I said to my companion, — " These orderly, clean, 
and respectable-looking children are, many of them, the sons and daughters of the 
poorest artizans and laborers." In England, they would have been the " ragged- 
school children," or the squalid players in the gutters and back alleys. There 
there was no perceptible difference between the children of the poorest laborer and 
the children of the shopkeeper or rich parent. They all looked equally clean, re- 
spectable, polite, and intelligent. I said to the Fellow, " Are you convinced 
now ?" He turned to me and answered, '' Yes, yes ; this is, indeed, a very in- 
teresting and very curious sight. I do not any longer doubt the accuracy of all 
you told me last night. It is certainly very remarkable." That ten minutes 
taught my companion more than he would have learned by days of argument. 

The reflection, to which it leads every beholder, is, " are all the children of 
Germany like these ? Is there no class of children in Germany like those, which 
grow up in the gutters and alleys of our English towns? No wonder then, if this 
be so, that there is so much less pauperism in Germany than in England, and 
that the poor are so much more prosperous, virtuous, and happy, than our own." 

To give an idea of the liberal scale on which the teachers' training colleges in 
Wirtemberg are regulated, I shall give the list of the professors and teachers at- 
tached to the colleges at Esslingen and Nurtingen ; and the subjects of education 
taught in them. 

I. The number of professors and teachers at the teachers' college at Esslingen 
in Wirtemberg, are — 

1 Director, who officiates also as first Professor. 
3 Professors of the Sciences. 

1 Professor of Music. 

2 Teachers. 

1 Assistant for the Musical Professor. 

1 Teacher of the Jewish religion, (he conducts the dogmatical education of the 

Jewish students.) 
1 Teacher of Music for the model practicing school attached to the College. 
1 Treasurer and Accountant for the College. 
1 Physician for the College. 
The number of students at this college was eighty. 

II. Number of professors and teachers at the normal college of Nurtingen, in 
Wirtemberg. 

20 



30g PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN WIRTEMBERO. 

1 Director, who acts as first Professor. 

1 Professor of the Sciences. 

2 Head Teachers. 

2 Assistant Teachers. 

1 Teacher of Music. 

1 Teacher of Music, for the model school attached to the College. 

1 Treasurer and / ccountant. 

1 Physician for the College. 

The number of students in this college was eighty. 

The Subjects of Instruction in the teachers' colleges of Wirtemberg, are as 
follows : — 

Religion. 

Moral Philosophy. 

German Language. 

History — (General, German, and Scriptural.) 

Arithmetic. 

Algebra. » 

Plane Geometry. 

Logic. 

The Principles of Natural History. 

Physical Geography. 

The Philosophy of the Human Mind. 

Pedagogy. 

Practice in Teaching. 

Theory of Music. 

The Piano-forte and Organ. 

Chanting and Singing. 

I beg my readers to look at these lists and compare the efforts made by a small 
province of Germany not containing so many inhabitants as London, with those 
made by us ; when the numbers of our. working population are, like our com- 
merce, increasing with such an astonishing rapidity. 

The educational laws of AA'irtemberg require the parishes to support, for every 
ninety children, one teacher ; for more than ninety children, two teachers ; for 
more than 180 children, three teachers; for more than 270 children, four teach- 
ers ; and so on in like proportion. 

If a country parish is very poor it is allowed, on proof of its inability to find funds 
for the support of the required number of teachers, to diminish the number, on 
two conditions, viz. : — 

1st. That very able men are selected ; and 

2ndly. That one teacher is provided for every 120 children. 



INSTITUTE OF AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY 



HOHENHEIM, NEAR STUTTGARD. 



'iVro is the most complete agricultural school in Europe, and extends its useful- 
iiess iiot only throughout, but beyond Wirtemberg. It was established in 1817, 
by tLfc/ A ffricultural Society of Wirtemberg, under the patronage of the king, 
who dovo.Ajd a royal seat, with extensive buildings, to the purposes of the institu- 
tion. Tht< farm includes nearly one thousand acres, exclusively appropriated to 
the support of the school, or the practical instruction of the pupils. In 1820 tlie 
school of ft-restry was united with this, and the pupils now follow, in part, the 
same couratm. 

The entire institution is divided into two departments, one of which is intended 
to give a higher general and practical education than the other. In the higher, 
the object is Itss the acquisition of manual dexterity in the operations of agricul- 
ture, than the knowledge required to superintend them ; while in the lower, the 
practice is the principal end. The latter department ranks with the rural schools 
of Switzerland and the agricultural school of Templemoyle, in Ireland, hereafter 
described. In Iha higher school, all the pupils are expected to pay for their edu- 
cation. In the lower, natives of Wirtemberg are admitted gratis, if their cir- 
cumstances require it. Foreigners may be admitted to either ; their payments 
being, however, on a much higher scale than those of natives.* 

The direction of the establishment is delegated by the Agricultural Society to 
a director and treasurer, the former of whom has the general superintendence of 
all the concerns of the institution, while the latter is responsible for its financial 
state to the society and to the royal exchequer. The director is also an insti'uctor. 
There are, besides, four regular or ordinary professors, and four extraordinary 
professors, besides an overseer and steward, for the management of the farm and 
domestic economy. The treasurer has a book-keeper and an assistant in his 
department. 

Pupils are admitted at seventeen years of age, and are expected to possess ele- 
mentary attainments necessaiy to the prosecution of the courses of the school. 
Between 1820 and 1836, one hundred and eighty natives and one hundred and 
eighty-two foreigners have been educated in agriculture, and one hundred and 
forty-seven natives and one himdred and seventy-seven foreigners in forestry, 
making a total of five hundred and thirty-nine in the institution. The number of 
pupils in the higher school in 1836 was seventy-two. That in the lower school 
is limited to twenty-seven. 

The pupils of the lower school, in general, come under obligations to remain 
three years at the institution, in consideration of which their payments for instruc- 
tion are diminished, in part, in the second year, and cease in the third. They 
are engaged in the operations of the farm, the garden, and other parts of the es- 
tablishment, which will hereafter be enumerated, under the direction of the work- 
men, and under the superintendence of the steward, their time being so distribu- 
ted that they may acquire practice in the various operations of farming. They 
are also required to attend certain of the lectures given to the higher classes, and 
receive instruction at times when they are not engaged in agricultural labor. 
They receive regular wages for work done, for which they are expected to pay 
for their maintenance and clothing. Premiums are given to those who display 
great skill and industry. While in the house, the younger pupils are under the 

* For the yearly courses at the higher school natives pay forty dollars, and foreigners one 
hundred ana twenty dollars. For instruction in forestry only, a native pays twenty-four 
dollars, and a stranger seventy-two dollars. For the three years' inbtniction in the lower 
si:hool, natives pay fatty dollar*. 



308 INSTITDTE OF AGRICULTTTRE AND FORESTRY AT HOHENHEIM. 

charge of the elder ones, and are under the general superintendence of the over- 
seer. The same superintendence exists in the rif.ctoiy and dormitories. It sub- 
serves the double purpose of economy, and of training the elder pupils in the 
management of men, which is one object of their education. The institution 
undertakes to find places for those pupils who have given satisfaction while in the 
school, on their completing its courses. 

The agricultural course of the higher school may be accomplished in one year, 
if the preliminary studies of the pupil have been directed with a view to his en- 
tering, but in general it requires two years. The same period of two years 
is required for that of forestry. Each scholastic year has two sessions, the one 
from the first of November to Palm-Sunday, and the other from two weeks after 
Palm-Sunday to the first of October. The intermediate periods are vacations. 

The branches of special theoretical instruction are as follows : 

First: Agriculture. General principles of farming and horticulture, including the culture 
of the vine. The breeding of cattle. Growing of wool. Raising of horses. Rtaring of silk- 
worms. Arrangement and direction of farms. Estimation of the value of farms. Book- 
keep in» 

SrCond : Forestry. Encyclopeiiia of Forestry. Botany of forests. Culture and superin- 
tendence of forests. Guard of lorests. Hunting. Taxation. Uses of forests. Technology. 
Laws and regulations, accounts, and technical correspondence relating to forests 

Th rd : Accessory brunches Veterinary art Agr. culture technology, especially the man- 
ufacture of beet sugar, brewing, vinegar making, and distilling. The construction of roads 
and hydraulic works. 

Besides these special branches, the following general courses are pursued : 

First : The Natural Sciences. Geology. Physiology of plants. Botany, as applied to ag- 
1-. culture and forestry. Natural history of animals beneficial or noxious to plants and trees. 
(Jtneral cliemistrv, and its applications to agriculture. Physics and meleuroiogy. 

Si:-r(i\i(\- Maihematics. Theoretical and practical. Geometry. Elements of trigonometry. 
Arithmetic. Elements of algebra. 

The institution possesses the most ample means for the illustration of these 
courses in its farm and collections. The farm is divided into arable land, about 
five hundred and one acres ; meadow land, two hundred and forty-two acres ; 
fiolds set apart for experiments, thirty-three acres ; woodland, thirteen acres ; 
nursery, sixty-seven acres ; plantation of hops, two acres ; botanical garden, four- 
teen acres ; ground for exercising the pupils in ploughing, two acres ; garden, 
one acre; the remainder eighty -five acres. Total, nine hundred and sixty acres. 
Th^' arable land is cultivated according to five different rotations of crops, that the 
pupils may have specimens of the varieties of system. The botanical garden, 
nursery, and experimental farm, are prominent parts of the establishment. There 
is a large stock of cattle of diflferent kinds, foreign and domestic, and of sheep, 
that the pupils may acquire practical knowledge of the relative advantages of 
d liferent breeds, the mode of taking care of the stock generally, and of rearing 
them for different purposes. Horses are kept for a riding-school, as well as for 
the purposes of the farm. The institution has a large collection of agricultural 
implements in use in Wirtemberg, and of models of the varieties of foreign and 
new implements. These are made in a workshop attached to the school, and 
afford practice in the manufacture to the pupils, as well as instruction by their 
use or inspection, with the explanations of the professors. The sale of these im- 
plements and models also contributes to the support of the establishment. There 
are two collections of seeds and grain — one as specimens for illustrating the lec- 
tures, the other in quantities for sale. The pupils learn the mode of preserving 
them, and useful seeds are distributed through the country. There is a collec- 
tion of soils of all kinds for the lecturers on terra-culture and the analysis of soils, 
with specimens of the means of amelioration used in different eases. The collec- 
tions of natural history, though small, are interesting, from the precise adaptation 
of the specimens to the objects of the school. They consist of birds, beasts, and 
insects, and of plants, woods, and rocks. The woods are arranged in the form of 
a library, the separate specimens having the forms of books given to them, and 
being covered in part with the .bark. The name is inscribed upon the back. 
Cross and longitudinal sections are usually found in the same book, forming the 
covers. Between the covers is a box containing the seeds and flowers of the 
tree-, the parasites. &o., aad a description. There is a email ooUocton (rf physi- 



INSTITUTE OF AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY AT HOHENHEIM. 309 

cal apparatus, a library, and a laboratory. The following farming and technologi- 
cal establishments are connected with the school, and worked by the pupils, under 
the eharg,- of the teachers : namely, a cider-press and appurtenances ; a beet- 
sugar manufactory, a brewery, a distillery, and a vinegar manufactory. Though 
I saw better individual collections than these, the whole suite stands unrivaled, 
as far as my examination extended. 

Examination takes place every year, which are obligatory upon those forestry 
pupils who intend to enter the service of the government ; strangers are not re- 
quired to be examined. Persons wishing to learn the details of the institution, 
may be received as visitors for a period not exceeding a month, living with the 
pupils. 

Each pupil in the higher school has his own sleeping-room ; or, at most, two 
room together. They bring their supplies of clothing, &c., at entrance. The 
rooms are kept in order by the servants, who receive a small compensation from 
the pupil. They take their dinner and supper in a common hall, and order what 
they please for breakfast from the Stewart's assistant.* This institution has sup- 
ported itself for several years, which is readily to be understood from the scale of 
its farming operations. The success of the farm does not depend exclusively upon 
the productive manual labor of the pupils. It is analogous to the support of a 
family on a large estate, the members of the family aiding in the work, and con- 
tributing also in money to their own support, but the working of the farm not de- 
pending entirely upon their manual exertions. 

* The dinner and supper cost four dollars a month, which is paid in advance to the 
Steward. 



310 



NORMAL SEMINARY AT ESSI.INGF.N. 



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HESSE-CASSEL, AND NASSAU. 



The Electorate of Hesse-Cassel, with a population of 750,000 inhabi- 
lants, has three seminaries for teachers, viz.: at Fulda, Homberg and 
Schluchtern. 

The course of instruction embraces three years, and each seminary re- 
ceives sixty pupils, who are divided into two classes. The division of 
time and allotment of studies in one of the best of these seminaries in the 
summer of 1839, may be seen on the opposite page. 

NASSAU. 

The Duchy of Nassau, with a population of 420,000, supports one 
Teachers' Seminary at Idstein, which in 1846 had 154 pupils. The course 
iasts five years, four of which are devoted to a regular course of instruc- 
tion in a thorough review of the studies pursued in the elementary schools 
and the acquisition of studies which facilitate and illustrate the teaching 
of the former, and the fifth, exclusively to the principles and practice of 
education. Pupils are admitted at the age of fourteen years. The library 
of the institution is free to teachers in any part of the Duchy, and the 
books are forwarded and returned by the government post without charge. 
In 1836 the government expended 3,596 thalers toward the expenses of 
board and lodging of the pupils. 



The Kingdom of Hanover, with a population of 1,790,000, supports 
seven Teachers' Seminaries. One of these, established in 1848, is devoted 
to the education of Jewish teachers. The course embraces three years, 
and, in addition to the studies and exercises embraced in the seminaries 
for Protestant and Catholic teachers, includes the study of Hebrew, the 
Old Testament, and the commentaries of Hebrew scholars on the same. 
This is a practical religious toleration beyond any thing seen in the rest 
of Europe. One of the seminaries is designated as the Chief Seminary, 
and receives as pupils only those who have already taught school. 

The practice of " boarding round," which constitutes one of the distin- 
guishing marks of a bad state of public education, still prevails to some 
extent in Hanover. " I confess with shame." said a Director of a Teach- 
ers' Seminary in Hanover, to Professor Stephens, now of Girard College of 
Orphans, -'that this relic of barbarism may still be seen in a few villages 
of the kingdom, but it must soon vanish before the light which a well- 
educated class of teachers is diffusing among the people." This " relic 
of barbarism," necessarily disappears, where the business of teaching be- 
comes a profession, and the teacher becomes permanently employed in 
the same place. 

MECKLENBURG SCHWERIN. 

The Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg Schwerin, with a population of 
515,000, supports two seminaries, viz. : at Ludwigslust, and Rostock. 
The last is in connection with the University, and embraces a course of 
three months for students of Theology, who wish to be appointed tem- 
porarily to situations as teachers. 



312 



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BAVARIA. 



Bavaria is divided into eight provinces, 230 chief towns, 351 market 

towns, and 15,120 villages and parishes. 

The administration of public instruction is committed to four bodies, as 
follows : 1. A local committee for each school, appointed by the com- 
mittee lor each province, after consultation with the district committee. 
2. A district committee for each town and village. -3. A provincial com- 
mission for all of the schools of each province, one of whom only is paid, 
and he must be a councilor of state. 4. A chief or head commission of 
four persons residing at Munich, one of whom is paid, and two of whom 
must be laymen. At the head of this commission is the Minister of Wor- 
ship and Public Instruction. Tlie second, third and fourth committees are 
appointed by the ki^, who also appoints from time to time special inspec- 
tors. The effective management of the schools is with the provincial 
commission. The special inspectors appointed by the king, are selected 
from this board. 

All parents must send their children to some school, public or private, 
from six to fourteen years of age, or be fined. The support of the schools 
is borne by parents (varying from seventy-five cents to $1,50 per year in 
quarterly payments, for each child ;) by a local and provincial tax, voted 
by each district and province ; and by the state, which appropriates about 
$300,000 annually, in aid of local and parental efforts. The rate paid by 
parents and by districts, is collected with the ordinary taxes. 

The course of instruction is the same as in the primary schools of other 
states of Germany. Religious instruction is given to the children on sta- 
ted days and hours. If a school is composed of scholars belonging to dif- 
ferent sects, the religious instruction is given by the pastor of each sect. 

Every school according to law must have a small Iiursery-garden un- 
der the care of the teacher, where the pupils may learn the mode of treat- 
ing trees and plants. Out of 6065 Qerman schools, it appears from the 
official reports that 5284 had such grounds attached. 

By a regulation adopted in 18.16, every teacher appointed to a public 
school, must have qualified himself at one of the Normal Schools. There 
are seven of these institutions now in operation, viz. : five for Catholic 
teachers, at Bamberg, Eichstadt, Speyer, Keiserslautern, £ind Lauingenj 
two for Protestant teachers, at Altdorf and Schwabach. 



314 NORMAL SCHOOLS IN BAVARIA. 

The oldest Seminary is at Bamburg. It was founded in 1777, as a 
Normal School, according to the meaning at that time conveyed by this 
designation, — that is, a model or pattern school, to which teachers resorted 
for observation, and a temporary course oflectures, and was raised into a 
seminary, composed of teachers, in 1791. The course of instruction in 
1846, was as follows : 

1. Religion, — explanation of the catechism, Bible History, and eacred 
songs. 

2. German Language, speaking, reading and writing. 

3. Geography, including Natural History, and History. 

4. Arithmetic. 

6. Drawing and Geometry. 

6. Penmanship, with constant exercises in composition. 

7. Music, vocal and instrumental. 

8. Pedagogics, general principles of education, methods of instruction, 
discipline, and administration of school affairs. 

The number of pupils in 1844 was thirty-one, for whom there were three 
permanent teachers residing in the institution, and several teachers em- 
ployed in special branches from the town. The pupils board in the Insti- 
tution, and are charged a small fee for the priviteges of instruction, includ- 
ing board, lodging, tuition, &c., which is, however, reduced from time to 
time, in consequence of diligence and proficiency. It does not exceed 
$38 in any case. The coursse embraces two years. Out of study hours 
the pupils are under the special supervision of two oflfce instructors. 

For the Protestant teachers there are two seminaries, one at Altdorf> 
and the other at Schwabach. 

Jacobi, who was formerly inspector of the Seminary at Altdorf, and is 
now director of the new Protestant Seminary at Schwabach, published 
the following outline of a plan for a Seminary, in his Pedagogical Jour- 
ney in 1847, and which, we may now conclude, he is aiming to realize in 
the institution now in his charge. 

" For the location of a seminary I should choose a large town ; for, however 
much may be said in favor of country towns, there are in large towns more 
means of culture and teaching: teachers and pupils are more easily provided 
with board; the institution is subjected to a more constant and intelligent in- 
spection, and there is less exposure to a change of teachers, on accoi\nt of the 
desirableness of a town residence to an educated man, and the facilities of edu- 
cation for sons and daughters. 

I would have a large, healthy and attractive building, without any thing re- 
pulsive in or about it, and in it there should be accommodations for the Direc- 
tor, a housekeeper, and sixty pupils. 

Each teacher should have his separate department: to one teacher should be 
assigned Religion, pedagogic and didactic; to another, German Language, lite- 
rature and history; to a third, Realia, (natural science,) arithmetic, penmanship, 
and drawing; and to a fourth, the whole course of musical instruction and 
practice. Each teacher must not only be master of his branch, but must have 
a practical power and skill to form future teachers in his department, without 
being obliged to call in aid from any other teachers. 

Every teacher should be adequately compensated, so as to give his whole 
time and soul to the institution, and he should rank with the professors in the 
gymnasia, and be subordinate only to the supervision of the highest govern- 
mental authority. 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN BAVARIA 316 

Every teacher should exhibit sincere piety, exemplary conduct, a glowing 
zeal in the cause of education, and an enthusiastic attachment to the institu- 
tions of his country ; found always on the side of education, religion and his 
king, and above all, of his profession. The Director must be a good theolo- 
gian, and must be so thoroughly trained in every department of study pursued in 
the institution, as to be abfe lo answer promptly the questions of the pupils; 
must be a good musician, and a ready and gifted speaker, so as to be able to touch 
the heart in leading the devotions and public exercises of the institution. He 
must also be a man of business habits, and possess a tact in governing and 
moving others to his purposes. To such a director 1 would cheerfully com- 
mit the charge of the seminary, and to whom all other teachers must be subor- 
dinate, so far as the impulse and direction of the instruction and exercises are 
concerned. 

I would be very cautious in introducing text books, which may afterward be 
followed exclusively by the pupils, when they become teachers. Every text 
boyk used in the school should be subjected to the sharpest competition and 
most rigid scrutiny, as to its principles and methods. 

The regulations of the Seminary should be few and general, leaving the de- 
tails of administration to the Director and a council of the teachers. It would 
be a matter of indifference to me, whether the pupils studied by themselves, or 
together recited a particular study in the forenoon or afternoon, provided the 
best good of all was secured, and the great end of the Institution realized in 
producing good men, sincere Christians, sound scholars, and faithful and able 
teachers. 

From time to time, the Institution should be visited by the highest authori- 
ties of the church and state, but not by subordinate and local school officers." 

Bavaria has a population of about 4,250,000, The Educational Insti- 
tutions consist of 

3 Universities, viz., at Munich, with .... 1,329 students, 

" Erlangen, 300 « 

" Wiirzberg, 408 « 

9 Lyceums, with 3,110 " 

24 Gymnasiums, 85.681 " 

32 Mechanics' Schools, 7,495 " 

70 Latin Schools, 

3 Polytechnic Schools, 493 " 

9 Nornral Seminaries, 696 " 

6,065 German, or Common Schools, 556, i39 " 

Oiie Institution for the blind ; one Institution for deaf mutes; one Col- 
lege or Higher Seminary for younar ladies; one Academy of science; 
one School for artists. 

The following remarks on the schools and teachers of Bavaria, are 
taken from Kay's " Social Conditon and Education of the People.''* 
The statistics differ in some particulars from those given above. 

When I was in Nuremburg, in the kingdom of Bavaria, I asked a poor man, 
whether they obliged him to send his children to school. He said, " Yes ; I must 
either sen<f them to school or educate them at home, or I should be fined very 
heavily." I said, " I suppose you don't like these rules ?" He answered, " Why 
not, sir ? I am a very poor man ; I could not afford the time to teach my chil- 
dren myself, nor the expense of paying for their education myself ; the municipal 
authorities pay all the school fees for my children, and give them good clothes to 
wear at school ; both my children and myself are the gainers by such an arrange- 
ment; why should I object to it?" 

In Ratisbon, I spent the whole of one day in company with a poor peasant, who 
acted as my guide. I said to him, " Have you any good schools here for your chil- 
dren ?" He answered with an air of astonishment, " Oh dear yes, sir ; all cup 



316 PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN BAVARIA. 

children go to school ; the law obliges us to send them to school, and provides good 
schools for them." I said, " But don't you dislike being obliged to send your 
cli.ldren to scliool ?" He answered, " \\ hy should I, sir ; the teachers are good 
and learned men, and our children learn from them many things, which enable 
them afterward to get on in the world much better than they would be able to do, 
if they were ignorant and incapable of studying." I asked again, " But what 
sort of men are the teachers ?" He answered, " Oh, they are very learned men ; 
they are all educated at the colleges." I said again, "But are the teachers gen- 
erally liked by the poor ?" He answered, '' Oh, yes, they are learned men, and 
teach our children many useful things." 

When I reached Munich, I engaged, according to my usual custom, a poor man 
as my guide. 1 asked him to take me to see some of the schools, where the chil- 
dren of poor people were educated, and told him, that I did not wish to visit the 
best, but the worst school in the city. He answered me, " Sir, we have no bad 
schools here ; the government has done a great deal for our schools, and they are 
all very good." I said, " Well, take me to the worst of those you know." He 
answered again, " 1 don't know any poor one, but I will take you to the one 
where my own childen go. I am a poor man, and can not afford to pay any thing 
for the education of my children, and many of the children that you wiU see there, 
are like my own, sent to the school at the expense of the city." 

Accordmgly, after passing several very large and handsome schools for primary 
instruction, we proceeded to the one, which the children of my poor guide attended. 
It was a lofty and handsome building, four stories high, and about 60 feet broad. 
In the two upper stories, all the teachers, of whom there were ten educated men 
attached to the institution, resided. On the lower floors, there were ten class- 
rooms, each about 20 feet long, 15 broad, and 14 feet high, and fitted up with 
parallel rows of desks, maps, drawing-boards, and school-books. Five of these 
spacious class-rooms were for the boys, and five for the girls. The children were 
all classified, according to the time of entering the school. All those who had 
been less than a year in the school were put in the first class. These children, 
after remaining a year or a year and a half in the first class, moved on into the 
second class, and thence into the higher classes, the same teacher accompanying 
them through their five changes, and continuing to instruct them, until their leav- 
ing the school. Each school-room was filled with parallel rows of desks and 
forms ; the desk of the teacher stood in front of them all, and the walls were 
covered with maps, pictures, and blackboards. 

The desks, forms, maps, pictures, and apparatus of each school-room were 
suited to the age, size, or attainments of the children for whom the class-room 
was destined. The children sat during their first year or year and a half's educa- 
tion, in the first class-room, during their second year and a half's education in the 
second class-room, and so on. 

I went first into the second class-room. The children were so clean and re- 
spectably dressed, that I could not believe they were the children of poor persons. 
I expres.sed my doubt to my guide. His answer was, " My children are here, 
sir ;" and then turning to the teacher, he requested him to tell me, who were the 
parents of the children present. The teacher made the children stand up one 
after another, and tell me, who their parents were. From them I learned, that 
two were the sons of counts, one the son of a physician, one of an officer of the 
royal household, one of a porter, and others of mechanics, artizans, and of labor- 
ers, who were too poor to pay for their children's education, and whose children 
were clothed and educated at the expense of the town. They all sat at the same 
desks together. They were all clothed with equal respectability. In their man- 
ners, dress, cleanliness, and appearance, I could discern no striking difference. 
My inference from this interesting scene was, that the children of the German 
poor must be in a very different state to that of the children of our English poor, 
to allow of such an intercourse, and to enable the richer classes to educate their 
sons at the same desks with the children. of the peasants. 

After spending some time in the different class-rooms, the quiet and order of 
which were admirable, I went to the town-hall to see the chief educational au- 
thority for the city itself. Outside his door, I found a poor woman waiting to see 
him. I asked her what she wanted. She said, she had a htUe girl of five years 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS W BAVARIA. g|7 

of age, and that she wanted to persuade the minister to allow her to send her little 
daughter to school a year before tiie legal age for admission, which in Bavaria, is 
the completion of the sixth year. 1 said to her, " Why are you so anxious to 
send your child to school so early ?" She answered, smiling at my question ; 
" The children learn at school so much, which is useful to them in after life, that 
I want her to begin as soon as possible." I thought to mj'self, this does not look 
as if the people dislike being obliged to educate their children. 

I had an interview with the head inspector of Bavaria, and asked him, whether 
he was certain, that all the young men below thirty years of age could read and 
write and understand arthmetic. He said, " I am certain of more than that ; I 
know, that they all know their Scripture History, and that they all know some- 
thing of geography, and of the elements of Natural History." 

At the time I visited Munich, the Jesuit party was in power. The ministers, 
however, showed the greatest willingness to furnish me with all the information I 
required, and supplied me with all the statistics and documents I wished to 
procure. 

I. visited a priest, who directed one of the large educational establishments in the 
city. He told me, that they had established eight normal colleges in Bavaria for 
the education of teachers, and that two of these had been specially set apart for 
the education of Protestant teachers. He seemed to make very light of all diffi- 
culties arising from religious dift'erences, and spoke of education as of a national 
work, which it was necessary to accomplish, by the joint efforts of all religious 
parties. 

It is said, greatly to the honor of the late king, that, careless as his government 
was to many of the internal wants of the kingdom, and profuse and lavish as his 
expenditure was upon art, he never neglected the education of the people, but that 
he effected a great advance in this part of the national administration. 

The Minister of the Interior for Bavaria, supplied me with all the laws and 
statistics relating to the educational institutions of the country. The laws have 
been most carefully compiled and codified ; and perhaps there is no country in 
Europe, which possesses such an admirable and minutely considered series of 
enactments on the subject of national education. 

Mr. Kay makes the following remarks on the social equalization of 
good public schools, by bringing the children of the rich and poor, of 
nobles and peasants under the same roof, and under the influence of the 
same good teachers. 

In Bavaria I found the same proofs of the excellence of the primary schools. 
I remember particularly a visit paid to one school in Munich, which may be fairly 
taken as an example of all ; for all the schools in that city are remarkably good. 
When I entered I did not know any thing about the children, or to what ranks of 
society they belonged. The appearance of all was so clean, respectable, and 
orderly, that I imagined they were all the children of trades-people. I therefore 
asked the teacher to tell me what their parents were. He answered : " The 
two boys you see here are the sons of counts ; yonder is the child of a tradesman ; 
there is the son of a physician ; there, a son of one of the court servants ;" and 
so he continued to point out others, who were the children of professional men, 
shoemakers, tailors, &c. I then said, " Have you any here, whose parents are so 
poor, as not to be able to pay any thing for their education, and who are conse- 
quently dependent on the town charity for their instruction ?" " Oh 1 yes," he 
immediately answered 5 " the one you see yonder (pointing to a very clean and 
respectable-looking child) is one, and there is another ;" and so he continued to 
single out several others, who were paid for, and clothed, at the expense of the 
city. 

The very fact of the children of such different classes of society being mingled 
together in the same schools, will serve to prove to any unprejudiced mind the 
excellence of the schools themselves, as well as the civilization of the poorer 
classes ; for if the schools were not good enough for the children of the rich and 
noble, or if the poor children were as rude and unrefined, as the children who 
frequent our ragged schools in England, we may rest adjured, that the rksber po- 



gjg PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN BAVARIA. 

rents would not allow their children to attend the same classes with them. The 
same association of children of different ranks of society takes place, to even a 
greater degree in Switzerland. 

I could mention a lady who moves in the first circles of London society, and 
who is rich enough and sufficiently interested in the improvement of her young 
relations to engage private tutors for them, if it were necessary, whose young 
grandchildren I found attending a village school for peasants, situated near the 
Lake of Geneva, where her son, who was till lately a member of the government 
of the canton, resided. To prove to me, that it was not carelessness about the 
children, that had led the parents to remain satisfied with the education given in 
the village school, she gave me an introduction to the teacher, and begged me to 
visit his classes. I accordingly went, and found there, what you may find in 
nearly every village in Germany and Switzerland, an educated and gentlemanly 
man. who appeared qualified to act as private tutor in any gentleman's family. 

The statistics, with which the Minister furnished me show, that, in 1846, there 
were in the kingdom of Bavaria, for a population little more than double that of 
our own metropolis, a much more effective system of national education, and 
much more perfect means for the education of the people, than we have in Eng- 
land and Wales. 

In 1846, the population of Bavaria was 4,440,000, and for this there were — 

8 normal colleges for the education of .teachers for the elementary schools. 

696 students in the normal colleges, who were being educated as teachers. 

7,353 schools, (many of them containing as many as ten class-rooms and ten 
teachers.) 

8,978 classes open on Fridays and Sundays, for young people attending the 
manufactories, and for men and women desirous of improving themselves in 
any particular branch of instruction. 

556,239 scholars of both sexes attending the schools •, 

565,876 persons of both sexes attending the Sunday and Friday classes. 

8,797 teachers, who have the management and direction of the schools and 



615 industrial schools, where some particular art is taught. 

2,517 teachers of the industrial schools. 

85,681 persons attending the industrial schools. 

These statistics give the following results : that, in 1846, exclusive of the num- 
ber of persons attending the Sunday and Friday classes, and the industrial schools, 
about 1 person out of every 7 of the population was attending a daily school ; that 
there was 1 normal college for every 555,000 ; 1 school for every 603, and 1 
teacher for erery 508 persons in the kingdom. 



DR. GRASER'S COURSE OF INSTRUCTION 

IN THE 

COMMON SCHOOLS OF BAYRECTH, IN BAVARIA. 



Dr. Graser of Bayreuth, has developed a system of instruction, the 
principles of which he claims, are founded in the nature and purposes 
of education, and of man as its recipient. This system has been intro- 
duced into the common schools of his native place, and has attracted 
much attention from a class of teachers in Germany. Dr. Bache gives 
the following sketch of its general principles, and of its development in 
one of the common schools of Bayreuth: 

After considering the constitution of man, Dr. Graser lays down the 
principle, that he is destined to live in accordance with it, and in the pur- 
suit of holiness, (godliness, divinitat.) The child must be educated in 
reference to this destination. Man requires strength of body, hence 
physical education, and of soul (virtue,) hence moral education. His 
bodily strength must be rendered available by dexterity, his virtue by 
prudence. Both must be directed by intelligence, hence intellectual 
education. Besides, he must have a just sense of the harmony in the 
relations of life, or a feeling of fitness, or beauty, hence aesthetical edu- 
cation. As a condition of his being, man stands in certain relations 
to external nature, to his fellow men, and to God. Instruction in 
nature, man, and God. must, therefore, form the materials of his 
education. Nature must be viewed in its productions, the objects of 
natural history, or its phenomena, the objects of natural philosophy, 
or physics. To complete the study of nature, geography, arithmetic, 
geometry, and its applications, and drawing, must be called in, and 
the practical application of the study includes technology and do- 
mestic economy. The study of man requires that of the theory of gym- 
nastics, dietetics, history, and geography. To approach to God, man 
must know him. The first form of godliness is truth. God's truth, then, 
as revealed, should be man's study. The second form is justice; juris- 
prudence in higher education, or the laws of the land inpower, should, 
therefore, also form a part of man's studies, and as acces.cory subjects, 
history and grammar. The third is love, taught through morals or 
practical religion. The fourth is beauty, requiring the study of paint- 
ing, music, poetry, and decorum. Dr. Graser next endeavors to modify 
the several subjects of education, according to the special wants of those 
who are to receive it, which he considers to depend upon their political 
situation. Thus, for his country, he divides men into three classes, the 
people, or governed; the nobles; and the reigning family, or governors. 
The first he considers as more concerned with material objects, the 
others with the ideal, or spiritual, and hence adopts two divisions of the 
•Xibjfefcts of study, 38 calculated for their schools. 



320 GRASER'S SYSTEM OF INSTRtTCTION. 

In the arrangement of instruction, his principle, that the school must 
prepare for actual life, is brought into play. He admits no separation 
into branches of study, no natural order of succession in ihe branches, 
but insists that all instruction shall be grouped according to the wants 
of some particular mode of life. Taking society as the state of man's 
existence, he begins instruction with the paternal mansion of the child 
and his family relations, and attaches to these all the elementary know- 
ledge of morals, manners, speech, number, form, objects, drawing, and 
writing, which would be found necessary in this sphere. He next 
widens the sphere to include the place of residence, with its community; 
extends it to the circle or judicial district, to the province, to the country, 
to the assemblage of the German states, the division of the earth, the 
entire earth, the universe. 

The application of Graser's principles to a common school will be 
best understood by following up the course of instruction as far as it has 
been developed in one of the schools of Bayreuth. 

The sixth, or lowest class, is instructed in what relates to family life. The 
exterior of the house. Its interior. Its inhabitants. Their wants. 

The classification followed in Wiirst's reading book will show, generally, the 
way in which these subjects are taught. 

I. The paternal mansion, considered as the dwelling place of the family. Houses and huts. 
Stones and lime. (Story of an accident from playing with lime.) The walls and the roof. 
Doors and windows. (History ofthe discovery ofglass.) Earth, fire, water, and light. Compari- 
son of building materials. Gloom, darkness, light, shadow. Property. Ownt-r. Rectitude. 
Goodness. Decorum. Politeness. iStory of the polite and the rude boy ) Pilfering Theft. 
Robbery. Robbers. 2. The inmates of the house. Enumeration of them. E.tterior dis- 
tinctions between the men and animals. Distinctive qualities of the difff-rtnt domest c ani- 
mals. The poultry Further distinctions between men and animals. Voice. Speech as a 
characteristic of man. Power of induction. Moral order of the family. (The intractable 
child) Uses of the domestic animals, obligations toward them. (Tormentors of animals.) 
Noxious domestic animals. Conduct toward them. Flies Spiders. Review of conduct 
toward animals in general. 3 Wants of the inmates of the house. The dwelling itself. 
Furniture and clothing. Arrangements for their preservation. Inviolability of the property 
of children and servants. Activity and offices of parents. Duties of children toward their 
parents. 

This course is commenced between six and seven years of age, and occupies 
about six months. I shall go into some particulars in regard to parts of the in- 
struction. 1. The dwelling-house. The teacher shows a model of a simple 
dwelling-house, of which the gable end may be removed, and is a rectangular 
block, surmounted by a triangle. The teacher takes off the triangle, and counts 
the number of its sides audibly ; this part of the house has how many sides ? is 
his question. Three. He shows that it has also three corners, or asks how 
many corners, leaving to the more intelligent pupils to lead the class in the an- 
swer, and when the answer is obtained, causing it to be repeated by all. Watch- 
ing the class, if he finds inattention, he addresses the question where it prevails, 
giving the pupils as much as possible to find out, in order to keep up their atten- 
tion as long as their physical constitution will permit. A change of subject, phys- 
ical exercise, or rest, should be allowed when the attention is exhausted, the 
habit of which may be gradually established by training. This inductive course, 
combined with repetition, is always employed, and in what follows I shall merely 
indicate the order of the instruction. The figure in question is three-cornered. 
Interior corners are called angles.* It is a three angled figure, and called a tri- 
angle. Next, the four-sided figure is similarly treated. Then the triangular cap 
is set upon the rectangle, forming a five-sided figure. This part of the model is 
now placed before the children to draw upon the slate, with the following pre- 
limmary instruction. Each group of three or four children, or, if convenient, 

* In German, the space formed by the meeting of two lines viewed from the interior, or 
from the exterior, ha^i different names, and the oompoundsof these, with the numerals three, 
four, five, &c., oOnSitutfe the namee of the flgurce, as drey-eck, vigr-ecki &b. 



IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS OF BAYREUTH, IN BAVARIA. 321 

each child, is furnished with a rectangle of pasteboard, or thin wood, in which 
five holes are pierced, corresponding to the five angular points of the pentagon to 
be drawn. These are marked on the slate by inserting the points of the pencil 
through the holes, and the child is practiced in joining the points by hand. Prac- 
tice in this constitutes his first drawing lesson. Returning to the rectangular part 
of the model, the positions of the vertical and horizontal boundary lines are 
pointed out, and a plummet and common mason's level are shown, to give a 
notion how these lines are established in practice, and a correct idea of their 
actual positions. Attention is next called to the horizontal side of the triangular 
cap, then to the sloping sides. A comparison of the angles which they form with 
the horizon, and that formed by the horizontal and vertical lines, leads to the dis- 
tinction between acute and right angles. The objects of a triangular roof, and 
of the rectangular lower part of the house, are next stated. An obtuse angled 
polygonal roof is substituted for the one already mentioned. The form gives an 
illustration of the obtuse angle, placing it upon the model leads to counting as far 
as seven Dividing the house into stories by lines, to counting to nine. The 
children are next led to enumerate the parts of the house as shown in the model, 
and with the names of which they are of course familiar, as the doors, windows, 
&c. The distinction between squares and rectangles is made obvious. The 
parallelogram and rhomb are also here introduced. The distinction between 
curved and straight lines, &c. Different simple drawings of cottages are made. 
Counting is continued to ten. Addition is commenced by referring to the number 
of panes in the windows of the model, covering up those not to be added, and 
proceeding from smaller to larger numbers, within the limits of ten. These are 
extended to one hundred, stating to the children the mode of formation of com- 
pound numbers, to assist their memory. Subtraction is introduced by reference 
to the same illustrations. Mental arithmetic alone is practiced. In adding num- 
bers which exceed ten, the tens are first added, then the units, carrying to the 
tens, if necessary ; thus, in adding twenty-two and thirty -nine together, their 
process would be, twenty-two is two tens and two ones ; thirty-nine, three tens 
and nine ones ; two tens and three tens are five tens ; two ones and nine ones are 
eleven ones, or one ten and one one ; five tens and one ten are six tens, and one, 
sixty-one. Multiplication is begun also by a reference to the window-panes, 
which alTord, usually, manj^ combinations. Division is similarly treated, the 
question being such as the children would take an interest in solving, and their 
coins are early explained to them, and made the subjects of their exercises. Frac- 
tions grow naturally from division. The foregoing instruction is interspersed with 
other matters yet to be described. 

In fact, there is no fixed order of exercise, or school plan, according to Graser's 
method, but the teacher is relied upon to advance the different parts of the instruc- 
tion duly, according to his observation of the progress of the cl&ss. 

Th? elements of physics, natural history, technology, and domestic economy, are 
thus introduced, it being understood that the same mixed method of question and 
answer, and of direct and inductive teaching, is used throughout. Men did not 
always live in houses, but once in caves and huts. The inconveniences of -such 
places from cold, damp, &c., are pointed out. The materials required for a house, 
as stone, mortar, wood, iron, &c. Most of the children have seen the operation 
of building, and can tell the materials required ; those who have not observed, 
will probably not let an opportunity pass afterward of so doing. Whence the 
stone is procured, quarries, quarrymen. The hewing of stone. Limestone and 
lime ; the objects being presented to them. The conversion of the limestone into 
lime. The slaking of lime, making of mortar, its hardening, laying the stones. 
Digging of the trench for the foundations, &c. 

Next the wood is taken for the subject of a lesson. Tlie distinction of wood 
from fruit-trees and forest trees is shown. Shaping of the wood by sawing. 
Beams. Planks. Boards. Laths. Trade of house carpenter. Of joiner, &c. 
In the same way iron is treated of. Bricks and tiles. Glass. 

In recapitulating these matters, or in presenting new ones, the elements of 
grammar are begun. The nouns and adjectives are easily distinguished from the 
Other parts of speech by the induction of the pupils themselves, when directed in 
the right way. 

Used as incidental matters of instruction, but not as forming its ground work, 

21 



322 



GRASER'S SYSTEM OF INSTKUCTION 



it appears to me that the foregoing subjects are of value, and that useful hints 
may be gathered from the way of treating them ; henee, I am led to remark upon 
certain soui'ces of difficulty in their execution. The instruction may be rendered 
wholly ineffective by the teacher treating the subject in a mechanical way, so that 
what is intended to excite the observing and reflecting faculties, especially tlie 
former, shall become a mere memory of words. It may be rendered actually 
mischievous by the teacher inculcating erroneous ideas of natural phenomena 
and natural history. The teacher's guide should be prepared with care, and 
revised by adepts in the sciences, to avoid such mischief, which I have known to 
yeoiu' in many cases.* 

Elementary ideas of right and wrong, of goodness, of " fitness," (" the beauti- 
,'nl,") are inculcated in the following«way : The dwelling being still mider discus- 
:j;oii, the attention is called to the parts of the door, its lock, &c. The object of 
ti'.e door and its festenings. Who may rightfully enter a house. The right to 
put out those entering wrongfully. A story is told here of a poor child begging 
iiir admission to a house dm-ing a storm, cold, hungiy, and ill clothed. The child 
'::i received and supplied. The moral is drawn from the children, and benevo- 
lence, love to man, is inculcated. In entering a strange house or room, leave 
must be asked. The contrast of good and bad manners in making or answering 
the request is brought home to the children. The subject is next followed up by 
supposing an unlawful entry made into the dwelling, and the difference between 
theft and burglary, or stealing and robbing, is brought out. The smallest possible 
theft of any kind, or pilfering, is immoral. A story is told to illustrate the fate 
of the pilferer. 

Next the inmates of the house and out-houses form subjects of instruction, the 
mode of treating which will easily be conceived by referring again to the general 
enumeration of the arrangement of the subj ects. Exercises of speech and thought, 
natural history of domestic animals, and much elementary technological informa- 
tion, are thus introduced. Proverbs are committed to memory, inculcating moral 
lessons or duties. 

The next head furnishes an opportunity to examine the wants of the inmates 
of the house, the topography of the dwelling and its groimds, as introductory to 
geography, the construction and uses of the fm-niture in continuation of techno- 
logy, and to introduce the drawing of simple articles of furniture. Speecl^ is 
considered as the means of communicating between the members of a family. 
Other modes of communicating ideas by signs and gestures are adverted to. The 
sight may be addressed through pictures as substitutes for verbal descriptions 
addressed to the ear. ilierogiypliies or sii;-ijs may bo sulistitated for pictures. 
Trials of these are resorted to, as, for example, the cm-ve of the fore-finger and 
thumb forming a C, may be imitated on the slate, and understood to stand for 
" come here." A number of signs, having reference to letters subsequently to 
be fornied, and to their actual use in the spelling of words, are taught to the chil- 
dren, who at first are delighted with these acquisitions, but after a time find the 
accumulation of signs very troublesome. This is supposed to prepare the way 
for a zeal in acquiring writing and reading. To ^connect the written with the 
spoken language. Dr. Graser goes back to the origin of the former, and imagines 
that the forms of the letters result, in general, from an attempt to imitate the 
position of the lips, or lips and tongue, in sounding the component parts of a word. 
This requires a difficult and in many cases a most fancifulf connection to be 
formed in the mind of the pupil between the sound and its sign. Four different 

' To show that this is not imaginary, I may mention that, in a school where the subject of 
the caustic nature of lime, and of its heating during slaking, were under examination, they 
were explained thus: the limestone was turned into lime by heat, in which process it ab- 
sorbed a great deal of heat, which made it burning, or caustic ; when water is thrown upon 
it, the water unites with the lime, and this heat escapes. 

t I have called this fanciful, lor so it appears to me, but speak in no spirit of disrespect. 
This method is connected, in Dr. Graser's school, with the instruction of the deaf and dumb 
with other children. The maxim prevailing in the principal schools of Germany for the 
instruction of the deaf and dumb is, that they must be restored to society by enabling them to 
understand speech and to speak. Hence the first attempt is to make them understand the 
motions of the organs of speech, and to imitate ihem, forcing air through them so as to pro- 
duce the sounds. The perseverance and zeal expended in attempting to carry out this idea 
are almost incredible. In some of the institutions for deaf mutes much of the instruction is 
actually commuoicated through the means of speech. 



IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS OF BEYREDTH, IN BAVARIA. 323 

series of lines are ruled by the pupils upon the slates, on which they write ; one 
is a set of two parallels for the standard letters ; another of three parallels for the 
letters which project above the standard lines, the interval between the upper 
two being less tlian that between the lower ; another set, also of three parallels, 
for the letters which extend below, and a foui'th for those which extend in both 
directions. Words are formed as soon as possible, and of a kind intelligible to 
the child, and sentences of the same character. I doubt much if the pupil re- 
ceives any real aid from the connection assumed between sounds and signs. The 
determinate sound of the letters in the German renders the spelling easy when 
the true sound and the signs of the letters have been connected in the niemory.* 
The previous practice of drawing has prepared the hand, so that there is a re- 
markable facility in requiring the manual part of writing. The selection of intel- 
ligible sentences carries out the habit of understanding every thing as it is brought 
forward. Reading the written hand soon becomes familiar, and the transition to 
the printed letters is easy. In all this instruction the blackboard is used for 
illustrating the lessons. Elementary principles of grammar are inculcated in con- 
nection with the writing and reading. 

In the next class, occupying also six months, the instruction is connected with 
" life in the community." This includes the political organization of the commu- 
nity, with the reasons for it ; the geography of the place ; the continuation of the 
exercises of thought and speech ; the commencement of JBible history : an exten- 
sion of instruction in morals, technology, and natural history ; of the elements of 
form ; of grammar ; of drawing and writing ; so at least they would be called in 
the other schools. The plan of arrangement is as follows : 

Life in the community. History of the formation of communities, with their wants and 
obligations. Original existence of man. Union of several families. Fatal accidents in com- 
munities. Necessity of mutual aid in misfortune. Necessity of a magistracy. Arrangements 
for safety. Taxes. Laws and punishments. Wants of the community. Roads, bridges, 
&c. Watchmen. Servants. Council-house. School-house. 

2. In referknce to man. The five senses. Their abuse exposes to punishment. In- 
formation in regard to the organs of sense. Their injury or deficiency. Their preservation 
and exercise. The mind. Perception not required for thought, or for distinguishing the 
true from the false, the good from the evil. She soul. Man has reason and will. Storfes of 
good actions. The good is not always rewarded in this world, but there is a God. 

.3. Relation op man to Gi d. Attributes of the Deity. God is the creator, the supporter, 
the governor of the world, the father of all men, the high and righteous judge, a spirit. Du- 
ties 10 God. Honor, love as of a child, trust, thankfulness, reverence. Constant remem- 
brance of God. Conscience. Stories related. The evil conscience. Conscience maizes a 
man anxious and uneasy when he does wrong. The moral to be inculcated is, that man has 
within him a monitor which warns h'm against doing evil. Story of a pleasant evening. 
There is also approval within one's self of good deeds. Necessity of a revelation to man.' 
Stories from the Scriptures related. The creation. Cain and Abel. The deluge. Those 
saved. The prophets. Expectation and coming of the Messiah. The three wise men. The 
child Jesus. John. Jesus the teacher, saviour, and founder of the kingdom of godliness. 

4. Relation of man to nature. The native place and its environs. The village as the 
dwelling of the community. The cardinal points. Position of the buildings. Streets. 
Roads. Springs. Storiesof the village. Review of the position of the village. Natural his- 
tory. Beauties of nature. First walk in the garden. Fruit trees, shrubs, herbs, flowers. 
The fields, hills, valleys, woods, and forests. Morning ramble in the woods. Morning song." 
Insects. Stories of cruelty to insects. Natural philosophy. Heat. The sun. Sunrise! 
Song. Division of time. The calendar. Vapor. Storms. Thunder and lightning. Rules 
for protection. 

5. Relation op man to society. Age and youth. Infirm persons. The able bodied 
and the sick Duties toward and protection of the sick. Employments. Laborers and 
tradesmen. Peacefulness. Willingness in service. Uprighteousness. Respectfulness. Dis- 
position to work. Poverty and riches. Contentment. 

The same elements of instruction are, in the next class, grouped about the next 
political division, the circle, the course occupying, as before, six months. Begin- 
ning here, the division restricts some portions of instruction unnecessarily. In 
general, however, I was satisfied with the progress of this class. I had no oppor- 
tunity of judging of the results of the following division, namely, "life in the pro- 
vince," no class being in that stage of progress. 

In the next following, or " life in the kingdom," the political circumstances 
became too abstruse for the intellectual development of the children, and the 
attempts at induction in regard to the government failed almost entirely. All 

* I have a specimen of writing from one of a class who had been five months under this 
instruction, remarkable for the correctness of spelling and execution. It was written fromi 
dictation. The pupil was seven years of age. 



324 



GRASER'S SYSTKM OF INSTRUCTION, ETC. 



the circumstances, except those relating to the army, were out of the pale of their 
ordinary experience, and the complex mechanism of government was beyond the 
power of their reason to grasp. The German language is taught grammatically 
in this class, and, besides the geography and natural history of Bavaria, its his- 
tory, the biography of its most distinguished men, arithmetic, mental and written, 
geometry, drawing, singing, and morals from the Bible. At this stage of pro- 
gress, it is quite apparent that the branches require a different mode of instruc- 
tion, that they must be separated, and the progress of each regulated according 
to the adaptation of the mind of the pupil to its reception, and not according to 
any extraneous theoretical circumstances. 

The two highest classes being joined under a teacher who pursued altogether 
the old method of instruction, I had no opportunity to put to the test the judgment 
formed in the lower class, which I have just expressed. Social or political circum- 
stances do not afford, I am satisfied, a just method of arranging the details of in- 
struction, though a knowledge of them should doubtless form a part of education. 
The reasons why the arrangement of Graser produces satisfactory results in the 
lower classes are, first, that elementary instruction does not require a systematic 
division of its subjects, in order to apply them to cultivating the intellect or 
morals, or for communicating knowledge: and second, that the subjects are 
within the pale of the child's experience, and refer to his every day wants and 
perceptions. Just the reverse, however, is the case in the higher divisions, and 
hence a different method becomes absolutely necessary.* Still the leading idea 
of the system, that to develop the intellectual, moral, and physical faculties of man 
is not sufficient, but that he must be educated in reference to the life in which he 
is to take a part, strikes with the force of truth, independently of the details which 
may be devised to carry it into effect. 

The institutions which Dr. Graser considers necessary to give the entire public 
instruction of a nation are : 

POPULAR SCHOOLS. SCHOOLS FOR HIGHER INSTRUCTION. 

1. The elementary school. 1 The elementary school. 

2. The real schoo'l, (" real pvmnasium.") 2. The gymnasium. 

3. Tlie real institute, ("rearuniversity.") 3. The university. 

The character of the instruction appropriate to these establishments may, ac- 
cording to his views, be thus expressed. In the elementary school, it should be 
popular and inductive ; in the real school, practical and scientific ; and in the 
university, scientific and practical, or applying science to practice. 

* This view is also taken by Dr. KrOger, whose experience and skill as a feacner I have 
already so often referred to. See his journey through Germany. (Reise durch Ueutsch- 
land, 6k., pp. 132, 133.) 



AUSTRIA. 



Austria has a system* of education which, from the village school to the 
university, is gratuitously open to all, and wliicli, in all its departments, is 
based on religion, and governed and molded by the State. Its universality 
is secured not by direct compulsion, as in Prussia, but by enactments which 
render a certificate of school attendance and educational proficiency neces- 
sary to exercise a trade, or be employed as a workman,! to engage in the 
service of the State in any capacity, or to be married. Besides this, it is made 
the interest of the wealthy landholders to contribute liberally for the educa- 
tion of their ten;xnts and the poor, by throwing upon them the support of 
the pauper population. 

All the institutions for education are under the supervision of a Board or 
Council (the Hof-studien Commission) at Vienna, composed of laymen ap- 
pointed by the crown, and at the head of which a Minister of Public Instruc- 
tion was placed in 1848. It is the duty of this body to investigate all com- 
pl.iiuts agaiust these institutions ; suggest and prepare plans of improve- 
meut, and counsel the crown in all matters referred to them. Under them 
is a graduated system of superintendence, to be exercised jointly, by the 
civil and spiritual authorities in the various subdivisions of the empire. 
The bishop and his consistory, jointly with the landestelle, has charge of all 
the scholastic institutions of the diocese ; the rural dean, jointly with the krei- 
samt, of those of a district ; the parochial incumbent, and the civil commis- 
sary, those of a parish. This general arrangement has reference to the 
Catholic establishment; but the proper authorities of the Protestant, Greek, 
and Hebrew churches are substituted for those of the Catholic, for all that 
regards the members of their several communions. 

There are six classes of schools subjected to the superintendence of the 
education-board ; namely, the popular, the gymnasial, the philosophical, the 
medico-chirurgical, tlie juridical, and the theological. The four last of these 
form separately the objects of various special institutions; and, combined 
together, they constitute the four faculties of the universities. 

The gymnasium is the school for classical learning, mathematics, and ele- 
mentary philosophy. 

The popular schools comprehend the establishments of various degrees, 
in which instruction is imparted of a more practical character, to those whose 
station in life does not fit them for the study of the learned languages. The 
lowest of these are the volks-schulen, or, as they are often termed, the trivial 
or the German schools, established, or intended to be established, in every 
district or parish of town or county, for the primary instruction in religion 

• The following account of the educational system of Austria is abridged mainly from Turn- 
bull's Austria. 

t Tiu-nbull mentions an instance of a large manufacturer in Bohemia, who was flned for «■• 
ploying a worlunan not provided witb the requisite OBrtificates of education. 



326 PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN AUSTRIA. 

and morality, reading, writing, and accounts. In the larger places are also 
numerous upper schools, haupt-schiikn, wherein a somewhat more extended 
education is given, for persons designed for the mechanical arts and other 
similar pursuits. These have an upper class called Wiederholungs-schulen, 
or Repetition Schools, who receive instruction in drawing, elementary geom- 
etry, and geography, and with it is combined a Normal School for teachers 
in the volks-schulen. In the larger towns are also commercial academies, 
termed real-sclmlen, in which are comprised two divisions of scholars-, the 
one general, receiving instruction in accounts, geography, and history ; the 
other special, having, in addition thereto, teachers in book-keeping and the 
principles of trade for mercantile pupils, in natural history and rural econo- 
my for those intended for agricultural life, in mathematics, chemistry, and 
principles of art for students in tiie higher arts, and in various foreign lan- 
guages, especially English, French, and Italian, for those who may desire to 
receive such instruction. In the vojks-schulen girls are taught, except in rare 
instances, in separate rooms from the boys ; and for the superior instruction 
of females there are distinct establishments corresponding with the havpl- 
schulen and real-schiden of the boys, many of them managed and directed 
by certain communities of nuns, which are especially preserved for the pur- 
pose of education. Industrial schools of various kinds, and for both sexes, 
are also in some parts combined with these more general educational insti- 
tutions; but the expenses attending such establishments prevent their being 
very numerous. 

The establishments thus last described constittite the class of popular 
schools. The next above these are the gymnasial ; of which there are one, 
or two, or several, in each district, according to the extent of its population. 
The pupils of the gymnasium are divided into several classes : the earlier 
ones are taught in religion, moral philosophy, elementary mathematics and 
physics, and Latin philology. To these subjects are added, for the more 
advanced classes — partly as perfect courses at the gymnasium, and partly 
as introductory to the higher instruction in the same branches at the lyceum 
or university — general history (and especially that of Austria), classical lit- 
erature, Greek philology, sesthetics (namely, rhetoric, poetry, and a knowl- 
edge of the fine arts), and the history of philosophy. Above the gymna- 
sium are the eight universities of Prague, Vienna, Padua, Pavia, Lemberg, 
Gratz, Olmutz, and Innspruck ; to which must be added the Hungarian uni- 
versity at Pesth. These are divided into two orders — those of Prague, Vi- 
enna, Padua, Pavia, and Pesth, are of the iirst, having chairs for all the four 
foculties of theology, law, medicine, and philosophy ; the others have a 
smaller number — as, for instance, Gratz, which has but three, having no pro- 
fessorship of medicine, and Lemberg, which has only two. In further ad- 
dition, according to circumstances and localities, professorships are estab- 
lished, either at the gymnasium, the lyceum, or the university, in the Italian 
and Oriental languages, in theoretical agriculture, astronomy, chemistrj , 
mechanics, and other branches of practical science. 

In most of the provincial capitals, where no university exists (in such 
towns, for instance, as Linz, Lay bach, Klagenfurt, &c.), there is an institu- 
tion, under the name of Lyceum, which answers the purpose of a minor uni- 
versity ; wherein public courses of lectures are given in some or all of the 
four fiiculties, and in other branches of knowledge. The degree cannot, in- 
deed, be taken at the lyceum in any of the faculties ; but certificates may 
be there obtained, which are accepted in lieu of those of the universities, 
for a large number of cases wii«re certificates are required, and for youths 
who require them not, the education of the lyceum, extending as it does to 
the highest Greek and Latin classics, and natural philosopliy, answers every 
purpose of general education. Of these lyceums, there are, in the empire, 
twenty-three undei- Roman Catholic direction ; besides eleven Protestant. 



PraMARY SCHOOLS IN AUSTRIA. 327 

Lullieran or Calvinist, and one Unitarian. For the instruction of the He- 
brew subjects there are gymnasiums and other schools, wherein the same 
books are read as in the general establishments of the empire, except only 
that works of Jewish are substituted for those of Christian theology. In 
special branches of knowledge, the government establishments are very nu- 
merous : medical and surgical academies, clerical academies, polytechnic 
schools, military institutions in all branches, and a college for the Eastern 
languages, &c. 

The popular schools are inspected and directed by the parochial incum- 
bent, who, with a view to this duty, is bound to receive instruction, previous 
to his induction to a benefice, in the system of scholastic management, or, 
as it is termed in the language of the edicts, the science of pccdagogy. He is 
required, at least twice a week, at certain fixed hours, to examine and cate- 
chise the pupils, and to impart to them religious instruction; the parish or 
district being obliged to provide him with a carriage for that purpose, when 
the schools to be visited are di.^tant from Ills residence. He orders removals 
from lower to higher classes, and grants those certificates, without which no 
pupil can pass fi-om the popular school to the gymnasium. He is bound to 
render, periodically, statistical and discriminating returns on the state of the 
schools, both to his spiritual superior and to the kreisamt; to urge on pa- 
rents the great importance of education to their offspring ; and to supply 
books to those who cannot afford to purchase them, and clothes (so far as the 
poor fund or private contribution may enable him to do so) to such as, for 
want of clothing, .ire prevented attending the schools. Where children of 
different creeds are intermixed in one school, religious instruction and cate- 
chization is confined to the last hour of the morning and afternoon attend- 
ance, during which hour the non-Romanists are dismissed, to receive instruc- 
tion elsewhere from their respective pastors ; but where the number of 
non-Romani^ts is sntficiently great to support a separate school, the minister 
of that persua-.ion. whatever it may be, is charged exclusively with the same 
duties as, intlie general schools, are imposed on the parish priest. To min- 
isters of all professions an equal recourse is, by the terms of the ordinances, 
allowed to tlie ;;id of the poor fund and of the grants-from the kreisamt. If 
the schools be too distant or too numerous for the proper supervision of the 
local minister, a separate instructor is named by the bishop, or, if the school 
be Protestant, by the provincial superintendent; and, for the visitors of all 
denominations, the expense of a carriage is equally borne by the public. 
Except in the points above enumerated, the parochial minister has no power 
to act, but only to report; in all those connected with defects or deficiencies 
of the buildings, lie, in conjunction with the civil commissary, reports to the 
kreisamt, and in those of merely scholastic nature, as well as in the con- 
duct of the teachers, he addresses liis remarks to the inspector of the dis- 
trict. 

The teachers at all the popular schools are required to produce testimo- 
nials from the Normal School at whicli they have been instructed, and re- 
ceive their appointment from the diocesan consistory, or from the provincial 
chief of any special religions for which they may be intended, but require 
in all cases the confirmation of the landestelle. They are provided with 
residences attached to the schools, together with fixed stipends during good 
health and good conduct, and are allowed superannuation pensions, which, 
if they shall have served for a period of ten years, are extended to their wid- 
ows, and to their orphans under fourteen years of age. 

Each district has an aufseher, or inspector (named by the bishop from 
among the parochial clergy holding beneiices therein), who compiles detailed 
s^jitements on every point connected Vv'ith education, for his spiritual supe- 
rior, and for the kreisamt. Once a year he makes a tour of personal inspec- 
tion, examiiioa the pupils, distributes rewai-da to the beat scholars, and super- 



328 PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN AUSTRIA. 

vises alike both the ministry and the teachers ; most especially enforcing the 
rule, that those books only shall be used, and those instructions only be 
given, which have been commanded by imperial edict. Above these district 
inspectors, each diocese has a higher othcer, under the name of oheraufseher, 
or inspector-general, who is named by the crown, and is in most cases a 
member of the cathedral chapter. His supervision extends not to the xolks- 
schiden only, but also to the real and the hawpt-schulen ; and for these pur- 
poses he is the dislrict-ins-pector for the city of his residence, and the inspect- 
or-general for the whole diocese. He is the official referee, whose opinion 
the consistory are bound to demand in every exercise of their educational 
functions, and by whom they are in fact principally guided; since every 
matter wherein their sentiments may not agree with his, must be referred 
to the decision of the landestelle. He examines and certifies teachers for 
appointment by the consistory ; receives quarterly statements in all details 
from his subordinate inspectors, and embodies them into general reports, 
for tlie landestelle and the crown ; finally, as supervisor of spiritual in- 
struction, he examines candidates for orders, and novices for monastic vows, 
and grants certain testimonials of proficiency which are indispensable for 
their admission. 

To the episcopal consistories, headed by the bishop, is committed the 
general supervision of all the scholastic concerns of the diocese, the regu- 
lations of matters of discipline, the communication of instruction, and the 
investigation of delinquencies. It is a part of their functions to order the 
erection of schools, to appoint the teachers, to authorize the payment of 
pensions to teachers in sickness or in age, and to their widows and orphans, 
when entitled to them ; but in these points, as in all others which involve 
any exercise of real authority, patronage, or influence, their acts are invalid 
without the confirmation of the landestelle. For the professors of non- 
Romanist creeds, these respective functions are discharged in their several 
gradations by officers of their own persuasion. The Protestant seniors and 
superintendents are the district-inspectors and the provincial inspectors-gen- 
eral for their respective communities; and the functions of the diocesan 
consistories are transferred to the central Calvinistic and Lutheran consist- 
ories at Vienna. 

The schools of higher degree, the Gymnasium, the Lyceum, the Theo- 
logical Seminary, and the University, are all, as well as the popular schools, 
more or less subjected to the supervision of the diocesan and his consistory; 
but these depend more immediately on the educational board at Vienna. 
Over each of them presides a director, who is charged with the general man- 
agement, in point both of discipline and instruction, acting under the orders 
of the board, or the edicts of the emperor. The various professors and 
teachers are all either named or approved by the landestelle, or the educa- 
tional board ; the same discriminating precautions being adopted as at the 
popular schools, for the religious instruction of those who profess non- 
Romish creeds. In every station, and in the various branches of education, 
the pupils are subjected to half-yearly examinations by authorized visitors ; 
and from the result of these examinations, as well as from the testimonials 
which each is bound to produce as to moral conduct, and also as to religious 
knowledge from the minister of his communion, the director forms the re- 
ports which are furnished to the government. 

For the erection of popular schools, certain rules are laid down which in- 
sure their erection as occasion may require. Although no ordinances com- 
pel education, yet the inducements held out to desire it are so great, that for 
schools of this description there is a constantly increasing demand, partly 
arising from the people themselves, and partly instigated by the spiritual an^ 
civil authorities ; and, indeed, so urgent have of late years been applications 
to tliis effect, that it has' become a usual, although not universal practice, to 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN AUSTRIA. 329 

require of the parishioners, or the inhabitants of the district petitioning, that 
they shall bind themselves by voluntary assessment to bear the whole or a 
portion of the attendant expenses. After the locality has been fixed by the 
aufseher and the kreisamt, it depends on the landestelle to issue the decree 
that the school be built ; and, this being done, the law then provides for its 
■gratuitous erection and completit)n. The lord of the soil is bound to grant 
the land and the materials; the inhabitants of the district to supply the la- 
bor; and the patron of the parochial benefice the internal fittings-up; all 
subsequent repairs, as well as the hiring of buildings for temporary accom- 
modation, being a charge on these three parties jointly. 

Notwithstanding, however, these ample provisions for general education, 
it will be readily conceived, that in a country where certain classes possess 
large pecuniary means and high aristocratic feelings, instruction cannot be 
absolutely confined to public institutions. In Vienna and other cities, many 
academic establishments of a superior order exist, endowed in the manner 
of our public schools ; and in these, or in the schools of the monasteries be- 
fore mentioned, wherein boarders are permitted to be received, or, finally, 
under private tutors in their own families, a large portion of the higher 
classes receive their education. 

In addition to the above summary of the system of primary schools 
in Austria, we present a lew particulars as to the inspection of teach- 
ers and schools. The law requires that every district inspector, or over- 
seer, must take care — 

1 . That his district is supplied with a sufficient number of school-buildings ; and 
for this end, he is eiiipowereil. in conjunction with the village or town magistrates, 
to levy a school-rate upon the householders of his district. 

2. That all the new sehooi-buildings, which are erected from time to time in his 
district, are built in healthy situations, not near any noisy workshops, or any 
swamp or bad smells; that the class-rooms are built according to the plans, which 
liave been prescribed by vg(jvernment ; that the class-rooms are well provided 
with desks, forms, writing-boards, maps, and ail necessary school apparatus. 

3. That the school-buildings are kept in good repair, well and frequently white 
washed, and well warmed and lighted. 

4. That a good and suitable house is provided for the teachers and their fami- 
lies, and that it is kept in a good condition and fit for their use. * 

5. That the cure of each parish regularly inspects his'school ; that he watches 
the conduct and character of the teacher ; that he examines the scholars fre- 
quently ; and tiiat he aids the teacher by his counsel, advice, and assistance. 

6. That the parishioners send all their children, who are between the ages of 
six and twelve, to school regularly, and that they pay the weekly school-fees in a 
regular manner. 

7. That each parochial magistrate is zealous, in enforcing a regular school at- 
tendance, in supporting the teachers, and in protecting them from the least disre- 
spectful treatment. 

8. That regular periodical reports of the state and progress of the schools in his 
district are forwarded to the county educational magistrates ; who, in their turn, are 
required to forward a general report of the progress of education in the whole 
country to the Minister of Education in Vienna. 

By these means the government in Vienna is informed every year of the actual 
state and progress of education, throughout every parish of their great empire ; of 
the wants and difficulties of those districts which require assistance ; of the results 
of particular experiments in particular schools, in the remotest provinces ; and of 
the actual number of children in each county, who have not attended the classes 
with sufficient regularity. 

Each inspector must visit all the primary schools in his district at 
least once every year. 

For this purpose he is required to divide all the schools in his district into two 
parts, and to visit one of these in the latter part of one year, and in the early part 
of tho succeeding yfear, so as to s'eo each school in spring and ^nter alternately. 



330 PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN AUSTRIA 

The overseer is required to give public notice some time previously of his inten- 
tion to visit any school, and of the day upon which he will publicly examine it. 

The law requires the parochial magistrates, the religious minister, to vi'hose sect 
the school belongs, and a conmiittee of the householders of the parish, to be pres- 
ent at the examination, and impose a penalty on any of those persons, who absents 
himself without satisfactory excuse. The overseer is required to write down the. 
names of the absentees, in order that the magistrates may be informed, and may 
impose a legal fine to which their absence renders them liable. 

The teacher is required by law to give all his children notice of the day, on 
which the examination will take place, and to order them all to attend at a certain 
hour. lie is also required to bring the book, in which the daily absentees are 
marked down, the copy-books and exercises of the scholars, the monthly register 
of the way, in which each child has attended to his work, an account of the prog' 
ress the classes have made in the several subjects of instruction, and any notes or 
observations he may have made in his note-book for the inspector. These sevei-al 
documents are laid before the overseer at the public examination, and are examined 
by him. The knowledge that this will be done stimulates both scholars and 
teachers, as each is as unwilling to be reproved for carelessness or incompetency, 
as he is anxious to be praised for industry and skill. 

The law next directs each overseer — 

1. To examine what character the teacher has borne in his neighborhood ; how 
he acts toward his scholars, and toward those vi'ho Mve about him ; whether lie 
teaches skillfully or not ; what methods of teaching he pursues ; whether he is in- 
dustrious and zealous in his work, and whether he continues to aim at self-im- 
provement. 

2. To examine the registers of the school, and to observe, how often each child 
has been absent from the classes ; to observe the manners of the children in tin' 
classes and in the play-ground, the manner in which they answer the questions put 
to them, their demeanor to one another and to their teachers, their appearance, 
cleanliness, and the state of their health. 

3. To observe what intei-est the parishioners and parents take in the state of the 
Fchnol, and in the education of their children ; how far they assist the te;ieher 'i 
SI cure a regular attendance ; what excuses they gcner.nlly make for the oocas'on;:! 
iihs'nces of their children; with what degree of respect they treat the teachers ; 
and whether they pay the weekly school-pence regularly, 

4. To observe the state of the school-buildings, whether they are built in a 
healthy locality, and after a good and reasonable plan ; whether the class-rooms 
are dry and light ; whether they are furnished with sufficient school-apparatus ; 
and whether they are supplied vi'ith sufficient quantities of fuel for the daily con- 
sumption during winter. 

5. Whether the religious ministers of the sect, to which the majority of the 
scholars belongs, visits and inspects the school-classes often ; whether he treats the 
teachers in a wise and judicious manner ; whether he uses his influence among 
the parents to secure a regular attendance at school ; and whether he attempts to 
diminish any little misunderstandings between the teachers and parishioners, when 
any such arise. 

6. Whether the civil magistrates are strict in punishing any infraction of the 
school regulations. 

The law then proceeds to require, that as soon as the overseer has examined the 
list's, &c., laid before him, he shall commence the examination. It is formally 
opened by a short prayer and a speech. After this the overseer examines the chil- 
dren, class after class, beginning with the first. 

He first requires the children to read aloud something selected from their 
school-books, and then questions them about the subject matter of the exercise. 

He selects some particular child to answer each question he asks, and does not 
allow the whole class to shout an answer to it simultaneously, so as to conceal the 
idleness and ignorance of some by the knowledge and ability of others. 

The overseer then dictates something to the school, and requires them to write 
from his dictation. Tlie scholars are then made to write a copy, and are afterward 
examined in arithmetic and mental calculation. 

The overseer is jMirticularly required to observe, during the course of the examin- 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN AUSTRIA. 33 j 

ation, whether there are any scholars, who appear to have been neglected by the 
teachers, or whether the instruction has been bestowed equally upon all. 

The law requires the overseer at the end of the e.xamination, to read aloud 
to the whole meeting, the names of the twelve scholars, who in his opinion 
have made the greatest progress in their studies, or who have evidently been the 
most industrious ; to praise them publicly for their industry and ability, and to en- 
courage them and all the rest of the scholars to renewed exertion. 

The overseer is next required to publicly reprove any scholar, who has been very 
idle or negligent in his studies, or in his attendance, and then to urge the children 
to make fresii exertion to prepare for the next public examination. 

After the examination is concluded, the overseer orders whatever repairs the 
school-building stand in need of, and whatever books and apparatus are required 
for the class-rooms. He then asks the parochial magistrates and clergy privately, 
if they have any fault to find with the teachers, and if they have, he examines 
into the cause of complaint, and acts between the parties as impartial judge. On 
the other hand, if the teachers have any cause of complaint against the parochial 
authorities, they state it to the overseer, and he, after examining into the matter, 
decides upon it as an arbitrator, and as a protector of the teachers. 

I have no need to point out how these visits of the representative of the central 
governments stimulate all the teachers, children, and parishioners. Each is afraid 
to be found behindhand in the performance of his duties ; and each is desirous to 
merit public praise for his efforts and success. The teacher is protected from neg- 
lect, insult, or injudicious interference, while he is at the same time kept under a 
wholesome cheek. His close connection with the emissary of the government of 
the empire, gives him a standing among his neighbors, and covers himself and his 
office with the respect of the people. 

The law respecting the teacher of a primary school prescribes as 
follows : 

The teacher of a primary school must be a person of good sense, having a good, 
clear pronunciation, good health, and a sound constitution. 

The teacher must not merely understand the science of pedagogy, but he must 
be able to practice it. In order that he may do this, he must not be satisfied with 
merely having obtained his diploma ; he must afterward seek to perfect his knowl- 
edge by the study of able and scientific works upon this science ; he must make 
and note down observations on the results of different methods ; he must not feel 
ashamed to learn from other teachers, or even from his own assistants ; and he 
must attend to the remarks and advice of the inspectors. 

He must be careful to speak clearly and loud enough to be heard by all his 
class, when giving instruction. 

He must be careful not to neglect any of his scholars, by attending too exclu- 
sively to the more clever children. 

He must be particularly careful to make his scholars obedient, orderly, and quiet 
in their classes, industrious, modest, clean, and polite. 

He must never endure a lie, and must prevent tale-telling, teazing, and vexing 
of one scholar by another, buying, selling, and exchanging in school, eating during 
the hours of instruction, frequent going out of the class-room, careless sitting pos- 
tures, and concealment of the hands. 

He must be most careful to prevent any unnecessary loitering in coming to 
school, or in returning home, all rough handling of the school-books, loud and un- 
seemly shouting and screaming, and mingling of the boys and girls, &c. 

He must take care that the children are clean : that they come to school with 
clean hands and faces, with cut nails, with combed hair, and with tidy clothes. 

He must warn the children not to drink, or to lie down upon the cold ground, 
when they are hot. 

He must warn the children against eating roots or berries, whose properties they 
do not know, and against playing near deep water, or in public streets. 

In winter he must take care that the children shake the snow from their clothes 
and shoes outside the school door. 

He must send unhealthy children home again, and prevent them mingling with 
tho others. 



332 PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN AUSTRIA 

He must take care that the school-room is kept sufficiently warm ; that it is well 
aired when the children are out, and that it is well cleaned every second day. 

In order to make the scholars industrious and obedient, the teacher must win 
the respect of his scholars ; he can nfet do this by a sullen, angiy countenance, or 
by using the ruler, or by making a noise ; but by evincing knowledge of his busi- 
ness, by command over himself, and by a manly, sensible, and unchangeable 
behavior. 

If the teacher leaves his class-room often in the day, or is inattentive or careless 
in his manner of imparting instruction, or is lazy, impatient, or irritable, the conse- 
quence will be, that his scholars will be disorderly, and will gain little or no good 
from their school attendance. 

The teacher must guard against the extremes of both kindness and harshness ; 
he must act like an affectionate, but sensible father ; he must make a great distinc- 
tion between his manner of reproving acts of mere childish carelessness, and 
actual sins ; he must nev«r employ severe punishments, as long as he can hope to 
succeed by milder means ; and he must avoid any thing hke unfairness in his 
praises and punishments. 

The teacher must carefully avoid hastily resorting to the rod ; he must never 
box a child's ears ; or pull or pinch them ; or pull its hair ; or hit him on the 
head, or any tender part; or use any other instrument of punishment, than a rod 
or stick ; and that only in cases of great faults. Even in these cases, this kind of 
punishment may only be administered after having obtained the consent of the 
overseer, and of the parents of the child, and in their presence. 

The teacher must take care to be polite and friendly to the parents of his schol- 
ars ; if he is obliged to complain to any of them of their children, he must do it, 
without showing any thipg like personal irritation ; he must never send his com- 
plaints to them by any ol" his scholars, or by third persons ; for, by such means 
mistakes are easily made, and unkind feelings are often excited. 

If the teacher is obliged to speak severely to any one, he must be careful not to 
do so in the presence of his children. 

The teacher must not engage in any trade or business ; he must not keep a shop, 
he must not play music at public festivities, and he must avoid all companies and 
places, which would be likely to throw any suspicion on his character, or to 
injure his reputation. 



SYSTEM 



NORMAL SCHOOLS IN AUSTRIA. 



In the school system of Austria, a Normal School is a pattern or model 
school, which is the primary signification of the word Normal. Of this 
class of schools there is one in the principal town in each province, and 
also in the chief town of each circle. In these Normal Schools the older 
boys who have passed through the course of instruction in the elementary 
and superior schools, and show a peculiar desire or fitness for the busi- 
ness of teaching, are arranged in a class for special instruction in a course 
of pedagogy. The course embraces a review of the studies pursued in 
the elementary schools, lectures on the principles of education, and the 
art of teaching, and practice as assistants in the lower classes of the 
schools. The time occupied by the course of study and practice varies 
from six months to two years — being longer in the provincial head school, 
than in the head school of the circle. There are twenty hours devoted 
in each week to the course, which are distributed as follows : 

Pedagogy, 3 hours. 

Methods of Religious Instruction, 2 " 

Higher Arithmetic, 3 " 

Writing and Drawing, . 3 " \ 

Exercises in Composition, 2 " 

Geography, 1 " 

Physical Education, 3 " 

Vocal and Instrumental Music, 3 " 

No one is allowed to teach unless he has gone through a course of 
Normal School training, either in the head school of the province or the 
circle. This system of training teachers was first introduced by order 
of Maria Theresa, in 1771, under the personal supervision of Felbinger, 
who was invited from Silesia for this purpose. The experiment was 
commenced in the school connected with the convent of St. Stephen, in 
Vienna, and the teachers of the city and suburbs were assembled and 
instructed in the new methods of teaching pursued in Prussia. This 
school received, in 1772, the privilege of publishing all school books used 
in schools on the crown lands of Austria, which was, in 1773, extended 
over the empire: The profits of this monopoly were set apart for the sup- 
port of a Normal teacher in the head school (the best primary superior 
school) of each province. 

The mode of training teachers does not satisfy the best educators of 
Austria. It gives a routine knowledge of methods, but does not secure 
that mastery of principles, or that formation of the pedagogical character. 



^34 NORMAL SCHOOLS OF AUSTRIA. 

which a three years' course of instruction and practice in a regularly consti- 
tuted Teachers' Seminary is so well calculated to give. The government 
has been frequently applied to for aid to erect one or more Teachers' 
Seminaries, on the plan of those in Prussia, but thus far without success. 

Calinisch, in his statistics of the schools in Germany, in Reden's Maga- 
zine for 1848, thus sums up the professional training of teachers, in Aus- 
tria: "The pedagogical course in the provincial Normal Schools, which 
embraces four classes, continues six months, and in those with three classes, 
three months. In the universities and theological seminaries, there are 
lectures on pedagogy, and the methods of questioning children, and in 
two large boarding schools, one in Vienna, and the other at Hernal, in the 
neighborhood of Vienna, there is a course of special instruction for those 
young females who are destined for governesses in private families. In 
1842, an independent school or seminary for teachers was started in Salz- 
burg, with a two years' course, and with eighteen pupils. There is a 
Normal head school in Prague for teachers of Jewish schools." 

The Provincial Normal Head Schools are located as follows: — Vienna, 
Prague, Trieste, Salzburg, Inspruck, Graz, Giirz, Klagenfurt, Laibach, 
Linz, Brixnn. 



POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE 



VIENNA. 



Thb whole institution is intended to fulfill a threefold purpose, as a school for 
the mechanic arts, manufactures, and commerce, as a conservatory of arts and 
manufactures, and as an institute for the promotion of national industry. The 
last named object is oftl-cted by public exhibitions, from time to time, of the pro- 
ducts of manufactures, mider the direction of the institute. For the better exe- 
cution Of this object, a spacious building is now erecting on the premises, adapted 
to the occasional display and permanent deposit of specimens of the mechanic 
arts. The collections which form the conservators of arts are also used . for in- 
sti'uction in the school, and will be described in connection with it. 

The whole institution is under the control of a director, who is responsible to 
the higher authorities of public instruction, and of trade and manufactures. The 
director is the general superintendent of the business of the institute and of the 
instruction, but does not teach. He regulates the admission of pupils and the dis- 
cipline. The money concerns are under the charge of a treasurer, who is re- 
sponsible to the director. The inferior officers are responsible to the same 
authority^ The discipline of the scholastic department is simple but rigid, no 
pupil being allowed to remain connected with it whose deportment is not proper. 
The courses are gratuitous, except a small entrance fee, and this is considered as 
wai-ranting prompt removal when the pupil does not perform the duties prescribed 
by the institution. 

The department of instruction is composed of three schools, a technical, a com- 
mercial, and a " real school." The last named is a preparatory school for the 
two others, and may be entered as early as thirteen years of age. Its courses 
are of religious instruction, of German language, elementary mathematics, geog- 
raphy, history, natural history, elocution, calligraphy, and drawing, and are obli- 
gatory upon the pupils. Italian and French may be studied if the pupil desires 
it. As these courses lead in three yeai-s to the other departments of the institu- 
tion, the candidates for admission are required to possess the elementary attain- 
ments necessary to their successful prosecution. There are five professors and 
four teachers connected with this school, which is superintended by the vice-direc- 
tor of the institute. The instructors rank by regulation with those in the gym- 
nasia or classical schools of the empire. The course of instruction is not as com- 
prehensive as that in the Pnissian real schools, but is an adequate preparation for 
the next higher divisions, which supply in part these deficiencies. 

The technical and commercial schools furnish special instruction according to 
the intended pursuits of the pupil, though he may, in fact, select the courses 
which he wishes to attend, not being limited as to the number or character of the 
branches. The dii-ector advises with the pupil, on admission, as to the studies 
most appropriate to be followed, if his intended calling is fixed, and he is not 
allowed to join the classes, the courses of which require preparation, without pre- 
senting a certificate from the school at which he has been instructed, or being 
examined, to ascertain his proficiency. In regard to other courses, there is no 
such restriction. The age for admission is sixteen years. 

The instruction is given in the technical school by eight -professors and two 
assistants ; the professors lecturing, and in some of the courses, interrogating the 
pupils. Certain lectures are also gone over by the assistants with the classes. 
The courses which combine practice with teaching will be pointed out in enumer- 
ating the subjects of study. The division of these subjects, and the time devoted 
to them during the week, are as follows : 

I. General Chemistry, applied to the arts, five hours. 

II. Speciai, Technical Chemistry, ten hours. This course gives a particular account 
of all the processes of the arts of which the principles were developed in the general lectures. 



33Q POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE OF VIENNA. 

There is a special laboratory devoted to the course, where, under the superintendence of the 
professor or of Ills assistants, the pupils go tlirougli the processes on a small scale Those 
wlio have a particular object in view, as dyeing, bleaching, printing upon stuffs, or the man- 
ufacture of chemical preparations or rnelalkirgy, are directed in their investigations espe- 
cially to the parts of chemistry which they will have to apply. Practice and theory are thus 
combined. 

III. Physics, with special reference to its applications, five hours. 

IV. Elementary Mathematics, including arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and mensura- 
tion, ten hours. This course Is intended for those who have not passed through the real 
sc'iool. 

V. Higher Mathematics, five hours. There is a repetition by an assistant, also of five 
hours. 

VI. Mechanics, including the description and calculation of machines, five hours This 
subject IS founded upon a course of machmes, considered as an application of descriptive 
geometry and drawing, superintended by an assistant. 

VII. Practical Gkombtry, including land and topographical surveying, levelling, <kc., 
five hours The lectures are accompanied by practice in the nse of instruments in the field. 

VIII CtviL and Hydraulic Architecture, ten hours. This includes a complete course 
of engineering, in its var.ous branches. It is accompanied by exercises in drawing. 

IX Technology, or a general discus^ion of arts and trades, five hours. The subjects 
which come under the head of special chemistry are omitted ni the lectures of this division. 

X. The assistant professor of chemistry delivers an extra lecture, daily, on the methods of 
measuring Specific CiRavities, during part of the course. 

XI. Elementary Drawing for those who have not passed through the real school, five 
hours. There are extra courses In the Latin, Bohemian, and English languages, for those 
who wish to follow them. 

The time devoted to drawing depends upon the student, but it is obvious that 
his knowledge must be very incomplete, and that he will carry away from the 
school but an imperfect record of descriptive geometry and its applications, unless 
he devotes a great deal of time to this branch. In this respect the arrangement 
of the school is entirely difl'erent from that at Berlin, where the drawings accom- 
panying the courses are made as much a matter of regular duty as the attendance 
upon the lectures themselves. This is certainly the proper plan, and while it ap- 
peared to me that the time spent in the graphic exercises at Berlin was even 
beyond the measure of their importance, I am decidedly of opinion that a strict 
attention to this department is essential. 

The collections, by the aid of which these courses are carried out, are — 1 . An 
extensive collection of chemical preparations for both special and general chemis- 
try. The pupils in special chemistry, as already stated, make preparations in the 
departments of the art which they intend to follow, and some of these are left 
behind them as specimens of their skill. In the department of the dyer there is 
quite a large series of specimens collected in this way. The laboratories for both 
special and general chemistry are admirably adapted to their purpose.* 2. A 
cabinet of instruments for the course of practical geometry. 3. A considerable 
collection of physical apparatus. 4. A collection of models of machines, and in 
engineering. 5. A technological cabinet of a most complete character, and ad- 
mirably arranged ; it contains many of the best specimens of Austrian arts and 
manufactures. All these collections are under the care of the professor in whose 
department they find a place ; there being, besides, curators for the immediate 
charge of them, and for keeping them in repair. The cabinet of physical appa- 
ratus, and of models and machinery, were in the main supplied from the work- 
shops of the institution. These shops have long been celebrated for the astronom- 
ical and geodesic instruments furnished from them. They are still kept up, 
though on a reduced scale, their chief object having been accomplished. They 
were never intended, like those of Berlin, to afford practical instruction to the 
pupils. The institution, indeed, does not recognize the principle that this can be 
done to advantage in the mechanical department. It is certain, as already stated, 
that great care is required to render such establishments of any avail beyond the 
point of giving to the pupil a general readiness with his hands, and that even 
when well conducted they are expensive. Success in practical chemistry requires 
essentially a very considerable knowledge of theory ; the processes on a small 
scale represent, in general, fairly those upon the large, and experiments thus made 
fieG[uently save the outlay which is required to make them in the large way. The 

* The laboratory of the profe.ssor of general chemistry. Professor Meifsner, is one of the 
best arranged which I saw abroad. The furnace operations, and others likely to incom- 
mode the class, are performed behind a screen, with large glass windows, which allow a per- 
fect view ; the space behind is provided with llie means of carrying off the fumes. 



POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE OF VIENNA. 33^ 

practice in the laboratory of a school is, besides, verj' nearly of the kind required 
for the manufactory. These, among other circumstances render the problem in 
regard to successful preparation for the arts depending upon chemistry, different 
from that relating to the art of the machinist. It is in this department that the 
polytechnic school of Vienna is particularly strong. There can be no doubt that 
Austrian manufactures in general have received a great impulse through the me- 
dium of this institution, and particularly of its scholastic department, but while 
praise is yielded to the different courses, the arrangements for teaching chemistry 
must be considered as having a preference over the others. 

The lessons in the commercial school embrace the following subjects : — 

I. Commercial correspondence, three hours per week. 

II. Tlie science of trade (Handelswissenschatt.) three hours. 

III. Austrian laws relating to trade and exchange, three hours. 

IV. Commercial arithmetic, six hours 

V. Book-keeping, by single and double entry, four hours. 

VI. Account of the materials of trade. (Waarenkunde.) the sources, uses, properties, kinds,' 
adulterations to which they are subject, &c., four hours. 

VII. Commercial geography, three hours. 

VIII. History of commerce, three hours. There are five professors in this school. 

Once a week the professors of the institute meet, under the presidency of the 
director, to confer on the business of the institution. Saturday is appropriated in 
part to this purpose, and there are no exercises for the students on that day. 
One of the professors is secretary of the board. The professors rank by regula- 
tion with those of the miiversities. 

The lectures last from October to August of every year. At the close of them, 
a pupil who wishes a certificate in any branch, presents himself, and is examined 
by a professor, in presence of a director and of two members of the imperial com- 
mission of studies. A student who has attended the lectures, and does not wish 
to be examined, may receive a certificate of attendance. 

To supply the place of a regular division of studies for different callings, one 
of the earlier programmes contained a recommendation of certain courses of study 
as preparatory to particular occupations. The recommendations were the follow- 
ing : — For tradesmen, the two years of the real school, and one year of the com- 
mercial school ; or for a more complete education, an additional year, embracing 
the courses of chemistry, physics, and technologj- of the technical school. For 
dyers, printers in stuffs, bleachers, manufacturers of chemical products, of salt, 
of saltpeter, for miners, metallurgists, brewers, &c., special chemistry, physics, 
and technology, with some of the courses of the commercial school. For ma- 
chinists, hydraulic engineers, mill-wrights, foremen in manufactories, and mining 
engineers — a course of two years was recommended, the fii'st to embrace mathe- 
matics, physics, and drawing, and the second, mechanics, machine-drawing, and 
technology. As a preparation for agrieultm'ists and foresters — courses of mathe- 
matics, physics, practical geometry, chemistry and book-keeping. For miners, 
mathematics, physics, practical geometry, mechanics, drawing, and book-keeping. 
For surveyors, mathematics, physics, practical geometry, drawing, and book- 
keeping. 

There is still a regular course laid down for architects and civil engineers, the 
satisfactory completion of which entitles to a diploma. The first year includes 
elementary mathematics, technology, and drawing ; the second, higher mathe- 
matics, physics, and drawing ; the third, the applied mathematics, mechanics, 
practical geometry, and drawing ; the fourth, architecture, engineering, drawing, 
technology, chemistry, and book-keeping. 

The library of the institute is appropriated to the several departments, and ia 
used by the students, as well as by the professors. Yearly appropriations, besides 
the entrance and diploma fees, are devoted to its increase. The professors have 
the right of recommending such works to be purchased as they may deem of use 
in their departments. An aimual is published by the institute, consisting of origi- 
nal and selected scientific articles, by the professors, ajid notices of the institution. 

22 



338 



PRIMARY EDUCATION IN AtSTRIA. 





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SUPERIOR EDUCATION IN AUSTRIA. 



339 



TABLE II.— INSTITUTIONS OF SECONDARY AND SUPERIOR 

EDUCATION. 



Universities. 

Vienna 

Gwtz 

Innsbruck 

Prague 

Ollmutz 

Lemberg 

Pesth 

Pavia 

Padua 

Total (without Hungary) . 

Lycea. 

Salzbwg, with Theol., Philos., and Medicine 
Linz " " '• " 

Lai bach " " " '> 

Klageiifurth " " " 

Klausenburg '• " " 

In Hungary, 14* 

Seminaries for Divines. 

Vienna (Protestant) 

Redemptorists (for their order) 

Admoiit 

Mantern 

Turnow * 

Przemysl S 

Lemberg 

Carlowitz (Greek Church) 

Zara 

Hermannstadt (Greek) 

In Hungary, Sf 

Colleges of Philosophy^ 

Special Institutions | j?' S^ ' 

Gymnasia? (Grammar-schools) | pr*°stant 



Total cost of the higher establishments for 
education, without including Hungary . . 



353 



Outlay. 



4,718 
876 
317 

3,341 
640 

1,403 

V,3i6 
1,260 



florins. 

165,671 
25.372 
25,053 
66,864 
29.525 
53,593 

' 80,821 
98,646 



Buraar. 
abipa. 



256 ! 

47 

52 j 

55 I 
112 I 

48 \ 

■'24 ! 



florins. 

21,583 
1,267 
3,593 
3,065 
5,600 
4,480 



4,200 



13,871 545,545 



594 43,788 



212 
167 
299 
171 
330 



83 



1,179 



23,465 

12,090 

22,160 

4,624 

8,810 



71,149 



455 

362 

2,294 

1,409 



4,520 



1 


5 


1 


6 


1 


6 


1 


7 ' 


2 


8 1 


1 


5 



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2,650 

4,193 

3,010 

4,765 

15,128 

180 



30 



2,400 



54 



46,933 



25 166 I 3,192 I 127,089 



116 
14 



195 
29 



3,508 
429 



248,151 
21,775 



38 



163 

• 21 



2,400 



2,140 



29,097 
2,026 



25,458 I 505.350 
2,451 I 12,963 



446 j 20,515 
13 I 72 



1,378 I 35,038 915,328 681 ] 53,850 



1,8 



50,497 I 1,578,955 1,387 I 104,558 



* 2 at I^resburg ; 2 Baab ; 1 Agram, Debreczin, Eperies, Erlau, Grosswardein, Kasmark, 
Cashau, Oedenburg, Papa, Saros-Patak. 

t At Kerestur and Torda. 

i At Krems, Kremsmunster, GOrz, Trent, Budweis, Leitomischl, Filsen, Bnmn, Nikolsburg, 
Przemysl, Tamopol, Czernowitz, Zara, Milan, Brescia, Cremona, Mantua, Bergamo, Como, 
Lodi, Venice, Verona, Udine, Vicenza. 

In Hungary, at Stein am Auger and Szeyechin, 2. 

§ Hungary has 67 Catholic and 13 Protestant Gymnasia. 

The Mining Academy at Schemnitz has 7 Professors, 233 Students : it costs 11,500 florins, 
and has 55 Bursarships endowed with 11,000 florins annually. 



$40 



SUPERIOR EDUCATION IN AUSTRIA. 







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— 



SWITZERLAND. 



The following general outline of the educational institutions of Switzer- 
land, will be found to contain not only an interesting notice of the Normal 
Schools of that country, but also valuable hints respecting the compulsory 
attendance of children at school, and school inspection, as well as the re- 
lations of education to pauperism. It is abridged from a recent work by 
Joseph Kay, published by J. Hatchard and Son, London, 1846, entitled 
" Hie Education of the 'poor in England and Europe^ 

" Perhaps of all countries Switzerland offers the most instructive lesson 
to any one investigating educational systems and institutions. It is divi- 
ded into twenty-two independent cantons, each of which manages its own 
internal policy after its own peculiar views ; so that the educational sys- 
tems of the several cantons differ very materially, whilst the federal gov- 
ernment which unites all, brings all into intimate connection one with 
another, and facilitates improvement, as the institutions which are found 
to work best are gradually adopted by all the different governm.ents. 
Each canton being acquainted with the systems pursued by the others, 
the traveler is enabled, not only to make his own observations on the 
various results, but is benefited also by the conversation of men accus- 
tomed to compare what is being done by their own government with 
what is being done by others, and to inquire into the means of perfecting 
their educational systems. 

But the advantage to be derived from an investigation of the various 
efforts made by the different cantons, is still further increased by the fact 
of their great difference in religious belief Thus, the population of the 
canton of Vaud, tor example, is decidedly Presbyterian, — that of Lucerne 
is almost exclusively Roman Catholic, whilst those of Argovia and Berne 
are partly Protestant and partly Roman Catholic. Not only, therefore, 
does the traveler enjoy the advantage of studying the educational sys- 
tems of countries professing different religious creeds, but the still greater 
one of witnessing the highly satisfactory solution of the various difficulties 
arising from differences of rehgious belief existing under the same gov- 
ernment. 

The great development of primary education in Switzerland, dates 
from 1832 or 1833, immediately after the overthrow of the old aristocrati- 
cal oligarchies. No sooner did the cantonal governments become tho- 
roughly popular, than the education of the people was commenced on a 
grand and liberal scale, and from that time to this, each year has witness- 
ed a still further progress, until the educational operations of the several 
governments have become by far their most weighty and important du- 
ties. 

Throughout all the cantons, with the exception of Geneva, Vallais, and 



342 NORMAL SCHOOLS IN SWITZERLAND. 

three small mountainous cantons on the Lake of Lucerne, where the popu- 
lation is too scanty and too scattered to allow of the erection of many 
schools, education is compulsory ; that is, all parents are required by law 
to send their children to school from the age of six to the age of fourteen, 
and, in several cantons, to the age of sixteen. The schoolmasters in the 
several communes are furnished with lists of all the children in their dis- 
tricts, which are called over every morning on the assembling of school; 
the absentees are noted, and also the reasons, if any, for their absence ; 
these lists are regularly examined by the inspectors, who fine the parents 
of the absentees for each day of absence. 

In some of the manufacturing districts, the children are permitted to 
leave school and enter the mills at the age of eleven, if they have then ob- 
tained from the inspectors a certificate of being able to read and write ; 
but they are obliged to attend a certain number of periodical lessons 
afterward, Until they attain the age of fourteen or fifteen. In the canton 
of Argovia, however, which is one of the manufacturing districts of Swit- 
zerland, the children are not allowed to enter the mills until they attain 
the age of thirteen, and I Avas assured by several of the manufacturers of 
this canton, that they did not suffer any inconvenience from this regula- 
tion, although it had been warmly opposed at first by the commercial 
men. 

It ought to be remembered, that these laws are enforced under the 
most democratic forms of government. 

The people themselves require attendance at the schools, so conscious 
are they of the necessity of education to the encouragement of temper- 
ance, prudence, and order. 

In the cantons of Berne, Vaud, Argovia, Zurich, Thurgovia, Lucerne, 
and Schaffhouse, where this law is put into force most stringently, it may 
be said with truth, that all the children between the ages of seven and 
fifteen are receiving a sound and religious education. This is a most 
charming result, and one which'is destined to rapidly advance Switzer- 
land, within the next eighty years, in the course of a high Christian civil- 
ization. One is astonished and delighted, in Avalking throvigh the towns 
of the cantons I have mentioned, to miss those heart-rending scenes to be 
met with in everjr English town; I mean the crowdsof filthy, half-clotiied 
children, who may be seen in the back streets of any of our towns, grovel- 
ing in the disgusting filth of the und rained pavements, listening to the 
lascivious songs of the tramping singers, witnessing scenes calculated to 
demoralize adults, and certain to leave their impress on the susceptible 
minds of the young, quarreling, swearing, fighting, and in every way 
emulating the immorality of those who bred them. There is scarcely a 
town in England and Wales whose poorer streets, from eight in the morn- 
ing until ten at night, are not full of these harrowing and disgusting 
scenes, which thus continually show us the real fountain-head of our de- 
moralized pauperism. In Switzerland nothing of the kind is to be seen. 
The children are as regularly engaged in school, as their parents are in 
their daily occupations, and henceforward, instead of the towns continu- 
ing to be, as in England, and as they have hitherto been in Switzerland, 
the hot-beds and nurseries of irreligion, immorality, and sedition, they will 
only afford still more favorable opportunities, than the country, of advanc- 
ing the religious, moral, and social interests of the children of the poor. 
How any one can wonder at the degraded condition of our poor, after 
having walked through the back streets of any of our towns, is a thing I 
never could understand. For even where there are any schools in the 
town, there are scarcely ever any playgrounds annexed to them ; so that 
in the hours of recreation the poor little children are turned out into the 
streets, to far more than forget all the moral and religious counsel given 
ia the Bchool. It is strange that we do not understand how invaluable 



NORMAL SCHOOLS IN SWITZERLAND. 343 

the refuge is, which a school and playground afford to the children of the 
poor, however indifferent the education given in the school. 

This small country, beautified but impoverished by its Alpine ranges, 
containing a population* less than that of Middlesex, and less than one- 
half its capital, supports and carries on an educational system greater 
than that which our government maintains for the whole of England and 
Wales ! Knowing that it is hopeless to attempt to raise the character of 
the education of a country without first raising the character and position 
of the schoolmaster, Switzerland has established, and at the present mo- 
ment supports, thirteen Norm.d schools for the instruction of the school- 
masters and schoolmistresses, whilst England and Wales rest satisfied 
with six ! Eleven of these schools are permanent, and are held during 
the whole of the year ; the remaining two sit only for about three months 
yearly, for the purpose of examining monitors recommended by the mas- 
ters of the primary schools, and desirous of obtaining diplomas to enable 
them to act as schoolmasters. In the majority of these schools the mem- 
bers of the different religious sects are received with a willingness and 
with a Christian charity, which puts to shame our religious intolerance. 
Nor does this liberality proceed from any carelessness about the religious 
education of the people, for no master can obtain, frum his canton's gov- 
ernment, a diploma, to enable him to officiate as schoolmaster, without 
having first obtained from a clergyman of his own church a certificate of 
moral character and of competency to conduct the religious education in 
the school for which he is destined ; but it proceeds rather from a recog- 
nition of this great truth, that the cause of religion must be deeply injured 
by neglecting the secular education of the people, and from a Christian 
resolution in all parties to concede somewhat, for the sake of insuring 
what must be the foundation of all social improvement, the advancement 
of the intelligence and morality of the people. M. Gauthey, a Presbyte- 
rian clergyman, and director of the Normal schools at Lausanne, M. 
Vehrli, director of the Normal school near Constance, the professors of the 
Normal school in Argovia, M. Schneider von Langnau, minister of public 
instruction in the canton of Berne, and M. Fellenberg. of Hofwyl, all 
assured me that they did not find the least inconvenience resulting from 
the instruction of different sects in the same schools. Those who differ 
in faith from the master of the school are allowed to absent themselves 
from the doctrinal lessons given in the school, and are required to attend 
one of their own clergy for the purpose of receiving from him their doc- 
trinal instruction. 

Even in Fribourg, a canton governed by Catholic priests, Protestants 
may be found mingled with the Catholics in the schools, and are allowed 
to absent themselves during the hours of religious lessons ; and, in Argo- 
via, a canton which has lately so distinguished itself by its opposition to 
the Jesuits of Lucerne. I found that several of the professors in the Nor- 
mal school were Catholics, and that the utmost tolerance was manifested 
to all the Catholics attending the cantonal schools. 

The Swiss governments perceived, that if the powerful sects in the 
several cantons were to refuse education to the Dissenters, only one part 
of the population would be educated. They perceived also, that secular 
education was necessary to the progress of religious education, and that 
they could secure neither without liberality ; and therefore they resolved 
that all the children should be required to attend school, and that all the 
schools should be opened to the whole population. 

In the canton of NeuchAtel, they have no Normal school, but they 
choose their masters from the monitors of the primary schools, who are 
most carefully educated and trained by the masters of the primary schools 

• Iq IS46 the population of Switzerland was about 2yl00,000, 



344 NORMAL SCHOOLS IN SWITZERLAND. 

for their future important situations. Notwithstanding their greatest ex- 
ertions, however, to choose persons qualified for this most important post, 
I was assured by those interested in the progress of education in that can- 
ton, that they found the present system totally inadequate to the produc- 
tion of efficient masters, and that they felt that they must follow the ex- 
ample of the other cantons, and establish a permanent Normal school. 
In the cantons of Fribourg and Schaffhouse tiie Normal schools sit only 
during three months of the year, during which time they give lectures to 
those desiring to be schoolmasters, and examine the candidates before 
granting the diplomas. But so totally inefficient have they found this 
system, that Fribourg is about to establish a Normal school during the 
present year, and Schatf house has only been prevented from doing so by 
the want of sufficient funds. 

I was assured by the priests in the one canton, and by the Protestant 
clergy in the other, that they were fully convinced that no efforts on their 
part could insure good masters, unless they were aided by a sufficiently 
long religious, intellectual, and domestic training, under the eye of expe- 
rienced and trustworthy professors. 

Four of the Normal schools of Switzerland contain each from eighty- 
five to one hundred pupil-teachers; the rest average from forty to eighty. 

It may seem extraordinary to some that so small a country as Switzer- 
land should require so many schools for teachers, but the explanation is 
very simple. Switzerland is a poor country, and although it gives the 
schoolmaster a very honorable station in society, and regards him as next 
in dignity to the priests and clergy, it is not able to pay him very well, so 
that in many cases there is no other inducement to a schoolmaster to re- 
main long at his post, than the interest he feels in his profession. From 
this cause there is always a constant desertion from the ranks going on in 
some parts, and a consequent necessity for the preparation of a sufficient 
number to fill the vacant posts. If the masters were paid better, Swit- 
zerland would be able to dispense with two or three of its Normal 
schools. 

I should like to enter upon a description of the different Normal schools 
of Switzerland, were not that rather beside the purpose of this report ; 
but I cannot refrain from recording the unanimous opinion of the Swiss 
educators on two points coimected with these schools. These are, the 
necessity of manual labor in connection with the instruction given in the 
schools, and the time which all are agreed upon as necessary to the per- 
fecting of a schoolmaster's education. On the latter point, all with whom 
I conversed assured me, that their experience had taught them that three 
years were absolutely necessary for the education of a master; that 
wherever less time had been tried, it had always been found insufficient ; 
and that in order that even three years should suffice, it was necessary 
that the young man entering the Normal school should have completed 
his education in the primary schools. 

With respect to the necessity of manual labor in a Normal school, opin- 
ions were hardly less unanimous. To the Bernese Normal schools, as well 
as to that at Kruitzhngen, conducted by Vehrli, the successor of Pesta- 
lozzi and Fellenberg, and to the Normal schools of Lucerne and Solleure, 
lands have been annexed, which are farmed and cultivated by the pupil- 
teachers. They are sufficiently extensive, in five of these schools, to em- 
ploy all the young men in the Normal school at least two hours per diem in 
their cultivation. On these lands all the pupil-teachers, accompanied by 
their professors, and clothed in coarse farmers' frocks, with thick wooden 
sandals, may be seen toiling most industriously about the middle of the 
day, cultivating all the vegetables for the use of the household, as well as 
6ome for the neighboring markets, and could any one be taken among 
tliem at that period of the day, he would imagine he saw before him a set 



NORMAL SCHOOLS IN SWITZERLAND. 345 

of peasants at their daily labor, instead of the young aspirants to the much 
respected profession of schoolmaster. 

Besides this labor in the fields, the young men are also required to 
clean their apartments, to take charge of their own chambers, prepare 
their own meals, besides keeping all the premises in good repair. Thus 
the life of the pupil-teacher in Switzerland, during the time he remains 
at school, is one of the most laborious nature. He is never allowed to 
lose sight of the manner of life of the class from which he was selected, 
and with which he is afterward required to associate. He is never 
allowed to forget that he is a peasant, so that he may not afterward feel 
any disgust in mingling with peasants. In this manner, they train their 
teachers in habits of thought and life admirably suited to the laborious 
character of the profession lor which they are destined, and to the hum- 
ble class who will be their companions in after life. The higlier the in- 
struction that is given to a pupil-teacher, the more difficult and the more 
important is it to cherish his sympathies for the humble and often degra- 
ded class among whom he will be called to live and exercise his important 
duties. 

In fact, as all the Swiss educators said, the great difficulty in educating 
a teacher of the poor is to avoid, in advancing his intelligence and eleva- 
ting his religious and moral character, raising his tastes and feelings so 
much above the class from which he has been selected, and with which 
he is called upon afterward to associate, as teacher, adviser, and friend, 
as to render him disgusted with his humble companions, and with the 
toilsome duties of his profession. In educating the teachers, therefore. 
far above the peasant class whom they are intended to instruct, the Swiss 
cantons, which I have mentioned, are very careful to continually habitu- 
ate them J,o the simplicity and laborious character of the peasant's life, so 
that, when they leave the Normal schools, they find that they have 
changed from a situation of humble toil to one of comparative ease. 
They do not therefore become dissatisfied afterward with their laborious 
employments, but are accustomed even from their childhood to combine 
a high development of the intellect and a great elevation of the character 
with the simplicity and drudgery of a peasant's occupations. 

Thus the Swiss schoolmasters live in their villages as the coadjutors of 
the clergy, associating with the laborers in their homes and at their fire- 
sides, whilst at the same time they exhibit to therp the highly beneficial 
and instructive example of Christian-minded, learnfed and gentle peasants, 
living proofs of the benefits to be derived from possessing a properly edu- 
cated mind. 

I cannot deny myself the pleasure of giving Vehrli's opinion on this sub- 
ject. He said, ' Your object in educating a schoolmaster ought to be, to 
prepare a teacher of the people, who, whilst he is considerably elevated 
in mental acquirements above those among whom he will be obliged to 
mingle, shall thoroughly sympathize with them by having been himself 
accustomed to hard manual labor. If you take pupil-teachers into your 
Normal schools, and content yourselves with merely cultivating their 
mental powers, you will find that, however carefully you tend their reli- 
gious instruction, you have educated men who will .soon, despite them- 
selves, feel a disgust for the population with whom they must associate, 
and for the laborious duties which they will have to perform ; but if during 
the whole of their residence at the Normal school, you accustom them to 
hard and humble labor, when they leave, they will find themselves in 
higher and easier situations than when tliey were at school, they will 
sympathize with their poor associates, and feel contented and satisfied 
with their position.' 

In Argoviii they have so strongly felt the truth of the above remarks, 
Umt they h;ivc resolved to adopt M. Vehrli's suggestions, and to annex 



346 NORMAL SCHOOLS IN SWITZERLAND 

lands to their Normal school ; and in the canton of Vaud, where no labor 
is required from the pupil-teacher, I was assured that they had constant 
reason to complain of the dissatisfaction expressed by the teachers for 
their profession after leaving the Norma] school. Nor is it only by means 
of agricultural labor that Vehrli endeavors to prepare his pupils for the 
honorable but arduous duties of their future lives. Nearly all the domes- 
tic concerns of his household are conducted by the pupil-teachers, and all 
assistance that is not absolutely necessary is dispensed with. Vehrli 
assured me that by these means the expenses of maintaining his Normal 
school were greatly diminished, as they sent to market all the surplus of 
their agricultural produce, and employed the proceeds in defraying the 
ordinary expenditure of the school. •. 

But whilst the Swiss cantons are thus careful to prepare the pupil- 
teachers tor the practical duties of their lives, they do not neglect their 
intellectual instruction ; as they are fully convinced that the instruction 
given in a village school by an ignorant man must not only be very mea- 
ger in kind, but very unattractive in character. In order to attain a cer- 
tain standard of instruction in a village school, the education of the master 
should be very much elevated above it ; and in order to make the poor 
prize the village school, it is necessary that they should have a very high 
opinion of the character and learning of the teacher. 

The education given by these masters in the parochial schools includes, 
1. Religious instruction. 2. Reading. 3. Writing. 4. Linear drawing. 
5. Orthography and grammar. 6. Arithmetic and book-keeping. 7. Sing- 
ing. 8. The elements of geography, and particularly of the geography 
of Switzerland. 9. The history of Switzerland. 10. The elements of 
natural philosophy, with its practical applications. 11. Exercises in com- 
position. 12. instruction in the rights and duties of a citizen. 

In the Catholic cantons, however, the instruction is generally confined 
to religious lessons, reading, writing, and arithmetic. 

No teacher is allowed to undertake the charge of a school, until he has 
obtained from the council of his canton, whose duty it is to examine can- 
didates, a diploma stating his capability of directing the education of a 
school. This diploma is only granted after a very severe examination, 
which the candidate must pass before he can become a schoolmaster. 
Besides this, he must have obtained a certificate of character from the 
director of the Normal school in which he was educated, and in many 
cases another from a clergyman of his own sect, stating his capability of 
conducting the religious education of a school. This latter point is 
always strictly inquired into, either by the council of inspection, which 
examines the candidates, or by a clergyman of the sect of which the can- 
didate is a member. The character and abilities of the teachers are not 
considered in Switzerland as matters of small concern, but on the contra- 
ry, every precaution is taken to guard against the possibility of a man of 
low character or poor education obtaining such a post. It is happily un- 
derstood in the Swiss cantons, that such a schoolmaster is much worse 
than none at all. The influence of such an one on the young is demoral- 
izing in the extreme, and does infinite mischief by creating in the minds 
of the children associations connecting the name of school with unhappy 
thoughts, and thus often actually engendering a spirit of hostility, not 
only against education, but also against the holy precepts which were 
professedly taught at school. 

1 consider the very backward state of education in some of these can- 
tons, compared to the great progress it has made in others, as a satisfac- 
tory proof of the necessity of adopting a centralization system in prefer- 
ence to one leaving the direction of education to provincial governments. 
I know there are many in our own country who blindly cry out against 
centralization, not reflecting that the central government, as being the 



NORMAL SCHOOLS IN SWITZERLAND. 347 

richest and most powerful body, can most easily collect sufficient st&,tistics 
on the comparative merits of different systems, and on the comparative 
results of diiferent ways of teaching and managing a school, and that it 
affords a much greater security to the country than the best provincial 
governments can do, — that what is found to work best shall be speedily 
introduced throughout the country, and that education shall be univer- 
sally spread, instead of being greatly developed in one part of the country, 
and altogether neglected in another. 

Each canton in Switzerland is divided into a certain number of com- 
munes or parishes, and each of these communes is required by law to fur- 
nish sufficient school-room for the education of its children, and to provide 
a certain salary, the minimum of which is fixed by the cantonal govern-^ 
nient. and a house for each master it receives from the Normal school of 
the canton. These communal schools are, in the majority of cases, con- 
ducted by masters chosen from the most numerous religious sect in the 
commune, unless there are sufficient numbers of the different religious 
bodies to require more than one school, when one school is conducted by 
a master belonging to one sect, and the other by a master chosen from a 
different sect. The children of those parents, who differ in religion Irom 
the master of the school, are permitted to absent themselves from the doc- 
trinal lessons, and are required to obtain instruction, in the religious doc- 
trines of their own creed, from clergy of their own persuasion. 

The inspection of the cantonal schools is conducted in the most satis- 
factory manner. Each canton has a board of inspectors, or council-gen- 
eral of in.struction, which is presided over by the Minister of Public In- 
struction for the canton, and whose duty it is, to visit all the schools of the 
canton, once at least in the year, and to report on them individually to 
the government of the canton, as to the state of the schools themselves. 
as to the progress of the pupils, as to the character of the instruction given 
by the master, and as to the attendance of the children of the commune. 

But besides the cantonal board of inspectors, there is also in each com- 
mune a board of inspectors, who are elected annually from among the 
clergy and educated men of the commune, and who visit the communal 
schools at least once each year, and report to the Minister of Public In- 
struction for the canton, on the individual progress of the children in tiie 
communal schools. The head inspector of the canton of Solleure showed 
me samples of the handwriting, composition, accounts, &c., of all the chil- 
dren in the canton. By these means each schoolmaster is encouraged in 
his exertions, as he feels that the eyes of his canton are upon him, and that 
he is regarded as a most important public functionary, to whom is com- 
mitted a great and momentous trust, for the proper discharge of which it 
is but right his canton should receive constant assurance. 

By these means the different communes or parishes are immediately 
interested in the progress of their schools, whilst the government is iasured 
against the possibility of a school being wholly neglected, as every school 
is sure of receiving one or two visits from the government inspectors, even 
if the parochial authorities should wholly neglect them, or should not pay 
them sulficient attention. 

This is the true theory of a system of inspection. There ought always 
to be a system of local inspection, because local authorities are able, when 
active, to discover better than any stranger can possibly do, the peculiar 
wants and requirements of their localities, as well as the real character 
of their teachers, and because a sy.stem of local inspection provides a con- 
tinual check upon the schoolmaster ; but as persons, who have other and 
pressing duties upon their hands, and who are deeply engaged in busi- 
ness or in agricultural pursuits, are very likely to neglect at times, and 
often altogether, the important duty of attending to the schools of their 
neighboi"lu)oJ, and as schools, whicli receive no ourvcillanL^e from persons 



348 NORMAL SCHOOLS IN SWITZERLAND. 

qualified to judge of their particular merits or demerits, are always sure 
to degenerate, and are liable to become seriously demoralized ; and as, 
moreover, it is deeply important that every government, for the sake of 
social order and also for the sake of the happiness and morality of its sub- 
jects, should have every security that the people are really educated and 
not demoralized by a sinful sham of education, it is necessary that in 
every well-governed state, where the government takes any interest in 
the improvement of the people, there should be a central inspection of all 
the schools of the country, which should be supported and directed by 
the government. If government has not the power of examining every 
school, it can have no security that the children are not being absolutely 
demoralized, and that the seeds of future rebellion and sedition are not 
being sown in the village schools. In many of the neglected schools of 
England and Wales at the present day, this is actually the case, and just 
because the schoolmasters, in many instances, are never visited and 
watched by any person capable of judging of the moral condition of their 
schools. 

The development of the people's education in Switzerland and France 
is of far too recent a date to allow me to speak of its results. It is not in 
thirteen years that the habits, opinions, taste, and manner? of a people can 
be changed. A change in a nation's character is not wrought in one 
generation; so that nothing can be more unfair than the language held 
by many persons on this subject. If any thing is said of French and Swiss 
education, the answer is, ' Look at its results.' 'The people of these two 
countries are the most disaffected and turbulent in Europe.' I repeat, 
that nothing can be more unfair than this reasoning. The real develop- 
ment of education dates in both countries from 1833, so that but few of the 
age of thirty in either country can have reaped any advantage from it, 
and of those below thirty, many can not have been able to attend any good 
school for more than two or three years, and many others not at all, whilst 
of those young men, who have enjoyed the advantages of attending a 
school directed by an able and efficient master, many must have received 
as much harm from the evil influence of demoralizing homes, as they hive 
reaped benefit from the ennobling effect of the lessons and examples given 
them by a Christian and noble-minded schoolmaster. It is only when the 
corrupting influences of the old. ignorant, and demoralized generations 
have passed away, when the parents themselves have begun to estimate 
the advantages to be reaped from education, when the lessons of the 
teachers are backed by the lessons and examples of the parents, that the 
effects of education will begin to be apparent. This requires more than 
one generation, and much more than thirteen years ; and it is this very 
slowness in the working of an educational system, however perfect, which 
renders me the more anxious that we should speedily prepare for the 
coming future. • 

Such is a short outline of the general character of the educational sys- 
tems of Switzerland. 

At the present time it may be truly said, that in nearly the whole of 
Switzerland, every boy and girl below the age of seventeen years, can 
read and write. The education of the girls is perhaps in a more satisfac- 
tory condition in the Catholic cantons than in the Protestant. It is confi- 
ded to the special care of the nuns, and I can bear testimony to the gentle, 
patient, and religious spirit in which these excellent women aflectionately 
tend the progress of the young girls. The self-denying life which the 
Catholic nuns lead, and the excellent education they receive in the nun- 
neries, admirably suit them for the important duties confided to their 
charge in these cantons. After examining the schools conducted by some 
of the sisters in Fribourg, the abbess of the nunnery, to which the nuns 
who had the direction of the female schools belonored. allowed me, in com- 



NORMAL SCHOOLS IN SWITZERLAND. ^AQ 

pany with a very intelligent priest, with whom I had been spending some 
days, to visit the nunnery. We went over it in company with one of the 
sisters. When I entered, I found myself in the presenceof about twenty 
of the nuns, who, under the direction of a very venerable old abbess of 
about eighty years of age, were seated in the entrance-hall, engaged in 
making clothes for the poor. 

The apartments of the sisters were of the plainest possible description. 
They were in beautiful order, and perfectly clean ; but furnished very 
meagerly, and literally destitute of every thing that was not absolutely 
necessary. The sisters have no servants and no assistants. They pre- 
pare their own food, clean their own chambers, take charge by turns of 
the dining-room, hall, and room of the abbess, and, in fact, perform by 
turns all the humblest duties of domestic servants. They, at the same 
time, give a very excellent education to the young persons destined to 
take the veil, comprising reading, writing, arithmetic, history, geography, 
grammar, and singing. The novitiates are, therefore, in every way ad- 
mirably prepared for the duties of instruction, which they undertake after 
having taken the veil, whilst the humble life to which they are accus- 
tomed during the years of their novitiate, and during the rest of their 
lives, in turn with the other sisters, makes them admirably well qualified 
for intercourse with the poor, and renders them patient, gentle, and perse- 
vering in their eflforts in the schools. They certainly are living examples 
of the class of teachers a good training is capable of producing. 

The condition of the peasantry in the Protestant cantons of Berne, Ar- 
govia, Vaud, Thurgovia, Neucliatel, Geneva, Basle, and SchafThouse, and 
in the Catholic cantons of SoUeure and Lucerne, is a very happy one. 
No beggars are to be seen in these cantons, and what is still more surpris- 
ing, no signs of pauperism. Their dress, though homely, is always good, 
free from patches, and clean. Their cottages, though, from the smoked 
appearance of the timber, at first sight giving an idea of great poverty, 
are nevertheless very commodious, substantially built, and comfortably 
furnished, and what is more, they are their own. They are generally 
surrounded by their little gardens, and almost always stand on plots of 
land which belong to and are cultivated by the tenants, and no one, who 
has seen the garden-like appearance of the cantons of Berne, Vaud, Sol- 
leure, Argovia, Thurgovia, and Zurich, will doubt again the high state of 
cultivation which may be attained by small farmers, proprietors of their 
own farms. The Swiss proprietor, himself a farmer, is interested in the 
state of his little property, and he is not a man to reject the aid of science, 
or to shut his ears to advice, or his eyes to observation. Their small 
farmhouses are the pictures of neatness, and their little estates are tended 
with the care an Englishman bestows upon his flower-garden. By far 
the greater part of the population are themselves proprietors, and the 
lands are so subdivided, as to bring them within the reach of the poorest 
laborer. This acts as the happiest preventive check on early and improv- 
ident marriages, and as the strongest possible incentive to providence* 
and self-denial. Owing to this cause, the earhest age at which a young 
man thinks of marrying in several cantons is twenty-five, as he spends the 
first part of his life, after he has begun to earn any wages, in laying by 
some little capital toward the purchase of a house and piece of land. 
When he can offer a certain share of the purchase-money, he pays it over 
to the vendor and enters into possession, clearing the rest of his debt by 
yearly payments. It is only after he has thus attained the great object 
of his wishes that he marries. Many even of the laborers in tlie towns 
own or rent their little properties outside. The happy eftects of this 
system are manifest not only in the excellent check it affords to impru- 
dently early marriages and in the happy stimulant to prudence and sobri- 



350 NORMAL SCHOOLS IN SWITZERLAND. 

ety, but also and more particularly in the interest it gives the country 
peasants in the maintenance of social order. 

The Swiss have so clearly understood that the real cause of pauperism 
is want of prudence and foresight among the poor, that the people them- 
selves, in three of the most democratic of the cantons, have not only re- 
solved, that all children should be forced to attend school for a certain 
number of years, and that the descent of lands should be so arranged, as 
to insure a great subdivision and make the separate estates small and 
numerous ; and have not cnly created, by these means, strong incentives 
to prudence among the poor, by elevating their tastes, by teaching them 
the great benefits to be derived from temporary self-denial, and by hold- 
ing out to the saving and self-denying laborer the prospect of becoming a 
proprietor; but they have also enacted laws, which prohibit any man 
marrying, until he prove to the state that he is able to support his wife. 
It must be remembered, that these laws are put in force by the people 
themselves. So clearly is it understood in Switzerland that the true 
cause of pauperism in a well-governed state can only be ignorance, and 
improvidence resulting from ignorance, or some misfortune which could 
not have been foreseen ; and that it is only the pauperism resulting from 
this latter cause for which a well-organized community ought to be called 
upon to provide." 



EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENT 



MR. DE FELLENBERG, AT HOFWYL. 



The great educational establishment of Mr. de Fellenberg at Hofwyl, 
in the canton of Berne, has attracted more attention, and exerted a wider 
influence, than any one institution in Europe or America, during the pres- 
ent century. It originated in motives of patriotism and benevolence, 
about the year 1805, and was sustained for forty years by personal efforts 
and pecuniary sacrifices on the part of its founder, which have never been 
equalled among men of his wealth, and social position. Born to every 
advantage of education which wealth and rank could secure, advanced 
early to positions of trust and influence in public life, enjoying extensive 
opportunities of observation by travel in the most refined nations, thrown 
by the political convulsions of his country and of Europe, from 1790 to 
1805, much among the people and their rulers, Fellenberg became con- 
vinced that improvement in early education was the only resource for the 
permanent strength and elevation of the state of his own and other coun- 
tries. To this object, at the age of thirty-one. he consecrated himself 
and his fortune. Being possessed of ample means, he resolved to form 
on his own estate, and on an independent basis, a model institution, in 
which it should be proved Avhat education could accomplish for the bene- 
fit of humanity. Out of this determination arose the Institution at 
Hofwyl. 

He commenced with two or three boys from abroad, with his own chil- 
dren, in his own house ; and from time to time received others, but never 
more than two or three new pupils at once, that they might fall insensibly 
into the habits of the school, without producing any effect upon its general 
state. In 1807, the first building was erected for the " Literary Institu- 
tion," and the number of pupils increased to eighty, mostly from patrician 
families. During this year he projected an institution for indigent chil- 
dren, and employed Vehrli, the sonof a schoolmaster of Thurgovia, in the 
execution of the plan, after training him in his own family. The farm- 
house of the establishment was assigned for this school, and here Vehrli 
received the pupils taken from among the poorest families in the neigh- 
borhood. He left the table of Mr. de Fellenberg, and shared their straw 
beds and vegetable diet, became their fellow-laborer on the farm, and 
companion in hours of relaxation, as well as their teacher, and thus laid 
the foundation of the " Agricultural Institution," or " Poor School," in 
1808. The principles on which this school was established, were to employ 
agriculture as the means of moral education for the poor, and to make 



352 FELLENBERG'S INSTITUTION AT HOFWYL. 

their labors the means of defraying the expense of their education. In 
this institution, Vehrh attained that practical knowledge of teaching 
which fitted him for his higher work in the Normal School at Kruitz- 
lingen. 

About the same time, a school of " Theoretical and Practical Agricul- 
ture" for all classes, was formed and provided with professors. To this 
school several hundred students resorted annually. In the same year, 
Fellenberg commenced the formation of a Normal School, or seminary 
for teachers, at his own expense, inviting one of the most distinguished 
educators of the day to conduct it. Forty-two teachers, of the canton of 
Berne, came together the first year and received a course of instruction in 
the art of teaching. So great was the zeal inspired by the liberality of 
Fellenberg, and the course of instruction, that the teachers were content 
to prolong their stay beyond their first intention, and to lodge in tents, in 
lack of other accommodations on the premises. Owing to some jealousy 
and low party intrigue, the government of Berne interfered with his plan 
of bringing the teachers of the canton annually together for a similar 
course, and henceforth the benefits were open only to teachers from other 
cantons, and to such as belonged to the School of Agriculture. The 
teachers, after one of these annual courses, presented an address to Fel- 
lenberg, from which the following is an extract. It is addressed to " the 
worthy Father and Friend of the People." 

" When we reflect that without education no true happiness is to be attained, 
and that this can only be secured by means of well-taught and virtuous teach- 
ers ; and when we recollect that you have devoted yourself to the object without 
regard to the sacrifice it may require, — we must rejoice that this age is favored 
with such a friend of his country ; and when we remember the kindness and 
friendship with which we have been treated at HofwyL we are compelled to 
give you our affection as well as our admiration, and which will not diminish 
as long as our hearts shall beat, and our children shall leain to say, ' So lived 
and labored Father Fellenberg.'* We will not enter heie into any particular 
statement of our views concerning the course of instruction we have received, 
which we shall in due time make known to the public : we will only say, for 
your own satisfaction, that this course hks far exceeded our expectations, by its 
complete adaptation to practical life, by the skill and efforts of your assistants, 
and by the moral and religious spirit with which the whole has been animated. 
We have been led to enter with a fervent devotion into a sacred engagement, 
that we will live and labor in our calling in the spirit which you have exhibited, 
and thus prove to you that your noble sacrifices have not been vain. We are 
more deeply penetrated than ever before with a sense of the sacredness of our 
calling. We are resolved to conduct ourselves with prudence and caution, in 
atfection and union, with unyielding and conscientious faithfulness, in the dis- 
charge of our duty, and thus to prove ourselves worthy of your Institution." 

In continuation of our brief sketch of Fellenberg's establishment at 
Hofvvyl, we will add that, from 1810 to 1817, it attracted the attention of 
educators and statesmen in Switzerland and all parts of Europe. Pupils 
were sent from Russia, Germany, France and England. Deputations 
from foreign governments visited it, to learn especially the organization 
of the School of Agriculture, and the Poor, or Rural School. In 1815, a 

* This title was habitually given to De Fellenberg by the Swiss teachers and youth who appra- 
tiated his character, or who had experienced his kindness. 



FELLENBERG S INSTITUTION AT HOFWYL. 353 

new building was erected to accommodate the increasing number of the 
Agricultural School, the lower part of which was occupied as a riding- 
school and gymnasium. In 1818 another building became necessary for 
the residence of the professors, and the reception of the friends of the pu- 
pils ; and soon after, a large building, now the principal one of the estab- 
lishment, with its two wings, was erected for the Literary Institution, 
which furnished every accommodation that could be desired for health or 
improvement. In 1823 another building was erected, in the garden of 
the mansion, for a school of poor girls, which was placed under the direc- 
tion of the oldest daughter of Fellenberg; and in 1827 the Intermediate 
or Practical Institution was established. It is much to be desired that 
this example of slow and cautious progress might be imitated by those 
who are establishing institutions in our own country, in place of collecting 
at once a large mass of discordant materials, without any preparation 
which can render them a solid basis for a well-proportioned or permanent 
moral edifice. 

The Practical Institution, or " Real School." was designed for the chil- 
dren of the middle classes of Switzerland, and not solely for the same 
class in the canton of Berne, aiming thereby to assimilate the youth of 
the whole country into common feelings and principles of patriotism, by 
being educated together, and on one system. The course of instruction 
included all the branches which were deemed important in the education 
of youth not intended for the professions of law, medicine and theology. 
The pupils belonged to families of men of business, mechanics, profes- 
sional men, and persons in public employment, whose means did not allow 
them to furnish their children an education of accomplishments, and who 
did not wish to have them estranged from the simplicity of the paternal 
mansion. In view of these circumstances, the buildings, the furniture, the 
table, and the dress of the pupils, were arranged in correspondence to the 
habits in these respects of their families at home. In addition to an 
ordinary scholastic course, the pupils were all employed two hours in man- 
ual-labor on the farm, in a garden plot of their own, in the mechanic's 
shop, and in household offices, such as taking care of rooms, books, and 
tools. 

More than one hundred reports, many of them quite voluminous, have 
been published in this country and in Europe, respecting the whole, or 
portions of Fellenberg's Establishments at Hofwyl. The most particular 
account, and that in which the spirit of the institutions was considered by 
their founder to be best exhibited, was given in a series of Letters from 
Hofwyl. by William C. Woodbridge, in the Annals of Education, pub- 
lished in Boston. These letters were republished in London, in 1842, as 
an Appendix to '• Letters from Hofwyl, by a Parent, on the Educational 
Institutions of De Fellenberg," pp. 372. The preceding sketch of these 
institutions, and the outline of the Normal Course which follows, have befen 
drawn from this volume. The following summary of the Principles of 
Education, as developed in the experience of Fellenberg, is gathered also 

23 



354 



FELLENBERG'S INSTITUTION AT HOFWYL. 



from this work, and from a letter of his directed to Lady Byron, who has 

established and supports a School of Industry at Earling, after the model 

of the Rural School at Hofwyl. 

" The great object of education is to develop all the faculties of our nature, 
physical, intellectual, and moral, and to endeavor to train and unite them into 
one harmonious system, which shall form the most perfect character of which 
the individual is susceptible; and thus prepare him for every period, and every 
sphere of action to which he may be called. It is only by means of the har- 
monious development of every faculty of our nature, in one connected system, 
that we can hope to see complete men issue from our institutions — men who 
may become the saviors of iheir country, and the benefactors of mankind. To 
form such characters is more important than to produce mere scholars, howev- 
er distinguished, and this is the object on which the eye of the educator should 
be fixed, and to which every part of his instruction and discipline should be 
directed, if he means to fill the exalted office of 'being a fellow-worker with 
God.' " 

"On the reception of a new pupil, our first object is to obtain an accurate 
knowledge of his individual character, with all its resources and defects, in order to 
aid in its farther development, according to the apparent intention of the Creator. 
To this end, the individual, independent activity of the pupil is of much greater im- 
portance than the ordinary, busy officiousness of many who assume the office of ed- 
ucators and teachers. They too often render the child a mere magazine of knowl- 
edge, collected by means purely mechanical, which furnishes him neither direction 
nor aid in the business of life. The more ill-digested knowledge a man thus col- 
lects, the more oppressive will be the burden to its possessor, aud the more painful 
his helplessness. Instead of pursuing this course, we endeavor, by bestowing the 
utmost care upon the cultivation of the conscience, the understanding, and the judg- 
ment, to light up a torch in the mind of every pupil, which shall enable him to ob- 
serve his own character, and shall set in the clearest light all the exterior objects 
which claim his attention. 

A great variety of exercises of the body and the senses are employed to prepare 
our pupils for the fulfilment of their destination. It is by means of such exercises 
that every man should acquire a knowledge of liis physical strength, and attain con- 
fidence with regard to those efforts of which he is capable, instead of that fool-hardi- 
ness which endangers the existence of many who have not learned to estimate their 
own powers correctly. 

Ali the various relations of space should be presented to the eye, to be observed 
and combined in the manner best adapted to form the coup d'oeil. Instruction in 
design renders us important service in this respect — every one should thus attain the 
power of reproducing the forms he has observed, and of delineating them with 
facility, and should learn to discover the beauty of forms, and to distinguish them 
from their contrasts. It is only where the talent is remarkable that the attempt 
should be made to render the pupil an artist. 

The cultivation of the ear by means of vocal and instrumental music is not less 
important to complete the development of the human being. The organs of speech, 
the memory, the understanding, and the taste, should be formed in the same man- 
ner by instruction, and a great variety of exercises in language, vocal music, and 
declamation. The same means should also be employed to cultivate and confirm 
devotional feelings. 

In the study of natural history the power of observation is developed in reference 
to natural objects. In the history of mankind the same faculty is employed uuon 
the phenomena of human nature and human relations, and the moral taste is culti- 
vated, at the same time the faculty of conceiving with correctness, and of employing 
and combining with readiness, the materials collected by the mind, and especially 
the reasoning faculty, should be brought into exercise, by means of forms and num- 
bers, exhibited in their multiplied and varied relations. 

The social life of our pupils contributes materially to the formation of their moral 
character. The principles developed in their experience of practical life among 
themselves, wliich gi-adually extends with their age and the progress of their minds, 
serves as the basis of this branch of education. It presents the examples and occa- 



FELLENBERG S INSTITUTION AT HOFWYI, 



355 



sions necessary for exhibiting and illustrating the great principles of morals. Ac- 
cording to the example of Divine Providence, we watch over this little world in 
which oiii: pupils live and act, with an ever vigilant, but often invisible care, aad 
constantly endeavor to render it more pure and noble. 

At the same time that the various improvements of science and art are applied to 
the benefit of our pupils, their sound religious education should be continually kept 
in view in every branch of study ; this is also the object of a distinct series of les- 
sons, which generally continue through the whole course of instruction, and whose 
influence is aided by the requisite exercises of devotion. 

By the combination of means I have described, we succeed in directing our pupils 
to the best methods of pursuing their studies independently ; we occupy their atten- 
tion, according to their individual necessities and capacities, with philology, the an- 
cient and modern languages, the mathematics, and their various modes of apphca- 
tion, and a course of historical studies, comprising geography, statistics, and political 
economy. 

Moral Education. ^-The example of the instructor is all important in moral 
education. The books which are put into the pupils' hands are of great influence. 
The pupil must be constantly suiTOunded with stimulants to good actions in order to 
form his habits. A new institution should be begun with so small a number of 
pupils, that no one of them can escape the observation of the educator and his moral 
influence. The general opinion of the pupils is of high importance, and hence 
should be carefully directed. Intimate intercourse between pupils and their edu- 
cators begets confidence, and is the strongest means of moral education. The edu- 
cator must be able to command liimself — his conduct must be firm and j ust ; fre- 
quent reproofs from such are more painful to the pupil than punishinent of a 
momentary sort. 

^Tiile influences tending directly to lead the pupil astray should be removed from 
the sebool, he must be left to the action of the ordinary circumstances of life, that 
his character may be developed accordingly. The pupil should be led as far as pos- 
sible to correct his faults by perceiving the consequences of them ; the good or bad 
opinion of his preceptor and comrades are important means of stimulation. Exclu- 
sion from amusements, public notice of faults, and corporal punishment, are all ad- 
missible. Solitary confinement is efficacious as a punishment. Rewards and 
emulation are unnecessary as motives. 

Religion and morality are too intimately connected to admit of separation in the 
courses inculcating them. The elementary part of such a course is equally applica- 
ble to all sects. 

No good is to be derived from employing the pupils as judges or juries, or giving 
them a direct share in awarding punishment for ofienses. It is apt to elevate the 
youth too much in his own conceit. 

Family life is better adapted, than any artificial state of society within an institu- 
tion, to develop the moral sentiments and feelings of youth. 

Intellectual Education. — A system of prizes, or emulation, and the fear of pun- 
ishment, do not afford the strongest motives to intellectual exertion. Experience 
shows that places in a class may be dispensed with. It is possible to develop a taste 
for knowledge, a respect and attachment for teachers, and a sense of duty which 
will take the place of any lower motive in inducing the requisite amount of study. 

In the higher departments of instruction it is better to confine the task of the 
teacher to giving instruction merely, placing the pupil under the charge of a special 
educator, at times when he is not engaged in the class-room. 

With the other, and more useful branches of instruction, correct ideas of natural 
history and phenomena should be communicated to children, and require, first, that 
they shall be duly trained to observation by calling the observing faculties into fre- 
quent exercise. Second, that they shall be made acquainted with the elements of 
natural history, especially in reference to familiar objects. Third, tliat the most fa- 
miliar phenomena of nature, such as thunder and lightning, the rail bow, &c. ; and 
further, the most simple principles of the mechanic arts, trades, &c., should be ex- 
plained to them. Fourth, they should be taught to draw, in connection with the 
other instruction. Accuracy of conception is favored by drawing, and it is a power- 
ful aid to the memory. The most important principles of physiology, and their ap- 
plication to the preservation of health, should form a part of the instruction. 



356 



PELLENBERG'S INSTITUTION AT HOFWYL. 



Physical Education. Pure air, a suitable diet, regular exercise and repose, and 
a proper distribution of time, are the principal means of physical education. It is as 
essential that a pupil leave his studies during the time appropriated to relaxation, as 
that he study during the hours devoted to that purpose. Voluntary exercise is to be 
encouraged by providing suitable games, by affording opportunities for gardening, 
and by excursions, and by bathing. Regular gymnastic exercises should be insisted 
on as the means of developing the body ; a healthy action of the bodily frame has an 
important influence on both mind and morals. Music is to be considered as a branch 
of physical education, having powerful moral influences. The succession of study, 
labor, musical instruction, or play, should be carefuUy attended to. The hours of 
sleep should be regulated by the age of the pupil. 

Experience has taught me that indolence in young persons is so directly opposite 
to their natural disposition to activity, that unless it is the consequence of bad edu- 
cation, it is almost invariably connected with some constitutional defect. 

The great art of education, therefore, consists in knowing how to occupy every 
every moment of life in well-directed and useful activity of the youthful powers, in 
order that, so far as possible, nothing evil may find room to develop itself" 

Mr. de Fellenberg died in 1846, and hie family discontinued the educa- 
tional estabhshments at Hofwyl, in 1848, except "the Poor School," 
which is now placed under a single teacher, and the pupils are employed 
in the extensive operations of the farm to acquire a practical knowledge of 
agriculture. But the principles developed by the distinguished philan- 
thropist and educator, have become embodied in the educational institutions 
of his native country and of Europe, This is particularly true of the great 
aim of all his labors to develop all the faculties of our nature, physical, 
intellectual and moral, and to train and unite them into one harmonious 
system, which shall form the most perfect character of which the individ- 
ual is susceptible, and thus prepare hira for every period, and every 
sphere of action to which he may be called. 



OUTLINE 



OF THE 

NORMAL COURSE OF INSTRUCTION AT HOFWTL. 



The Rural or Agricultural School at Hofwyl was designed to be a 
seminary for teachers, as well as a school for those devoted to labor. 
Both Fellenberg and Vehrli deem it very important for all who are to be 
employed in the instruction of common schools to have a thorough ac- 
quaintance Avith the practical labor of a farm. As an additional provi- 
sion for their support, and as an invigorating exercise, it will be desirable 
for them (as indeed it probably would be for all literary men) to continue 
these labors. But a practical acquaintance with the life and habits of a 
majority of their pupils is the only means of preparing them fully to enter 
into the views and feelings of those under their care, to understand their 
wants and their difficulties, and prepare them for their duties. It also 
furnishes many important illustrations and topics of remark. It enables 
them to give much valuable information of a practical kind in connection 
with the subjects of their studies, and much may be done in this way to 
extend agricultural improvements. It is also an additional means of 
securing the attachment of the teachers to those to whom it is desirable 
their labors should be devoted, and inducing them to continue in this em- 
ployment. So much is this object appreciated in some of the seminaries 
for instructors in Germany, whose plan and location do not admit of a 
farming establishment, that a garden and a nursery of fruit-trees are an- 
nexed to the seminary, and regular instruction is given in connection with 
them. 

The direct preparation of the teachers for their profession consists, — 1. 
In a thorough study of the branches to be taught, which they acquire in 
common with the other pupils, and on the productive plan. 2. In a series 
of lessons designed especially for them, in which Vehrli directs them as to 
the method of communicating instruction. 3. In assuming alternately the 
place of teachers in this class, under the immediate inspection of Vehrli. 

4. In acting alternately as instructor and monitor to the other pupils, and 
superintendents of their conduct, under the general direction of Vehrli. 

5. In the daily advice and direction they receive from him in the discharge 
of these duties. 6. In witnessing his own methods of instruction, as he 
passes from class to class to observe their progress. 7. In the discussions 
connected with a meeting for familiar conversation. 8. Those who are 
qualified for a more extended course of study are permitted to attend the 
lessons of the professors in the Literary Institution ; and some are era- 
ployed in the instruction or superintendence of the younger pupils in that 
school. Indeed, Fellenberg has found that those who were trained in the 

# 



353 NORMAL COrrRSE AT HOFWYL. 

Agricultural Institution were among the most valuable and faithful educa- 
tors he could obtain ; and on this account he deems an establishment of 
this kind an important aid to one of a more scientific or literary character. 
It is with the aid of assistants thus trained that Vehrli has succeeded in 
rendering a school, often composed of the worst materials, a model of order, 
industry, and improvement, which has excited the admiration of all who 
have visited it. 

The following is a sketch of the course of instruction pursued with the 
class of teachers which annually assembled, by invitation and at the ex- 
pense of Fellenberg. at Hofwyl : 

"The first object was to ascertain, by free conversation or examination, 
the intellectual condition of the teachers, and to arrange them in classes, 
and provide means of instruction adapted to their wants : they were con- 
nected in such a manner that the better informed might assist those who 
were less familiar with the subject, and that they might enjoy the advan- 
tages of mutual as well as general instruction. 

The day was opened and closed with religious exercises, in which they 
were led particularly to consider the duties of their office. Eight hours 
were assigned to instruction; the evening was devoted to free conversa- 
tion on the state of the schools and their wants, and the subjects present- 
ed in the day ; and the teachers had the opportunity of asking general 
questions, or presenting topics for discussion. Daily lessons were given 
in language, arithmetic, natural history, and vocal music ; three lessons 
weekly in religion, and the same number in geometry and drawing ; and 
two in geography ; and two in anthropology^ or the description of the 
human body and mind. Two or three hours daily were specially devoted 
to repetitions, or the copying of notes. The mode of instruction was 
adapted to the topic: sometimes it consisted merely in the exhibition of 
the subject, or of the methods of instruction ; but it was accompanied as 
often as possible by questions to the teachers, and by practical illustra- 
tions, either by forming a class among the teachers, or calling in the pu- 
pils of the Agricultural School. The object of this course was to give 
general views of some important topics ; to improve and inform the minds 
of the teachers themselves; and especially to give them a complete view 
of the methods of teaching. We add an account of the principal courses : 

The Maternal Language, or Grammar. — The course of instruction in 
the mother tongue occupied one hour daily of the course, as being the 
basis of instruction in all other branches. Clear and precise ideas of the 
meaning and coimection of words, and of the proper mode of expressing 
our ideas, are not less indispensable to successful study than to the busi- 
ness of life. But the study of language was also presented as an efficient 
means of exciting and developing the powers of the mind ; because it 
should always be connected with the observation of the things to be de- 
scribed, or reflection on the ideas to be expressed. In short, if properly 
taught, every step in this study is a practical exercise in logic. Instruc- 
tion in the mother tongue ought to commence with exercises in speaking, 
the materials for which should be derived from the objects immediately 
surrounding the child, or most familiar to him ; and are always connected 
with the exercise of the senses in distinguishing form, color, size, weight, 
sound, feeling, and taste. It was also urged that the speaking, writing, 
and reading of the native language should go on together, in alternate ex- 
ercises, as a part of one course of instruction; and not divided, as they 
often are. A plan of instruction was described extending through the 
whole period allotted to school education. The subject was divided into 
portions corresjunding to our division of etymology and syntax ; the first 



NORMAL COURSE AT HOFWYL. 359 

involving simply words and their variations, and the second their connec- 
tion in sentences. The teachers were advised to present both in 
such a manner that the pupil could not escape with mere mechanical 
habits ; that he should be compelled to exercise thought and judgment in 
regard to the meaning and variations of individual words and their modes 
of combination. The last was especially recommended as the best means 
of showing the meaning as well as the use of individual words: in short, 
the methods advised and adopted present the most striking contrast with 
the mechanical exercises and the parrot-like acquisitions of pupils in 
grammar in English and American schools. 

The more important principles were dictated and written down by the 
teachers ; and questions were asked and answered in illustration. Writ- 
ten exercises on the various points presented, were also prepared and cor- 
rected, as far as the time would allow. 

Religio lis Instruction. — The course of instruction in religion embraced, 
1. Biblical history of the Old and New Testament; 2. History of the 
Christian religion ; 3. Principles and precepts of Christianity ; 4. A brief 
exposition of the best manner of giving religious or catechetic instruc- 
tion. The design of this course was two-fold : — 

1. To give to the teacher himself clear views of the sacred truths and 
solemn duties of religion; to enlighten his mind ; to strengthen him in the 
resolute, persevering performance of his duties ; to enlarge and ennoble 
his feelings ; and to implant in his heart an unchangeable, cheering hope, 
which should sustain him in the changes and trials incident to his labori- 
ous calling. 

2. To render him an able teacher of religion, so far as it falls within 
the sphere of the common school ; and to prepare him, by precept and 
example, to make his pupils acquainted with the truths of the Bible, and 
the duties it imposes, and to educate them as disciples of Christ. 

Both these objects were kept in view, and each more or less attended 
to, according to the nature of the subject and the knowledge of the au- 
ditors. 

Biblical History. — As the history of the Bible was already familiar to 
the audience, this subject was treated principally in reference to the 
method of teaching. After a general chronological review of tlie princi- 
pal events of the history, and its connection with that of other nations, the 
experienced teacher of a common school to whom this part of the course 
was intrusted, examined the various methods of Biblical instruction 
adopted in the canton of Berne. He warned his hearers against many of 
those methods, some of which reduce this part of instruction to a mechan- 
ical exercise of memory, that destroys its spirit; while others neglect the 
great object, and employ it merely as a means of instruction in language. 
He recommended — 1. That the teacher should relate each portion of the 
history in language as much -biblical and child-like as possible, and call 
upon the cliildren to repeat the narration. 

2. That he should require ihem to select the principal and subordinate 
circumstances, and combine them in their regular order and connection. 

3. That he should lead them to draw the conclusions and make the re- 
flections which the history may sugarest, under his direction and with his 
assistance ; but that he should carefully guard against the error of at- 
tempting to derive too many lessons of a different nature from a single 
history, for this only enfeebles the influence of the great principle involved, 
and distracts the mind and the feelings with too great a variety of sub 
jects. In order to illustrate more completely the methods proposed, a 
class of children from the Agricultural School was generally brought in, 
and exercised in the manner proposed. 

History of the Christian Religion. — The great objects of this course 
were, to awaken a deeper and more general interest in the Christian reli- 



ggO NORMAL COURSE AT IIOFWYL. 

gion, and to strengthen their faith in its irresistible power, by showing 
them how light and truth have ever gained the victory amidst all the op- 
pression and persecution they have endured. 

The progress of light was traced ; the earnest and useless groping after 
truth described, which preceded the coming of the Saviour, and was only 
satisfied by his instructions. The political and civil condition of the world 
at the Christian era, and the influence which Christianity has had in 
changing or modifying it, by the mutual and undistinguishing benevo- 
lence it requires between individuals and nations, and the equal rights 
which it thus establishes, was made the subject of particular attention. 
But the attention of the pupils was principally directed to the internal 
condition of the Christian church in the first three centuries, while it re- 
mained comparatively pure : they were pointed to the influence of Chris- 
tian feelings and a Cluistian life in the family, the community, and the 
state ; to the invincible power of that faith, and that love to the Saviour 
and to one another, which triumphed over ridicule and suflfering, and mar- 
tyrdom itself in its most horrid forms. The errors in principle and prac- 
tice of this early period were also exhibited, with their sad consequences ; 
and the eflTects of the various extremes to which they led — of slavish for- 
mality or lawless licentiousness ; of intolerance and of hypocrisy ; of su- 
perstition and fanaticism ; of ecclesiastical despotism, and of anarchy — 
were presented in such a light as to point out the dangers to which we 
are still exposed. The time did not allow the extension of the course to 
later periods of history. 

Principles and Precepts of Christianity. — The religious instructor ob- 
serves, tiiat he endeavored to present this part of his subject in its biblical 
form, and to show his pupils the inexhaustible richness of Divine wisdom 
exhibited in the Scriptures, to which reason, when duly enlightened as to 
its proper sphere, will come as a pupil, and not as a teacher. This reve- 
lation, he remarked, made in the language of men, should be the rule by 
which the exhibitions of the Deity, in nature, and providence, and the 
mind of man, must be judged. On the other hand, he presented the lead- 
ing doctrines contained in the formularies ot" the Swiss churches, but still 
as subordinate to the biblical exhibition of truth with which the teacher 
in Switzerland is chiefly concerned. The first subjects of instruction 
were the general nature of religion, the peculiar character of Christianity, 
and its adaptation to the nature of man, the admirable form in which it is 
presented, and the importance of taking the Savior as a model for the 
methods of religious instruction. The Scriptures were next exaniined as 
the sources of religious truth, and the principal contents of the various 
books described, with the leading evidences of its historical authority, of 
its inspiration, and of the credibility of the principles it contains. The 
leading doctrines maintained in the national church Avere then presented, 
each accompanied with the evidence and illustrations afforded by the 
Scriptures, and followed by an exhibition of the duties involved in it, or 
founded upon it. At the same time, illustrations were derived from na- 
ture and from the human heart; and directions were given as to the best 
mode of teaching these truths to the young. 

Methods of Religiotis Instruction. — The method of giving religious in- 
struction was also taken up in a special manner, at the conclusion of the 
course: the first object was to point out the manner and order in which 
the various principles and precepts of religion should be presented to the 
young in correspondence with the development of their faculties; and the 
importance of preparing their minds to receive the truths, by making them 
familiar with the language, and the objects of intellect and feeling in 
general, instead of calling upon them to pass at once from the observa- 
tion and the language of the material world, to the elevated truths of re- 
ligion expressed in terms entirely new, and which leave so many minds 



NORMAL COURSE AT HOFWYL. ggj 

in hopeless confusion, if not in absolute ignorance of their real natiire. 
Tile distinction of essential and non-essential doctrines was adverted to, 
and general directions given as to the methods of narrating and exam- 
ining. 

Anthropology, or the Study of Man. — This course was intended to give 
a general idea of the nature of man, and especially of the construction of 
our bodies, with a view to illustrate at once their wonderful mechanism, 
and to direct to the proper mode of employing and treating their various 
organs. The teacher adopted as his leading principles, to exclude as 
much as possible all that has not practical importance, and to employ the 
most simple terms and illustrations which could be chosen. The first 
great division of the course was devoted to the structure of the human 
body: it was opened with a brief introduction to natural history, and a 
comparative view of vegetables and animals, and man, and of the several 
races of men. The elementary materials of the human frame were then 
described, and the great and wonderful changes they undergo in receiving 
the principle of life, and becoming a part of man. ' 

The various systems of the human body, the bones, muscles, vessels, 
organs, and nerves were next described, and illustrated by a human skel- 
eton and by preparations of animals : the offices of each part were de- 
scribed in connection with its form and situation ; thus uniting anatomy 
and physiology. At the same time, reference was made to the mode of 
employing tiiem ; the common accidents to which they were liable, as 
dislocations, fractures, &c., and the mode of guarding against them. 
The second portion of the course was devoted to the subject of Hygiene, 
or Dietetics; the proper mode of employing and treating the various 
organs, in order to preserve health and strength. It was opened with 
some views of the nature and value of health, and the causes whicii most 
frequently undermine it. The first object of attention was the organs o( 
reproduction, their important destination, their delicate nature, and the 
evil consequence of loo early excitement or abuse on the rest of the sys- 
tem; with the indications of abuse, and the methods of restoration. The 
nervous system, in its connection with the subject, led to the consideration 
of spiritual life, and its connection with the body, through the medium of 
the nerves. The various passions and atfections were particularly de- 
scribed, with their influence upon the health ; and the rules of education 
derived ti-om this topic. Sleeping and waking were then treated as phe- 
nomena of the nervous system ; and the distinction to be observed be- 
tween children and adults on this subject was pointed out. The import- 
ance of attending to the structure and use of the bed-room and the bed, 
and even the position in sleep, was also adverted to. 

The organs of sense, especially the eye and the ear, were minutely de- 
scribed, with the diseases to which they are liable from improper use or 
neglect, or from causes injurious to the brain and nervous system in gen- 
eral. The importance of the skin and its functions, and of maintaining 
its cleanliness by frequent changes of clothing and bathing; the necessity 
and methods of useful exercise ; the precautions which ought to be em- 
ployed to secure the purity of the air, especially in schools, and to guard 
against diseases of the organs of respiration, were the subjects of partic- 
ular instruction. The formation and uses of the blood, the influence of 
food, and the circumstances in its condition or preparation which render it 
injuriou.s. the evil eflects of alcoholic drinks, and the most obvious causes 
of injury to the digestive organs, or of interruption in their functions, were 
afterward discussed in a practical manner. The course was closed with 
simple directions as to the treatment of injuries produced by sudden acci- 
dents, falls, wounds, drowning, fi"eezing, fits, &c., during the time which 
must elapse before medical aid can be procured, or when it is not within 
reach — a species of knowledge tor want of which many a life has doubt- 



3(52 NORMAL COURSE AT HOFWYL, 

less been lost, and which is peculiarly important to one who is entrusted 
with the care of a large number of young persons. Indeed, what more 
valuable gift could be made to a collection of American teachers than 
such a course of instruction ; a course which every well-informed physi- 
cian is capable of giving? 

Geography.— The course of instruction in geography was designed to 
point out the best methods of teaching facts already familiar to the audi- 
ence. Two principles were laid down as fundamental : — 1. To commence 
with giving the pupil distinct ideas of hill, valley, plain, stream, and lake 
in his own circle, and the characteristics of his own neighborhood ; and 
thus to become familiar with the elements, and to proceed from particu- 
lar to general views. 2. That the geography of their native country 
should be made familiar to the pupils of the common school, before they 
are confused or attracted by the peculiarities and wonders of foreign coun- 
tries, A course of instrucfion was described for the canton of Berne in 
conformity with these principles, and the necessarj"^ references given to 
the authorities from which the teacher should derive his information. As 
a part of the course, each teacher was required to write an account of the 
place of his residence ; and was taught how he should direct his pupils in 
the observations and inquiries necessary for this purpose, and fitted to 
develop the habits of quick and accurate perception and patient research. 

History of Sicitzerland. — It was assumed as a principle, that history 
should not be taught as awliole in common schools ; because young minds 
are incapable of understanding the causes and connection of events which 
involve the ideas, and plans, and motives of warriors and statesmen. On 
the other hand it was deemed of great importance to present the leading 
events of history to the young, in order to impress the moral lessons which 
they furnish, and especially those which belong to their own country. 
To the teachers, however, it was considered necessary to give a complete 
view of the history of Switzerland, in order to enable them to select and 
explain better its individual portions. It was accordingly narrated, so far 
as the time would admit, in several great divisions: the primitive period, 
the Roman period, and the period of transition, introduced the Swiss 
confederation ; the heroic or warlike period, the period of political decUne, 
and the period of revolution, (since 1798.) embraced the history of the 
confederation. This view of the course will be sufficient to show the 
general principles on which the method of instruction in this subject is 
founded. , 

Agriculture. — A course of lectures on agriculture was given to the as- 
sembled teachers by Fellenberg himself The audience were reminded 
of that wise Omnipotence which presides over the circle of human activi- 
ty, and of the manner in which it operates incessantly to prepare man for 
his higher destination, by rendering all his efforts dependent on this pa- 
rental guidance for their success; and by leading him through all the 
variety of events in the material world, to that higher moral existence tor 
which we are made. The lecturer pointed out the wisdom of this ar- 
rangement, and the defects which would exist in our education, as men, 
witliout these external means. He stated that he had assumed it as a 
part of his task to illustrate, by the evidence of facts, in a rational system 
of agriculture, that man is called upon to become like God— in governing 
himself, and in controlling the material world, liir the good of his fellow- 
men ; and that he observed constantly more and more the powerful influ- 
ence of well-conducted plans of agriculture exerted in counteracting the 
spirit of indolence and ^labits of idleness. The first subject illustrated, 
was the power which a knowledge of the great principles of agriculture 
confers over the operations of nature, by giving a suitable direction to the 
cares and labors of its possessor ; and the wretciied slavery of the ignorant 
to the mere chanjies o\' matter, and to those effects of the elements which 



NORMAL COUKSE AT llOFWYL. 353 

the Creator gives us the capacity in some measure to employ for our own 
benefit. He next considered the best mode of rendering agriculture a 
means of exciting mental activity in the children and parents of a village, 
and of forming their character. Many sources of poverty and suffering 
in Switzerland were pointed out, which arose from the neglect of this 
subject, and the intimate connection between the improvement of agri- 
culture, and the increase of intelligence and comfort of those who are en- 
gaged in it. with the prosperity and the free institutions of the country. 
Various leading principles of agriculture were then taken up ; such as 
the removal of all the obstacles to vegetation — stones, weeds, excessive 
water, &c. ; the rational preparation and use of manure ; the proper form 
and employment of the plough ; and the succession of crops. The influ- 
ence of these principles, and of the knowledge of the elements that com- 
pose the materials employed in cultivating the earth, on the products and 
the facility of labor, were clearly exhibited, and were illustrated by a ref- 
erence to the improved fields and increased products of Hofwyl. In 
short, the great object of this course was, not to teach the science, but to 
give such general views as should lead the teachers to appreciate and in- 
culcate its importance, to observe and reflect on the prevailing evils and 
their remedies, and to excite their pupils to observation, as a means of 
rendering their very labors a source of intellectual and moral improvement. 

A brief course ot' instruction was also given by Fellenberg, on the con- 
stitution of the canton, and the rights and duties of citizens. It would, 
of course, be out of place to enter into the details of the Berne constitu- 
tion; but we can not give a correct view of the spirit of this course of in- 
struction without describing the peculiar manner in which he introduced it. 

He observed that the merely material interest of civil and political hfe 
forms a foundation too sandy and unstable for the life of the family or the 
state. A constitution truly free, and fitted to promote the higher moral 
ends of our existence, can find no firmer basis, no more noble and appro- 
priate means, no higher ends, than in the message of ' peace on earth, and 
good will to men,' which was brought by our Savior. No book of free- 
dom can better satisfy its true friends than the Bible, with its evangelical 
complement, if its instructions and its objects are rightly understood. 
Since I have sought here the sources and objects of a constitution. I have 
felt a higher value than ever for the Scriptures. The constitution pre- 
sents the good of all as the great object; and this is the end of the Divine 
government. It calls upon each citizen to live and die for others — the 
object of our Savior's instructions and example. The Creator makes 
no distinction in the birth and death of men ; and the constitution only 
follows his example in giving equal rights to all. The Savior teaches 
us to regard our fellow-men as members of the same family ; the consti- 
tution simply enforces and carries out this principle. It acknowledges 
that ' the welfare or misery of a state depends on the moral and intellect- 
ual cultivation of its citizens, and that their sound education is among its 
first duties, and thus admits the great principle of the Gospel in relation 
to the affairs of this world.' Such is the spirit which Fellenberg wishes 
to pervade every course of instruction." 

The success of the Normal course of instruction at Hofwyl, in spite of 
the petty jealousy with which the patriotic and benevolent labors of its 
founder was followed by the government of Berne, led to the establish- 
ment of two Normal Schools in that canton, and of similar institutions in 
most of the cantons of Switzerland. Fellenberg was elected a member 
of the Legislative Assembly, on the adoption of the new constitution, in 
1831. On his motion the following article was introduced into the funda- 
mental law : 



2g4 NORMAL COURSE AT HOFWYL 

" The welfare or woe of every state depends on the moral worth of its 
citizens. Without the cultivation of the mind and heart, true freedom is 
inconceivable, and patriotism is an empty sound. We must labor for our 
moral elevation, for the highest possible cultivation of the powers we have 
received from the Creator, if we would partake of the happiness which a 
free constitution should afford. The zealous promotion of this object is 
recommended by the Constituent Assembly to all future legislators, as 
holding a higher place in importance than all other objects." 

Although the teachers of the canton were prohibited by a vote of the 
Education Department of the canton from attending his Annual Normal 
Course, a society was formed in 1832, with the name of the " Cantonal 
Teachers'' Society of Berne.'''' The following account is given by Mr. 
Woodbridge, in 1834: 

BERNE CANTONAL SOCIETY OF TEACHERS. 

" This society was formed by the teachers assembled for instruction at 
Hofvvyl in the summer of 1832. and consisted of 154 members, with few 
exceptions, teachers of ordinary schools. Fellenberg was chosen presi- 
dent; and Vehrli. the excellent teacher of the farm pupils of Hofwyl, 
vice-president. Its constitution presents, as the great objects of the soci- 
ety, union and co-operation in promoting the education of the people, and 
elevating the character of the schools. The means proposed were, free 
communications between its members, consultations concerning the best 
modes of advancing the cause of schools and improving the condition of 
teachers, and direct efforts to excite the attention of the people to the de- 
fects of present plans and methods of organizing and instructing the com- 
mon schools of the country. 

Among the important topics in the school itself which are proposed by 
the Society of Berne, to be presented in the meetings of its auxiliary so- 
cieties, the first named is a careful inquiry into the condition of the pupils 
of their schools, and the proper means for their moral improvement. For 
this purpose they urge that every effort be made to give the pupils con- 
stant employment, and to guard them against the temptations of idleness; 
to preserve a mild but firm course of discipline ; and to promote fraternal 
affection among them. They urge, that every branch of instruction, from 
the highest to the lowest, be discussed at these meetings; and that there 
should be a steady effort among the teachers to advance in knowledge 
and skill. Would that the last object could be impressed upon the 
minds of the multitude of teachers in our country, who wrap themselves 
up in the consciousness of having attained the ne plus idtra of skill and 
knowledge, or lie down in listless apathy, after their daily task is per- 
formed, with no anxiety but to ' get through' the business of to-morrow 
as early as possible. 

The second meeting of the Berne Society of Teachers was also held at 
Hofwyl. It was opened by an interesting address from the president, full 
of truth and energy, of which we can only give a few opening sentences: — 

' Guardians of the spiritual life, the personal wealth, of the children of 
our people ! we have assembled to ratify our bond. We have pledged 
ourselves that in our schools shall grow up a noble, well-taught genera- 
tion of the people ; true to the principles of the Gospel, devoted to God, 
and faithful to men ; a people whose characters shall not be unworthy of 
the scenes of grandeur and beauty which the Creator has assigned as 
their native land !' 

' In this great object we shall succeed only so far as we follow the Sa- 
vior's example, and imbibe the fullness of his love to man, and trust in 
God, in forming the hearts of those who are committed to us, in extending 
the influence of the school to every household, and in warming the hearts 



NORMAL COURSE AT HOFWYL. 355 

of parents as well as children. God will reward such labors, even if they 
are not rewarded on earth. The God who feeds the ravens and clothes 
the lilies, will never forsake the faithful guardians of /i7s children.' 

Among tlie evils suggested at this meeting of the society, as requiring 
a remedy, were some familiar to our own schools : — the want of faithful 
visitation, for which responsible and paid officers were considered the 
only remedy ; neglect and difficulties in obtaining suitable teachers ; im- 
perfect school-books and means of instruction ; the want of a periodical 
for teachers ; the unhappy difficulties arising from the dependence of the 
teacher on the caprice or convenience of individuals for his scanty pay, 
and claims of parental dictation often founded upon it. 

After the meeting was closed the band of music of the farm pupils of 
Hofwyl called the assembly to a repast prepared for 360 persons by ihe 
liberal founder of Hofwyl. It was opened by him with prayer, acknow- 
ledging the favor of God to their association, and intreating his blessing 
upon their future efforts. A scene of social enjoyment and familiar inter- 
course then followed, suited to cheer the hearts of these fellow-laborers in 
an arduous and too often thankless office. Occasional songs, of that ele- 
vated and heart-stirring character which we have formerly described, 
were sung by the farm pupils, and united in by the chorus of teachers. 
We translate one sentiment given by a teacher, as a specimen of those 
offered on this occasion : 

' There is one means of making the happiness, and the delight, which 
we feel to-day, universal! There is one unfailing means to convert 
ruined families into families of joy — to dry up the sources of poverty and 
misery — and to stem the torrent of overwhelming vice — to secure our 
liberties, and those of our children, against all the power of treachery, — 
in short, to secure the purity and the happiness of the neople. And this 
unfailing means is. Christian kati9Nal education of the people, and 
especially of the poor. To all, then, who understand this mighty cry, and 
put their hands to the holy work, Long life ! Health to all the friends 
and promoters of rational education of the people, and the poor— far and 
near! Long life to them !' 

Such animating sentiments were followed and impressed by some of 
the noble ' mannencheren,' or hymns for male voices, which the Swiss 
music furnishes to cherish social, and benevolent, and patriotic, and devo- 
tional feeling, in place of the bacchanalian and amatory songs which so 
often disgrace our social meetings. 

During the summer of 1833, a course of instruction was given to teach- 
ers, under the immediate direction of Fellenberg. It was closed by an ex- 
amination, at which a considerable number of persons were present ; and 
the Cantonal Society of Teachers held its third meeting immediately 
after. It was attended by 200 teachere and friends of education, or school- 
men, as they are all styled in simple German, many of whom were new 
members. 

Would that we could witness such a movement in any considerable 
portion of our own country. Could we see some individual who had the 
faith to invite, and the influence necessary to collect such a body of teach- 
ers to listen to instruction, and consult for the good of their schools, for 
three months, in any State in the Union, we should expect more benefit 
to the cause of education than from any amount of school funds ; for, im- 
portant as they are, under proper regulation, they can never supply the 
place of an intelligent and well-trained body of teachers. 

Since the above letter was written, State, County and Town Associa- 
tions of Teachers have been formed ; Teachers' Institutes have been 
heldj and Normal courses of instruction and Normal Schools, established. 



NORMAL SCHOOL 

AT 
KRDITZLINGEN IN THE CANTON OF THUKGOVIA. 



The Normal School at Kruitzlingen, in the canton of Thurgovia, is 
under the direction of Vehrli, who for several years had the charge oi 
the school in Fellenberg's establishment at Hofwyl. Under Vehrli's 
management, this Normal School has attracted much attention, not only 
in Switzerland, but in France, Germany, and England. The Training 
School at Battersea, near London, was modeled after this. The follow- 
ing account of a visit to Kruitzlingen is taken from Dr. Kay's " Report an 
the Training School at Battersea,^^ in 1841. 

The normal school at Kruitzlingen is in the summer palace of the former 
abbot of the convent of that name, on the shore of the Lake of Constance, about 
one mile from the gate of the city. The pupils are sent thither from the several 
communes of the canton, t(i be trained three years by Vehrli, before they take 
charge of the communal schools. Their expenses are borne in part by the com- 
mune, and partly by the council of the canton. We found ninety young men, 
apparently from eighteen to twenty-four or twenty-six years of age, in the 
school. Vehrli welcomed us with frankness and simplicity, which at once won 
our confidence. We joined him at his frugal meal. He pointed to the viands, 
which were coarse, and said, — " I am a peasant's son. I wish to be no other 
than I am, the teacher of the sons of the peasantry. You are welcome to my 
meal : it is coarse and homely, but it is offered cordially." 

We sat down with him. " These potatoes," he said, " are our own. We 
won them from the earth, and therefore we need no dainties, for our appetite is 
gained by labor, and the fruit of our toil is always savory." This introduced 
the subject of industry. He told us all the pupils of the normal school labored 
daily some hours in a garden of several acres attached to the house, and that 
they performed all the domestic duty of the household. When we walked out 
with Vehrli, we found them in the garden digging, and carrying on other gar- 
den operations, with great assiduity. Others were sawing wood into logs, and 
chopping it into billets in the court-yard. Some brought in sacks of potatoes 
on their backs, or baskets of recently gathered vegetables. Others labored in 
the domestic duties of the household. 

After a while the bell rang, and immediately their out-door labors terminated, 
and they returned in an orderly manner, with all their implements, to the court- 
yard, where having deposited them, thrown off their frocks, and washed, they 
reassembled in their respective class-rooms. 

We soon Ibllowed them. Here we listened to lessons in mathematics, prov- 
ing that they were well-grounded in the elementary parts of that science. We 
saw them drawing from models with considerable skill and precision, and heard 
them instructed in the laws of perspective. We li.stened to a lecture on the 
code of the canton, and to instruction in the geography of Europe. We were 
informed that their instruction extended to the language of the canton, its con- 
struction and grammar, and especially to the history of Switzerland ; arithpie- 
tic ; mensuration; such a knowledge of natural philosophy and mechanics as 
might enable them to explain the chief phenomena of nature and the mechani- 
cal forces; some acquaintance with astronomy. They had continual lessons 
in pedagogy, or the theory of the art of teaching, which they practiced in the 
neighboring village school. We were assured that their instruction in the Holy 
Scriptures, and other religious knowledge, was a constant subject of solicitude. 

The following extract from Vehrli's address at the first examination of the 
pupils, in 1837, will best explain the spirit that governs the seminary, and the 



3gg NORMAL SCHOOL AT KRUITZLINGEN. 

attention paid there to what we believe has been too often neglected in this 
country — the education of the heart and feelings, as distinct from the cultiva- 
tion of the intellect. It may appear strange to English habits to assign so 
prominent a place in an educational institution to the following points, but the 
indication here given of the superior care bestowed in the formation of the 
character, to what is given to the acquisition of knowledge, forms in our view 
the chief charm and merit in this and several other Swiss seminaries, and is 
what we have labored to impress on the institution we have founded. To those 
who can enter into its spirit, the following extract will not appear tinctured 
with too sanguine views : — 

" The course of life in this seminary is three-fold. 

" 1st. — Life in the home circle, or family life. 

"2nd. — Life in the school-room. 

"3rd. — Life beyond the walls in the cultivation of the soil. 

" I place the family life first, for here the truest education is imparted ; here 
the future teacher can best receive that cultivation of the character and feelings 
which will fit him to direct those, who are entrusted to his care, in the ways of 
piety and truth. 

"A well-arranged family circle is the place where each member, by partici- 
pating in the others' joys and sorrows, pleasures and misfortunes, by teaching, 
advice, consolation, and example, is inspired with sentiments of single-minded- 
ness, of charity, of mutual confidence, of noble thoughts, of high feelings, and 
of virtue. 

" In such a circle can a true religious sense take the firmest and the deepest 
root. Here it is that the principles of Christian feeling can best be laid, where 
opportunity is continually given for the exercise of affection and charity, which 
are the first virtues that should distinguish a teacher's mind. Here it is that 
kindness and earnestness can most surely form the young members to be good 
and intelligent men, and that each is most willing to learn and receive an im- 
press from his fellow. He who is brought up in such a circle, who thus recog- 
nizes all his fellow-men as brothers, serves them with willingness whenever he 
can, treats all his race as one family, loves them, and God their father above 
all, how richly does such a one scatter blessings around! What earnestness 
does he show in all his doings and conduct, what devotion especially does he 
display in the business of a teacher ! How differently from him does that mas- 
ter enter and leave his school, whose feelings are dead to a sense of piety, and 
whose heart never beats in unison with the joys of family life. 

" Where is such a teacher as I have described most pleasantly occupied'? 
In his school amongst his children, with them in the house of God or in the 
family circle, and wherever he can be giving or receiving instruction. A great 
man has expressed, perhaps too strongly, ' I never wish to see a teacher who 
can not sing.' With more reason I would maintain, that a teacher to whom a 
sense of the pleasures of a well-arranged family is wanting, and who fails to 
recognize in it a well-grounded religious influence, should never enter a school- 
room." 

As we returned from the garden with the pupils on the evening of the first 
day, we stood for a few minutes with Vehrli in the court-yard by the shore of 
the lake. The pupils had ascended into the class-rooms, and the evening being 
tranquil and warm, the windows were thrown up, and we shortly afterward 
heard them sing in excellent harmony. As soon as this song had ceased we 
sent a message to request another, with which we had become familiar in our 
visits to the Swiss schools; and thus, in succession, we called for song after 
song of Nageli, imagining that we were only directing them at their usual hour 
of instruction in vocal music. There was a great charm in this simple but 
excellent harmony. When we had listened nearly an hour, Vehrli invited us 
to ascend into the room where the pupils were assembled. We followed him, 
and on entering the apartment, great was our surprise to discover the whole 
school, during the period we had listened, had been cheering with songs their 
evening employment of peeling potatoes, and cutting the stalks from the green 
vegetables and beans which they had gathered in the garden. As we stood 
there they renewed their choruses till prayers were announced. Supper had 
been previously taken. After prayers, Vehrli, walking about the apartment, 
conversed with them fanailiarly on the occurrences of the day, mingling with 



NORMAL SCHOOL AT KRUITZLINGEN. 359 

his conversation such friendly admonition as sprang from the incidents, and 
then lifiins: his hands he recommended them to the protection of heaven, and 
dismissed them to rest. 

We spsni iwo days with great interest in this establishment. Vehrli had 
ever on his lips : — '• We are peasant's sons. We would not be ignorant of our 
duties, but God forbid that knowledge should make us despise the simplicity of 
our lives. The earth is our mother, and we gather our food from her breast, 
but while we peasants labor for our daily food, we may learn many lessons 
from our mother earth. There is no knowledge in books like an immediate 
converse with nature, and those that dig the soil have nearest communion with 
her. Believe me, or believe me not, this is the thought that can make a pea- 
sant's life sweet, and his toil a luxury. I know it, for see my hands are horny 
with toil. The lot of men is very equal, and wisdom consists in the discovery 
of ihe truth that what is wiihnut is not the source of sorrow, but that which is 
within. A peasant may be happier than a prince if his conscience be pure before 
God, and he learn not only contentment, but joy, in the life of labor which is to 
prepare him for the life of heaven." 

This was the theme always on Vehrli's lips. Expressed with more or less 
perspicuity, his main thought seemed to be that poverty, rightly understood, 
was no misfortune. He regarded it as a sphere of human exertion and human 
trial, preparatory to the change of existence, but offering its own sources of en- 
joyment as abundantly as any other. " We are all equal," he said, '■ before 
God; why should the son of a peasant envy a prince, or the lily an oak; are 
they not both God's creatures 1" 

We were greatly charmed in this school by the union of comparatively high 
intellectual attainments among the scholars, with the utmost simplicity of life, 
and cheerfulness in the humblest menial labor. Their food was of the coarsest 
character, consisting chiefly of vegetables, soups, and very brown bread. They 
rose between four and live, took three meals in the day, the last about six, and 
retired to rest at nine. They seemed happy in their lot. 

Some of the other normal schools of Switzerland are remarkable for the same 
simplicity in their domestic arrangements, though the students exceed in their 
intellectual attainments all notions prevalent in England of what should be 
'taught in such schools. Thus in the normal school of the canton of Berne the 
pupils worked in the fields during eight hours of the day, and spent the rest in 
intellectual labor. They were clad in the coarsest dresses of the peasantry, 
wore wooden shoes, and were without stockings. Their intellectual attain- 
ments however, would have enabled them to put to shame the masters of most 
of our best elementary schools. 

Such men, we felt assured, would go forth cheerfully to their humble village 
homes to spread the doctrine which Vehrli taught of peace and conteniment in 
virtuous exertion; and men similarly trained appeared to us best fitted for fhe 
labor of reclaiming the pauper youth of England to the virtues, and restoring 
them to the happiness, of her best instructed peasantry. 

A brother of Dr. Kay, in his '• Education of the Poor in England and 
Europe," thus speaks of Vehrli : ' 

" I saw Vehrli twice. The first time I found him clad in a plain coarse 
tweed vest, at work upon his fields ; and on my second visit, he was busily 
engaged with his boys in repairing the plain wooden furniture of his 
house, and the handles. &c.. of his farming tools. He said to me, ' You 
must not expect to find any grandeur in our iiouse ; my boys are all to be 
engaged among our peasants, and I teach them to sympathize with those 
with whom they must associate hereafter, by accustoming them and my- 
self to simple peasants' lives.' On my first visit I dined with him. The 
viands were of the plainest possible kind, but Vehrli reminded me that 
the laborer's fare was no better, and that therefore the laborer's compan- 
ion and teacher ougiit to be satisfied. The result of this .simple life is, 
that while in other parts of Switzerland, schoolmasters, who have been 
admirably instructed at Normal schools, but who have never had the ad- 
vantage of the excellent discipline of the habits which Vehrli's pupils 

24 



gYQ NORMAL PCHOOLS AT KRUITZMNGEN. 

receive, often become discontented with the drudgery of a schoolmaster's 
life, the young men, who have left Vehrli's school, are found to persevere 
with cheerfulness and Christian enthusiasm in the work of instruction and 
social reformation. 

Throughout Switzerland, Vehrli's school is looked on as the pattern, 
and in all the other Normal Schools they are gradually adopting his views 
relative to the education of the teachers. 

I have thus particularly noticed the necessity of a great simplicity in 
the daily life of a pupil-teacher, as I fear this important part of a school- 
master's training is almost entirely neglected in several of the kw Normal 
schools we at present possess. We seem to imagine that it is a. perfectly 
easy thing I'or a man, who has acquired habits of life fitting him for the 
higher circles of society, to associate with the poor, without any previous 
training. No mistake can be more fatal to the progress of the religious 
education of the poor. An instructed man, accustomed for several years 
to the society of intellectual professors and companions, without having 
any thing to remind him of, still less to habituate him to communication 
with, the humble class among whom he is afterward to live, must feel 
considerable reluctance, il' not decided disgust, when he finds himself 
called on to associate with the simple, rude, and uneducaied poor. To 
enable him to do this, requires as careful a training as to enable him to 
teach ; and although men are found, whose sense of duty and whose 
Christian philanthropy triumph over the defects of their education, yet, in 
the majority of cases, the dissimilarity of tastes between the teacher and 
his associaies, must at least curtail his power of doing good, even if it 
does not uct\ially cause him to neglect altogether the principal of his du- 
ties, from that natural repugnance which he cannot surmount. To teach 
the poor effectively, we must choose the teachers from among themselves; 
and during their education we must continually accustom them to the 
humble character of their former lives, as well as to that of their future, 
associates. The Roman Catholic Church has always clearly understood 
this truth. She has perceived from the first, with that sagacity which 
has marked all her worldly policy, that to obtain men who would really 
understand and sympathize with the poor, and who would feel no disgust 
for the greatest duty ol*a priest's life, the visitation of the meanest hovels, 
she must take hfer teachers from the poor themselves, and keep their minds 
continually habituated to a toilsome and humble life, whilst receiving edu- 
cation fitting them to be the religious teachers of the people. The greater 
part, therelbre, of her priests are chosen from the poorer classes. The 
poor know that these priests can understand their necessities, can sympa- 
thize with their sufferings, and can visit their simple firesides without 
disgust. Whilst, therefore, the Roman Catholic peasant respects his 
priest tor the sacred character of the oifice he fills and for the education 
he has received, there is none of that painful sense of separation between 
them, which exists, where the peasant feels that his religious minister 
belongs to another class and can never perfectly comprehend the situa- 
tion, the wants, and the troubles of the poor. Still less does such a reli- 
gious minister feel any difficulty in his communications with the poor. 
He visits the meanest hovel without disgust, he associates with the 
laborer without any danger of exhibiting an insolent air of worldly supe- 
riority, and knowing what a laborer's feelings are, he communicates with 
him without embarrassment, without reserve, and above all, without 
superciliousness. 

In the Catholic cantons of Switzerland the priest is not only the spirit- 
ual advjser, but he is also the friend and companion of the laborer, and 
that too, naturally, without any difficulty to himself and with infinite ad- 
vantage to the poor. An Englishman would scarcely believe me, were I 



NORMAL SCHOOL AT KRL'ITZI.INGEN. 



371 



to describe how the priests, in the Catholic cantons, may be seen associa- 
ting with the peasants. 

In this country, where the clergyman is so far separated from the poor 
man byliis station in society, his associations, habits, and education, it be- 
comes doubly important that the schoolmaster of the Church should be a 
connecting link between the clergyman and his flock. He ought to be the 
adjutant of the clergyman, capable by his education to be indeed his 
assistant, and strictly united by his habits to the poor, among whom he 
ought with cheerfulness to labor. 

Deeply grieved am I, then, to see that in some of our Normal schools 
we have not only abandoned tiie idea of labor being a necessary part of 
the di.scipline of a Normal school, but that we are accustoming the pupil- 
teachers to manners of dress and living far. far above those of the poor, 
among whom they must afterward live, and with whom they ought 
continually to associate. The life of a pupil-teacher in a Normal school 
ought to be such, that when he leaves it for his village school, he shall 
find his new position one of greater ease and comfort than the one he has 
left, and that he may feel no disgust for the laborious drudgery that must 
fall to his lot in such a situation. 

M. Prosper Dumont. in his treatise* on Normal Schools, published in 
Paris, in 1841, commends the Normal School of Vehrli, '•as an excellent 
model for educating teachers for country schools."" So profoundly was 
he impressed by the character of this practical educator, and the results 
of his teaching and example,that he regards Vehrli "as a beautiful exam- 
ple of the Normal teacher, — the religious and well-informed laborer, ca- 
pable of demonstrating, in an unequivocal manner, to working men, that 
enlightened and elevated sentiments are not incompatible with manual 
labor. All is here combined to contribute to the education of a country 
teacher ; the example is always placed by the side of the precept ; all 
instruction is mutually connected, and illustrative of each other; the 
moral, mental, and physical development go along together. The whole 
atmosphere is pedagogic— the pupil teacher imbibes the spirit of his vo- 
cation at every pore. That which strikes most is the happy application 
of the best principles of education, and the profoundly Christian spirit, with- 
out ostentation, which characterizes every portion of the detail." 

Vehrli was still laboring in his vocation at Kruitzlingen in 1849, at the 
age of sixty, with the same simplicity of life, the same singleness of pur- 
pose, and the same noble enthusiasm which marked the opening of his 
career at Hofwyl. 

We add a Table exhibiting the allotment of time in each week of the 
Course of Instruction at Kruitzlingen, in the summer of 1836. 

♦ M. Dumont received the prize offered by the Academy of Moral and Political Sci- 
ences, in It'SS, for the best discussion of the question: "What degree of perfection 
may the estaljlishment of primary Normal Schools acijuire, considering them in 'heir re- 
lation to the miral education of youth ?" 

The title of the work is " De I'Education Populaire et des Ecoles Normales Pri- 
maixes." Paris, 1841. 



372 



NORMAL SEMINARY AT THTIROOVTA. 



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NORMAL SCHOOL 



KUSSNACHT, IN THE CANTON OF ZURICH. 



The Normal School at Kussnacht is about a league from the town of 
Zurich, and the buildings are prettily situated on the borders of the lake 
of the same name. This institution vvixs re-organized in 1836. though the 
modifications made have been rather in the details than in the general 
principles. It now consists of a school for teachers, a preparatory school 
for tliis seminary, and three pritnary model schools. It is intended to 
supply teachers for the ditferent grades of primary schools of the canton, 
and during a portion of the year lectures are also delivered in the semi- 
nary to the older teachers, who are assembled for the purpose in their 
vacations. 

The superintendence and control of the Normal School is vested by the 
legislative council in the council of education, who appoint a committee of 
superintendence from their own body. This committee visits the school 
at least, once a month, attends its examinations, and, in general, inspects 
its management. The executive power is delegated to a director, who 
has the immediate charge of the school, and arranges the plan of instruc- 
tion, in subordination to the council of education. He examines the can- 
didates tor admission, inspects the clas.ses of the seminary, and of the 
schools attached to it, and lectures in the school of repetition for the older 
teachers. He is also responsible for the discipline, and reports half-yearly 
the state of the institution to the council of education. He is moreover 
present at the meeting of the committee of superintendence. There are 
three other teachers, besides a variable number of assistants. These 
teachers in turn have charge of the pupils of the Normal School in and 
out of school-liours. There are conferences of all the teachers, at which 
the director presides. The manners of the people and the purpose of the 
seminary render the discipline of very trifling amount. The pupils of the 
Normal School reside in the village of Kussnacht, but spend the greater 
part ol" their time at the school, under the direction of its masters. All 
the time devoted to study, recitation or lecture, and regular exercise, is 
passed there. 

To be admitted as a candidate for the Normal School, a youth must be 
sixteen years of age, and of suitable morals, intellectual, and physical 
qualities for the profession of a teacher. He must have spent two years 
in the higher division of primary instruction (called here secondary) in the 
model school, or some equivalent one, or have passed through the 
preparatory department of the Normal School, which gives a preference 
to the candidate, other qualifications being equal. The examination of 
candidates takes place once a year, and in presence of the committee 
of superintendence, or of a deputation from their body. The formal right 
of admitting to the school is, however, vested alone in the council of ed- 
ucation. The subjects of examination are Bible history, speaking and 
reading, grammar, the elements of history, geography and natural phi- 
losophy, arithmetic and the elements of geometry, writing, drawing, and 
vocal music. The council of education fixes the number of pupils who 
may be admitted, and the most proficient of the candidates are selected. 
There are forty stipendiary places, ten of the value of one hundred and 
sixty Swiss francs, (forty-eight dollars,) euid thirty of half that sum. 



374 NORMAr. SCHOOL AT KUSSNACHT. 

Natives who are admitted all receive their instruction gratis. If there is 
room in the school, foreigners may be received, paying twelve dollars per 
annum for their instruction. The number of pupils at the date of my 
visit, in the autumn of 1837, was one hundred and ten. The stipendia- 
ries are bound to serve as teachers in the canton two years ; a very mod- 
erate return for the education received. 

There are two grades of courses in the Normal School, one of two 
years for pupils intending to become teachers in the lower primary 
schools, the other of three years for the higher primary schools. The 
courses begin in April, and continue, with seven weeks of vacation, 
throughout the year. The subjects of instruction are : Religious instruc- 
tion, German, French, mathematics, history, geography, natural history 
and philosophy, pedagogy, writing, drawing, and vocal and instrumental 
music. French is only obligatory upon the students of the three years' 
course. Gymnastic exercises and swimming are regularly taught and 
practised. 

There is, besides, a lecture of an hour and a half on the art of building, 
once a week, attended by all the students. Those who learn instrumental 
music have lessons two hours and a half every week, and two hours oi 
Sunday are occupied with singing in concert. One of the teachers de- 
votes two extra hours every week to the assistance of some of the pupils 
in their studies, or to repetitions. 

At the close of each year there is a public examination, and the pupils 
are classed according to its resvilts. On leaving the institution, they are 
arranired in three grades ; the first, of those who have gone very satisfac- 
torily through the school, the second, of ihose who have passed satisfoc- 
torily and the third, of those who have not come up to the standard. 
Certificates of the firsi two grades entitle their holders to compete for any 
vacant primary school. 

The courses of practice begin in the second year, when the pupils ta'ke 
regular part in the exerci.?es of the schools attached to the seminary. 
Tliese are, first, two model schools for children from the ages of si.\ to 
nine, and from nine to twelve, at which latter age the legal obligation to 
attend the school ceases. The third, called a secondary school, contains 
pupils from twelve to sixteen years of age. The system of instruction 
used in the lower schools is attended Avith very striking results. The 
lessons are not divided into distinct branches, studiously kept separate, as 
in most elementary schools, but are connected, as far as possible, so as to 
keep the different subjects constantly before the mind. Thus, a lesson of 
geography is, at the same time, one of history, and incidentally of gram- 
mar, natural history, of reading and writing, and so on through the circle 
of elementary instruction. The Pestalozzian lessons on form are made 
the basis of writing, and with good success. The lowest class is taught 
to speak correctly, and to spell by the phonic method, to divide words into 
syllables, and thus to count. To number the lessons. To make forms 
and combine them, and thus to write, and through writing to read. The 
second passes to practical grammar, continues its reading and writing, 
the lessons in which are made exercises of natural history and grammar. 
Reading and speaking are combined to produce accuracy in the latter, 
which is a difficulty where the language has been corrupted into a dia- 
lect, as the German has in northern Switzerland. Movable letters are 
used to give exercises in spelling and reading. The plan of the Pesta- 
lozzian exercises in grammar is followed, and when the pupils have 
learned to write, a whole class, or even two classes, may be kept em- 
ployed intellectually, as well as mechanically, by one teacher. In read- 
ing, the understanding of every thing read is insisted upon, and the class- 
books are graduated accordingly. I never saw more intelligence and 
readiness displayed by children than in all these exercises ; it affords a 



NORMAL SCHOOL AT KUSSNACHT g^g 

Btrong contrast to the dullness of schools in which they are taught me- 
chanically. The same principles are carried into the upper classes, and 
are transplanted into the schools by the young teachers, who act here as 
assistants. The examination of the second school in Bible history, with 
its connected geography and grammar lessons ; in composition, with spe- 
cial reference to orthography and to the hand-writing; and the music les- 
son, at all of which the director was so kind as to enable me to be present, 
were highly creditable. 

There are three classes in each of these schools, and the pupils of the 
Normal Seminary practice as assistant teachers in them at certain periods ; 
the director also gives lessons, which the pupils of the seminary repeat in 
his presence. 

, In tile highest, or secondary school, the elementary courses are ex- 
tended, and mathematics and French are added. 

The pupils of the preparatory department of the seminary spend two 
years in teaching in the two model schools, and in receiving instruction in 
the '• secondary school" under the special charge of the director of the 
seminary. This establishment has iurnished, during three years of full 
activity, two hundred teachers to the cantonal primary schools. These 
young teachers replace the older ones, who are found by the courses of 
repetition not able to come up to the present state of instruction, and who 
receive a retiring pension. The schools must thus be rapidly regener- 
ated throughout the canton, and the education of the people raised to the 
standard of their wants as republicans. 



376 



NORMAL SEMINAKV AT ZURICH. 




NORMAL SEMINARY AT ZURICH. 



377 












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FRANCE. 



Before 1789, religious zeal, the spirit of association, the desire of living 
honorably in the recollection of mankind as the founder of pious or learned 
institutions, individual enterprise, and to some extent government endow- 
ment, had covered France with establishments of higher education, and 
with men consecrated to their service. This was particularly true with 
regard to schools for classical education, and the instruction generally of 
all but the poorer classes of society. In grammar schools and colleges, 
France was as well provided in 1789, as in 1849. In the upbreak and 
overthrow of government and society, which took place between 1789 and 
1794, and which was, in no small measure, the result of the neglected edu- 
cation of the great mass of the people, these public endowments, many of 
which had existed for centuries, were destroyed, and these religious and 
lay congregations, such as the Benedictines. Jesuits, Oratorians. Doctrin- 
aires, Lazaristes, and Brothers of the Christian Doctrine, were abolished, 
their property confiscated, and most of them were never again re-estab- 
lished. From 1791 to 1794, by various ordinances of the Convention, a 
system of public schools was projected, in which primary education was to 
be free to all at the expense of the State. Out of these ordinances sprung 
the first Normal School in France, and the Polytechnic School in 1794. 
But the promise of good primary schools was not realized, and the Nor- 
mal School was abolished in the following year. In 1802 the promise was 
renewed in a new ordinance, but amid the din of arms, the peculiar fruits 
oi" peace could not ripen. In 1808 Napoleon organized the Imperial Uni- 
versity, embracing under that designation the governmental control of 
all the educational institutions of France, primary, secondary, and supe- 
rior. In one of his decrees, primary instruction (intended for the masses 
of society) was limited to reading, writing and arithmetic, and the legal 
authorities were enjoined " to watch that the teachers did not carry tlieir 
instructions beyond these limits." Under the organization established by 
Napoleon, and with views of primary education but little expanded be- 
yond the imperial ordinance referred to, and with even these limited views 
unrealized, the gov^ernment continued to administer the system of public 
education till the Revolution of 1830. In the mean time the wants of a 
more generous and complete system of primary schools had been lelt 



382 



PRIMARY INSTRUfeTION IN FRANCE. 



throughout France, and one of the firfit steps of the new government was 
to supply this want, and most considerately and thoroughly was the work 
accomplished. Not only were steps taken to increase the number and 
efficiency of the schools already established, by additional apprbpriations 
for their support, but the Department of Public Instruction was re-organ- 
ized. Normal Schools for the education of Teachers were multiplied, 
and made effective, and the experience of the best educated states in 
Europe was consulted in reference to the reconstruction of the whole 
system. 

There is nothing in the history ot' modern civilization more truly sub- 
lime than the establishment of the present Law of Primary Instruction in 
France. As has been justly remarked by an English writer, " Few na- 
tions ever suffered more bitter humiliation than the Prussians and French 
mutually inflicted during the earlier years of the present century; and 
it was supposed that feelings of exasperation and national antipathy 
thus engendered by the force of circumstances, were ready, on the match 
being applied, to burst forth in terrible explosion. At the very time, 
however, when the elements of mischief were believed to be most active 
in the breasts of a people jealous of their honor, and peculiarly sensitive 
to insult, the French ministry, with the consent of the King and Cham- 
bers, send one of their ablest and wisest citizens, not to hurl defiance or 
demand restitution, but to take lessons in the art of training youth to 
knowledge and virtue, and that too in the capital of the very nation whose 
troops, sixteen years before, had, on a less peaceful mission, bivouacked 
in the streets of Paris, and planted their victorious cannon at the passages 
of her bridges. There are not many facts in the past history of mankind 
more cheering than this ; not many traits of national character more mag- 
nanimous, or indicating more strikingly the progress of reason, and the 
coming of that time when the intercourse between nations will consist not 
in wars and angry protocols, but in a mutual interchange of good offices." 

M. Victor Cousin, one of the most profound and popular writers of the 
age, in one department of literature, who was sent on this peaceful mis- 
sion in the summer of 1831, submitted in the course of the year to his 
government, a " Report on the coyidition of Public Instruction in Germa- 
ny, and particularly in Pncssia." This able document was published, 
and in defiance of national self-love, and the strongest national antipathies, 
it carried conviction throughout France. It demonstrated to the govern- 
ment and the people the immense superiority of all the German States, 
even the most insignificant duchy, over any and every department of 
France, in all that concerned inslitutionsof primary and secondary educa- 
tion. The following extracts will indicate the conclusions to which • 
Cousin arrives in reference to the educational wants of his own country. 
After pronouncing the .school law of Prussia " the most comprehensive 
and perfect legislative measure regarding primary instruction" with 
which he was acquainted, he thus addresses himself to the minister: 

" Without question, in the present state of things, a law concerning primary 



PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 



383 



instruction is indispensable in France ; the question is, how to produce a good 
one, in a conn;rv where there is a total absence of all precedent and all experi- 
ence in so grave a matter. The education of the people has hitherto been so 
n 'glecied, — so few trials have been made, or those trials have succeeded so ill. 
that we are entirely without those universally leceived notions, those j redilec- 
tions rooted in the habits and the mind of a nation, which are the conditions and 
the bases of all good legislation. I wish, then, for a law ; and at the same time 
I dread it ; for 1 tremble lest we should plunge into visionary and impracticable 
projects again, without attending to whai actually exists. 

I'he idea of compelling parents to send their children to school is perhaps not 
sufficiently diffused through the nation to justity the experiment of making it 
law; but eveiybody agrees in legaiding the establishment of a school in every 
commune as necessary. It is also willingly conceded that the maintenance of 
this school must rest with ihe commune ; always provided that, in caseof ii:al il- 
ity through poverty, the commune shall apply to the departmert, and the depart- 
ment to the state. This point may be assumed as universally admitted, and 
may theiefore become law. 

You aie likewise aware that many of the councils of departments have felt 
the necessity of securing a supply of schoolmasters, and a more complete ecu- 
cation for them and have, with this view, established primary iSormal Schools 
in their departments Indeed, they have often shown rather prodigality thnn 
parsimony on this head. This, too, is a most valuable and encouragii.g indica- 
tion ; and a law ordaining the establishment of a primary Normal School in 
each department, as well as a primary school in each ccmtvnine, would do 
little more than confirm and generalize what is now actually doing in alniust 
all parts of the country. Of course this primary Normal J^chool must be more 
or less considerable according to the resources of each department. 

Here we have already two most important points on which the country is 
almost unanimously agreed. You have also, without doubt been struck by the 
petitions of a number of towns, great and small, for the establishment of schools 
of a class rather higher than the common primary schools; such as though 
still inferior in classical and scientific studies to our royal and comn)unal cl- 
leges might be more particularly adapted to give that kind of generally usetul 
knowledge indispensable to the large ]iortion of the population uhich is not in- 
tended for the learned professions, but which yet needs more extended and vaiied 
acquirements than the class of day-laborers and artisans. &'uch petitions are 
almost universal. Several municipal councils have voted considerable funds 
for the purpose, and have applied to us for the necessary auihoiity, foi- advice 
and assistance. It is impossible not to regard this as the symptom of a real 
want, — the indication of a serious deficiency in our system of public instruction. 

You are sufficiently acquainted with my zeal for classical and scientific 
studies; not only do I think that we must keep up to the plan of study prescribed 
in our coLleg'^s, and particulaily the philological part of that plan, but 1 think we 
ought to raise and extend it, an 1 thus, while we maintain our incontestalile 
superiority in the physical and mathematical sciences, endeavor to rival Ger- 
many in the solidify of our classical learning. 

Let our royal colleges then, and even a great proportion of our communal col- 
leges continue to lead the youth of France into this sanctuary; they will merit 
the thanks of their country. But can the whole population eiiler learned 
schools 1 or, indeed, is it to be wished that it should 1 Primary instruction with 
us, however, is but meager; between that and the colleges there is nothing; -^o 
that a tradesman, even in the lower ranks of the middle classes, who has the 
honorable wish of giving his sons a good education, has no resource but to send 
them to the college. Two great evils are the consequence. In general, these 
boys, who know that they are not destined to any very distinguished career, go 
through their studies in a negligent manner; they never get beyond mediocrity ; 
and when, at about eighteen, they go back to the habits and the business of their 
fathers, as there is nothing in their ordinary life to recall or to keep up their 
studies, a few years obliterate every trace of the little classical learning they 
acquired. On the other hand, these young men often contract tastes and ac- 
quaintances at coll-gc which render it difficult, nay, almost impossible,- for ihrm 
to return to the humble way of life to which they were born : hence a race of 
men restless, discontented with their position, with others, and with them- 
•elves ; enemies of a slate of society in which ihey feel themselves out of their 



!S4: 



PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 



place ; and with some acquirements, some real or imagined talent, and unbri- 
dled ambition, ready to rush into any career el' servility or of revolt. The ques- 
tion then is, whether we are pre|)ared to make ourselves res|jonsible to the state 
and society lor training up such a race of malcontents "? Unquestionahly, as I 
shall ta-ke occasion to say elsewhere, a certain number of exhibitions (bourses') 
ougfht to be given to poor boys who evince remarkable aptness : this is a sacred 
duty we owe to talent ; a duty which must be fulfilled, even at the risk of being 
sometimes mistaken. These boys, chosen for the promise they give, go through 
their stuJies well and thoroughly, and on leaving school experience the same 
assi'<tance they received on entering. Thus they are enabled, at a later period 
of life, to display their talents in the learned and liberal professions which are 
open to them, to the advantage of the state to which they owe iheir education. 
As, however, it is impossible for any government to find employment for every 
body, it ought not to furnish facilities for every body to quit the track in which 
his fathers have trod. Ouv colleges oaghi. without doubt, to remain ojen to all 
who can pay the expense of them ; but we ought by no means to Ibrce the lower 
classes into them; yet this is the inevitable eflfect of having no intermediate 
establishments between the primary schools and the colltges. CTcrmany and 
Prussia more especially, are rich in establishments of this kind. You per- 
ceive that 1 allule to the schools called tradesmen's or burghers' schools, or 
schools for the middle classes, {Bnrgerschid'n,) ecuks bourgeoises, a name which 
it is perhaps impossible to transplant into France, but which is accurate and 
expressive, as contradistinguishing them from the learned schools, [Gel'hHes- 
ckukn,) called in Germany gymnasia, and in France colleges, (in England, 
'"grammar-schools,") a name, too, honorable to the class for whose especial use 
and benefit they are provided ; honorable to those of a lower class, who by fre- 
quenting them can rise to a level with that above them. The burgher schools 
form the higher step of primary instruction of which the elementary schools are 
the lower step. Thus there are but two steps or gradations: lo. Elementary 
schools, — the common basis of all popular instruction in town and country ; 2°. 
Burgher schools, which, in towns of some size and containing a middle class, 
furnish an education sufficiently extensive and liberal to nil who do not intend 
to enter the learned professions. The Prussian law, which fixes a minimum 
of instruction for the elementary schools, likewise fixes a minimum of insttuc- 
tion for the burgher schools; and there are two kinds of examination, exttemely 
distinct, for obtaining the brevet of primary teacher for these two grada- 
tions. The elementary instruction must be uniform and invariable, for the 
primary schools represent the body of the nation, and are destined tonouiish 
and to strengthen the national unity; and. generally speaking, it is not expedi- 
ent that the limit fixed by the law.for elementary instruction should be exceeded : 
but this is not the case with the burgher schools, for these are designed for a 
class among whom a great many shades and diversities exist, — the middle class. 
It is therefore natural and reasonable that it should be susceptible of extension 
and elevation, in proportion to the importance ot the town, and the character of 
the population for whom it is destined. In Prussia this class of schools has, 
accordingly, very different gradations, from the minimum fixed by the law, to 
that point where it becomes closely allied with the gymnasium, properly so 
called. At this point it sometimes takes the name of Progymnasium or pre- 
paratory gvmnnsia, in which classical and scientific instruction stops short 
within certain limits, but in which the middle or trading class may obtain a 
truly liberal education. In general, the German burgher schools, which are a 
little inferior to ourcnnmunal colleges in classical and scientific studies, are in- 
comparably superior to them in religious instruction, geography, history, modern 
languages, music, drawing, and nadonal literature. 

In my opinion, it is of the highest importance to create in France, under one 
name or another, burgher schools, or schools for the middle classes, which give 
a very varied education ; and to convert a certain number of our communal 
colleses into schools of that description. I regard this as an afl^air of state. 

There is a cry raised fiom one end of France to the other, demanding on be- 
half of three-fourths of the population, establishments which may fill the middle 
ground between the simple elementary schools and the colleges. The demands 
are urgent and almost unanimou.s. 

The most difficult point in law on primary instruction is the' determinatiou 
what are the authorities to be employed. Here also let us consult facts. Thd 



PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 



S85 



French administration is the glory and the masterwork of the imperial govern- 
ment. The organization of France in viaires and prefectures, wiih municipal 
and departmenial councils, is the foundation of government and of social order. 
I'his foundation has stood firm amidst so much ruin, that prudence and policy 
seem to point lo it as the best and safest prop. Moreover, this organization 
has just been reformed and vivified by rendering the municipal and depart- 
mental councils elective and popular. Thus the French administration unites 
all that we want, activity and popularity. The administration, then, is what 
you must call to your aid. Recollect, also, that it is these local councils that 
pay, and that you can not lairly expect much from them unless they have a 
large share in the disbursement of the money they have voted. These councils 
are chosenout of the body of the people, and return to it again; they are inces- 
santly in contact with the people; they are the people legally represented, as the 
maires and the prefects are these councils embodied, if I may so say. in one per- 
son for the sake of activity and despatch. I regard, then, as another incontest- 
able point, the necessary intervention of the municipal and departmental coun- 
cils in the management of public instruction. As there ought lo he a school in 
every commun", so there ought to be for every communal school a special com- 
mittee of superintendence, which ought to be formed out of the municipal coun- 
cil, and presided over by the maire. I shall perhaps be told, that men who are 
fit to conduct the business of the commune are not fit to superintend the communal 
school. I deny it: nothing is wanted lor this superintendence but zeal, and 
fathers of families can not want zeal where their dearest interests are concerned. 
In Prussia no difficulty is found in this matter, and every parish-school has its 
SchutvorsLand, in great part elective. Over the heads of these local committees 
there ought to be a central committee in the chief town of each department, 
chosen out of the council of the department, and presided over by the prefect. 
The committee of each comnmne would correspond with the committee of the 
department; that is to say, in short, the rnaire, with the prefect. This corres- 
pondence would stimulate the zeal of both committees. By it, the departmental 
committee would know what is the annual supply of schoolmasters required for 
the whole department, and consequently, the number of masters the Normal 
School of the department ought to furnish, and consequently, the number of 
pupils it ought to admit. It would have incessantly to urge on the zeal of the 
local committees in establishing and improving schools, for the sake of provi- 
ding as well as possible lor the pupils it sends out of its Normal School. Nothing 
can be more simple than this organization. It is, applied to primary instruc- 
tion, what takes place in the ordinary administration : I mean, the combined 
action of the municipal councils and the departmental councils, — of the maires 
and the prefects. 

After the administrative authorities, it is unquestionably the clergy who 
ought to occupy the most important place in the business of popular education. 
The rational middle course is to put the cure or the pastor, i. e. the Catholic 
and the Protestant clergyman — and if need be both, on every communal com- 
mittee ; and the highest dignitary of the church in each department, on the 
departmental committee. We must neither deliver over our committees into 
the hands of the cleigy, nor exclude them ; we must admit them, because they 
have a right to be there, and to represent the religion of the country. The" 
men of good sense, good manners, and of consideration in their neighborhood, 
of whom these committees ought to be, and will be, composed, will gradually 
gain ascendancy over their ecclesiastical colleagues, by treating them with 
the respect due to their sacred functions. We must have the clergy; we must 
neglect nothing to bring them into the path toward which every thing urges 
them to turn ; both their obvious interest, and their sacred calling, and the 
ancient services which their order rendered to the cause of civilization in 
Europe. But if we wish to have the clergy allied with us in the work of popu- 
lar instruction, that instruction must not be stripped of morality and religion ; 
for then indeed it would become the duty of the clergy to oppose it, and they 
•would have the sympathy of all virtuoiis men, of all good fathers of families, 
and even of the mass ol' the people, on their side. Thank God, you are too 
enlightened a statesman to think that true popular instruction can exist without 
moral education, popular morality without religion, or popular religion without 
a church. 

The proceedings of the communal and departmental committees, the maires, 

25 



386 PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 

sub-prefects and prefects, ought, like all the other parts of the administration, to 
refer to one common center, from which a vigorous impulse and a supreme 
guidance may emanate, ami upon whom all the responsibility before ihe cham- 
bers may rest. This center, in France, as in Prussia, is, the ministry and coun- 
cil of public instruction. This is not only according to law, but to nature and 
reason. It is perfectly consistent to leave primary instruction to the minister 
who has all the rest of public instruction, as well as ecclesiastical affairs, in 
his hands; that is to say, the two things with which the education of the people 
is the most intimately connected. Has any evil resulted from the present order 
of things'? Far from it: every body is agreed that the minister and his council 
have done a great deal for primary instruction since the revolution of July. 
As you would have been able to elTect nothing without the municipal and de- 
partmental councils, the malreR and prefects, so those authorities acknowledge 
that they could have done little or nothing without your co-operation and 
direction. It is you who excited their zeal, who supported and encouraged 
them; you who, as the enlightened dispenser of the funds placed in your hands 
by the two chambers, have given vigor to public instruction by giving propor- 
tionate aid to necessitous places. 

I strongly recommend the creation of a special inspector of primary instruc- 
tion for each department. Our academical inspectors should be reserved for 
schools of the second class, which will suffice, and more than suffice, to employ 
all their powers, and all their diligence. Your natural agents and correspond- 
ents for primary instruction are the prefects, who would preside over the de- 
partmental committees, and to whom the correspondence of maires and com- 
munal committees, as well as the report of the departmental inspector, would 
be addressed. 

The prefects would correspond officially with you, as they have hitherto done 
extra-officially ; and there would be a councilor in the central council of public 
instruction, specially charged with the reports to be made on that portion of the 
business, as in fact there is now. This machinery is very simple, and would 
produce quick results ; being less complex, it would work more freely. The 
only thing in which I would employ agents taken from the body of teachers 
would be, the commission of examination appointed for granting schoolmasters' 
brevets. No one disputes that professors have peculiar qualifications, and all 
the necessary impartiality, for that office. I should wish, then, that the exam- 
ination-commission should be appointed by you, and composed of masters or 
professors of the royal or the communal colle<;rs of the department; adding, for 
the religious part, a clergyman proposed by the bishop. 

As to private teachers, and what people are pleased to call liberty of primary 
tuition, we must neither oppose it, nor reckon upon it. There are branches of 
the public service which must be secured against all casualties by the state, and 
in the first rank of these is primary instruction. It is the bounden duty of gov- 
ernment to guarantee it against all caprices of public opinion, and against the 
variable and uncertain calculations of those who would engage in it as a means 
of subsistence. On this principle are founded our primary Normal Schools in 
each department, bound to furnish annually the average number of schoolmas- 
ters required by the department. We must rely exclusively on these Normal 
Schools for the regular supply of communal teachers. 

But if, in the face of our primary communal schools, there are persons who, 
without having passed through the Normal Schools, choose to establish schools 
at their own risk and peril, it is obvious that they ought not only to be tolerated, 
but encouraged; just as we rejoice that private institutions and boarding- 
schools should spring up beside our royal and communal colleges. This compe- 
tition can not be otherwise than useful, in every point of view. If the private 
schools prosper, so much the better; they are at f\ill liberty to try all sorts of 
new methods, and to make experiments in teaching, which, on such a scale, 
can not be very perilous. At all events, there are our Normal Schools. Thus 
all interests are reconciled; the duties of the state, and the rights of individuals ; 
the claims of experience, and those of innovation. Whoever wishes to set up a 
private school must be subject lo only two conditions, from which no school, 
public or private, can on any pretext be exempt, — the brevet of capacity, given 
by the commission of examination, and the supervision of the committee of the 
commune and of the inspector of the department. 

All these measures, on which I will not enlarge, are more or less founded on 



PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 387 

existing facts ; they have the sanction of experience ; it would be simply ad- 
vantageous to add that of law. On all the points concerning which the law is 
silent, experiments might be made. Among these experiments some would 
probably be successful : when sufficiently long practice had confirmed them, 
they might be inserted in a new law ; or ordonnances and instructions, maturely 
weighed by the royal council, would convert them into general and official 
measures. Nothing must pass into a law which has not the warranty of suc- 
cess. Laws are not to be perilous experiments on society; they ought simply 
to sum up and to generalize the lessons of experience." 

On the experience of Prussia as a basis, a great and comprehensive 
measure of elementary education for France was framed by M. Guizot. 
The bill was reported in 1833. In introducing the measure to the con- 
sideration of the Chamber of Deputies, M. Guizot made a speech as 
remarkable for its eloquence as for its large and liberal views of popular 
education, as will be indicated by the following passages: 

" In framing this bill, it is experience, and experience alone, that we have 
taken for our guide. The principles and practices recommended have been 
supplied to us by facts. There is not one part of the mechanism which has not 
been worked successfully. We conceive that, on the subject of the education 
of the people, our business is rather to methodize and improve what exists, than 
to destroy for the purpose of inventing and renewing upon the faith of dangerous 
theories. It is by laboring incessantly on these maxims, that the Administra- 
tion has been enabled to communicate a fiira and steady movement to this im- 
portant branch of the public service ; so much so, that we take leave to say, 
that more has been done for primary education during the last two years, (1831, 
1832,) and by the Government of July, than during the forty years preceding, 
by all the former Governments. The first Revolution was lavish of promises, 
without troubling itself about the performance. The Imperial Government ex- 
hausted itself in efforts to regenerate the higher instruction, called secondary; 
but did nothing for that of the people. The restored Dynasty, up to 1828, ex- 
pended no more than 50,000 francs annually upon primary instruction. The 
Ministry of 1828 obtained from the Chamber a grant of 300,000 francs. Since 
the Revolution of July, 1830, a million has been voted annually — that is, more 
in two years than the Restoration in fifteen. Those are the means, and here are 
the results. All of you are aware that primary instruction depends altogether 
on the corresponding Normal Schools. The prosperity of these establishments 
is the measure oi Us progress. The Imperial Government, which first pronounc- 
ed with effect the words, Normal Schools, left us a legacy of one. The Restor- 
ation added five or six. Those, of which some were in their infancy, we have 
greatly improved within the last two years, and have, at the same time, estab- 
lished thirty new ones ; twenty of which are in full operation, forming in each 
department a vast focus of light, scattering its rays in all directions among the 
people." 

The Bill recognized two degrees of primary instruction, viz. elementa- 
ry and superior, in speaking of which M. Guizot remarks: 

" The first degree of instruction should be common to the country and the 
towns ; it should be met with in the humblest borough, as well as in the largest 
city, wherever a human being is to be found within our land of France. By 
the teaching of reading, writing, and accounts, it provides for the most essential 
wants of life ; by that of the legal system of weights and measures, and of the 
French language, it implants, enlarges, and spreads every where the spirit and 
unity of the French nationality ; finally, by moral and religious instruction, it 
provides for another class of wants quite as real as the others, and which Prov- 
idence has placed in the hearts of the poorest, as well as of the richest, in this 
world, for upholding the dignity of human life and the protection of social order. 
The first degree of instruction is exlen.sive enough to make a man of him who 
will receive it, and is, at the same time, sufficiently limited to be every where 
realized. It is the strict debt of the country toward all its children, 

But the law is so framed, that by higher elementary schools, primary in- 



388 PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 

struction can be so developed, so varied, as to satisfy the waDts of those profes- 
sions which, though not scientific, yet require to be acquainted wiih ' the ele- 
ments of science, as they apply it every day in the office, the workshop, and 
field.'" 

On the plan of supervision of schools, which embraced both local and 

state inspection, the Minister remarks : 

*' In the first place, this operation demands, at cerlain times of the year, much 
more time, application, and patience, than can reasonably he expected from 
men of the world, like the member of the council of the arrondissement and of 
the department; or from men of business, necessarily confined to their homes, 
like the members of the municipal council. In the next place, positive and 
technical knuwledge of the various matters on which the examination turns is 
absolutely necessary; and it is not sufficient to have such knowledge, it must 
have been proved to exist, in order to give to these examinations the requisite 
weight and authority. For these reasons, the members of these commissions 
ought to be, in great part, men specially qualified — men familiar with the busi- 
ness of tuiiion. It is evident that primary instruction rests entirely on these 
examinations. Suppose a little negligence, a little false indulgence, a little 
ignorance, and it is all over with primary instruction. It is necessary then, to 
compose these commissions with the most scrupulous severity, and to appoint 
only persons versed in the matter." 

The necessity of providing for the professional education and training 

of teachers is thus eloquently set forth: 

"AH the provisions hitherto described would be of none efl^ect, if we took no 
pains to procure for the public school thus constituted, an able master, and 
worthy of the high vocation of instructing the people. It can not be too often 
repeated, that it is the master that makes the school. And, indeed, what a 
well-assorted union of qualities is required to constitute a good schoolmaster! 
A good schoolmaster ought to be a man who knows much more than he is 
called upon to teach, that he may teach with intelligence and with taste ; who is 
to live in a humble sphere, and yet to have a noble and elevated mind, that he 
may preserve that dignity of sentiment andof deportment, without which he will 
never obtain the respect and confidence of families ; who possesses a rare mix- 
ture of gentleness and firmness; for, inferior though he be in station to many 
individuals in the cmnmune, he ought to be the obsequious servant of none ; — a 
man not ignorant of his rights, but thinking much more of his duties ; showing 
to all a good example, and serving to all as a counselor; not given to change 
his condition, but satisfied with his situation, because it gives him the power of 
doing good ; and who has made up his mind to live and to die in the service of 
primary instruction, which to him is the service of God and his fellow-crea- 
tures. To rear masters approaching to such a model is a difficult task ; and yet 
we must succeed in it, or else we have done nothing for elementary instruction. 
A bad schoolmaster, like a bad parish priest, is a scourge to a comviuw^ ; and 
though we are often obliged to be contented with indifferent ones, we must do 
our best to improve the average quality. We have, therefore, availed our- 
selves of a bright thought struck out in the heat of the Revolution, by a decree 
of the National Convention, in 1794, and afterward applied by Napoleon, in 
his decree, in 1808, for the organization of the University, to the establishment 
of his central Normal School at Paris. We carry its application still lower 
than he did in the social scale, when we propose that no school-master shall be 
appointed who has not himself been a pupil of the school which instructs in the 
art of teaching, and who is not certified, after a strict examination, to have 
profited by the opportunities he has enjoyed." 

No statesman of any age or country, has expressed in language at once 

eloquent and just, a more exalted estimate of the mission of the teacher. 

Although not uttered in this connection, the following passages will 

illustrate the views presented above : 

" Humble as the career of a schoolmaster may be, and though doomed to pass 
his whole existence most frequently within the sphere of a small community, 



PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. ggg 

his labors are, nevertheless, felt throughout society at large, and his profession 
is as important as that of any other public functionary. It is ncjt for any par- 
ticular parish alone or merely local interest, that the law demands that every 
man sh )uld acquire if po'ssible, the knovvie Ige which is indispensable in social 
life, and without whicJi intelligence often languishes and degenerates; it is for 
tlie siata itself and the pu')lic interest; it is because liberty is certain and 
steadfast only among people enlightened enough to listen, in every circum- 
stance, to the voice of Reason. Public elementary instruction is one of the 
guarantees of order and social stability. Doomed to pass his life in discharg- 
ing the monotonous duties of his vocation, sometiines even in struggling with 
the injustice or the ingratitude of ignorance, the parish schoolmaster would 
often repine, and psrhaps sink under his afflictions, did he not draw strength 
an i coiragi from anather an:l higher source than that of immediate and mere 
p.ersjnal interest. A deep sense of the moral importance of his duties must 
support and encourage him; and the austere pleasure of having rendered .ser- 
vice to mankind, must become the worthy recompense which his own con- 
science alone can give. It is his glory to pretend to nothing beyond the sphere 
of his obscure and laborious condition; to exhaust his strength in sacrifices 
which are scarcely noticed by those who reap their benefit; to labor, in short, 
for his fellow-beings, and to look for his reward only to God. 

Your first duty is toward the children confided to your care. The teacher is 
summoned upon by the parent to share his authority; this authority he must 
exercise with the same vigilance, and almost with the same affection. Not 
only is the health of the children committed to him, but the cultivation of their 
affections and intelligence depends almost entirely on him. In all that con- 
cerns education, as it is generally understood, you shall want for nothing that 
can be of service to you; but as to the moral education of the children, I trust 
especially to you. Nothing can supply for you, the desire of faithfully doing 
what is right. You must be aware, that, in confiding a child to your care, 
every family expects that you will send him back an honest man; the coimtry, 
that he will be made a good citizen. You know that virtue does not always 
fallow in the train of knowledge; and that the lessons received by children 
might become dangerous to ihem, were they addressed exclusively to the under- 
standing. Let the teacher, therefore, bestow his first care on the cultivation of 
the moral qualities of his pupils. He must unceasingly endeavor to propagate 
and establish those imperishable principles of morality and reason — without 
•which, universal order is in danger; and to sow in the hearts of the young 
those seeds of virtue and honor, which agk, riper years, and the passions, will 
never destroy Faith in Divine providence, the sacredness of duty, submission 
to parental authority, the respect due to the laws, to the king, and to the rights 
of every one — such are the sentiments which the teacher wild strive to develop. 

The intercourse between the teacher and parents can not fail of being frequent. 
Over this kindness must preside: were a teacher not to possess the respect and 
sympathy of the parents, his authority over their children would be compro- 
mised, and the fruit of his lessons lost; he can not, therefore, be too careful and 
prudent in regard of these connections. An intimacy inconsiderately formed 
might injure his independence, and sometimes even mix him up with those 
local dissensions which frequently distract small communities. While civilly 
yielding to the reasonable demands of parents he must, at the same time, be 
pardcularly careful not to sacrifice to their capricious exactions his educational 
principles, and the discipline of the school. 

The duties of the teacher toward those in authority are still clearer, and not 
less important. He is himself an authority in his parish ; how then can it be 
fitting that he give an example of insubordination 1 Wherefore should he not 
resaect the magistracy, religious authority, and the legal powers, whereby pub- 
lic security is maintained'? 

The Mayor is the head of the community ; the interest, therefore, as well as 
the duty of the schoolmaster, is to exemplily on every occasion the respect due 
to him. The v\c?iT and pastor are also enlitded to respect, for their mission is in 
accordance with all that is most elevated in human nature. Nothing, besides, 
is more desirable than a perfect understanding between the minister of religion 
and the teacher; both are in possession of moral authority; both require the 
confidence of families ; both can agree in exercising over the children commit- 
ted to their care, in several ways, a common influeooe," 



390 PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 

With such enlarged views of the scope, and agencies, and ends of pri 
mary instruction, the bill was framed and introduced into the Chamber 
of Deputies and of Peers. It was referred to committees, who reported 
through M. Renouard in the lower, and M. Cousin in the upper house. 
These reports are full and elaborate discussions of great principles, and 
especially that of M. Cousin. 

The bill, after going through a protracted examination and discussion 
of its details, received the sanction of the Chambers and the King, and 
became a law on the 28th of June, 1833. Under the wise and energetic 
administration of the department of public instruction, by such men as 
Guizot, Cousin, Villemain, and Salvandy, the system went into immedi- 
ate and successful operation, giving a powerful impulse to the progress 
of popular intelligence throughout the whole domain of France. Expe- 
rience has brought to light some imperfections and deficiencies, some of 
which have been remedied or supplied, and others are still under discus- 
sion. We must wait till a generation has passed through the course of 
instruction now provided by law, and come into active life, before we can 
fully appreciate the wise forecast of the labors of Cousin and Guizot in 
this long neglected field of primary education. 

It should be added, that a private association, called " The Society for 
Elementary Instruction," was very instrumental in waking up the atten- 
tion of the people and of government to the condition and improvement of 
primary schools. This society was formed in 1805, by a number of distin- 
guished philanthropists, and has continued in active operation to the pres- 
ent time. It has been instrumental in establishing infant schools, schools 
for needle' work, adult schools and classes, reformatory schools, associations 
for teachers, village libraries in various parts of France, and has a com- 
plete series of popular schools under its immediate management, in Paris. 
The Minister of Public Instruction, in 1835, ascribed to it the honor of 
having given the first impulse to the present school law. It publishes 
a monthly journal of its proceedings, and was mainly instrumental in es- 
tablishing, in 1830, the " Journal de I'Instruction Elementaire," which is 
still continued under the title of " Manuel General de I'Instruction Pri- 
maire," and is the official organ of the Minister of Public Instruction. 
There is also published another educational journal, called " L'Echo des 
Ecoles Primaires," devoted to the dissemination of improved methods of 
instruction. It commenced in 1837, and was for several years under the 
editorship of M. Cousin, assisted by many of the best teachers and educa- 
tors in France. We noticed articles by Beudant, Willm, Parandiex, 
Philippar, and several directors of Normal Schools, and Inspectors of the 
Primary Schools. Upward of one hundred volumes on the science and 
art of education have been published in Paris smce 1835 ; several of these 
are by men of the best intellect, and large practical and benevolent 
views. 



OUTLINE 



OF THB 

SYSTEM OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 



France is divided by law for municipal and all administrative pur- 
poses, into 86 Departments, 363 Arrondissements. 2,842 Cantons, and 
39,381 Communes. 

in each department there is appointed by the legal voters a prefect, 
who is associated with a general council for the department, and a spe- 
cial council for each arrondissement, in the administration of the local 
affairs of the department; in each canton there is a judicial office, styled 
juge de jpaix ; in each commune, a mayor, with a municipal council, elect- 
ed by the people. 

Since 1S08 there has existed in the government a central and special 
department for the administration of public instruction, for the application 
of all funds appropriated by the state for educational, scientific or htera- 
ry purposes. Over this department has presided from time to time, some 
of the most distinguished scholars and statesmen of France, and no 
branch of the public service has been regarded, for the last thirty years, 
with more favor by the Chambers, or the people. Since 1824, the chief 
of this department has had a seat in the cabinet council of the king, which 
consists of nine members. 

To the supervision of the department of public instruction, as now 
organized, are assigned all schools, primary, secondary and superior, 
which together constitute the University of France, and are directed 
and superintended in its name ; all scientific and literary societies to the 
support of which the government contributes, such as the Institute, the 
Academy of Medicine, &c. ; all public libraries, which the state main- 
tains, or to which it contributes ; all institutions having charters prior to 
1808, and which were not by royal ordinance incorporated into the Uni- 
versity ; and all encouragements, by the way of subscription, or publica- 
tion, to science and letters. 

The Royal University of France embraces the whole system of nation- 
al education, and includes all the institutions for imparting instruction 
which are spread over the whole kingdom, from the lowest schools, up to 
the highest colleges. The term may thus be considered synonymous with 
the French national system of education. 

The University is placed under the direction of a council of six mem- 
bers, called the '• royal council of public instruction," of which the minis- 
ter of public instruction is the otBcial president. Each councilor has the 
special charge of one or more divisions of public instruction. Subordi- 
nate to this council are the inspectors-general of the University, who are 
required to examine, once a year, the institutions of every description, 
each within a certain district assigned to him, and to transmit a report to 
the council. 

The University is composed of twenty-six Academies, each of which 
comprehends two, three, or more of the departments into which the king- 
dom is divided, and contains one or more royal colleges. The presiding 
officer of each academy is the rector, who is appointed by the minister of 
public instruction, and is assisted by two inspectors and a council. The 
governing body of each academy has the superintendence of all the com- 
munal colleges, institutions, pensions, (boarding schools,) Normal Schools. 



392 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN PRANCE. 

or schools for the education of teachers, and primary schools, ivithin the 
district which the seminary comprehends. 

Besides the superintending body, the academy includes the teaching 
corps, or faculties ; namely, the faculties of letters, science, medicine, 
law, and theology, all of which, however, do not actually exist in every 
academy; in some indeed, there is no organization of faculties. The 
faculties consist of a variable number of professors, one of whom is dean, 
and a committee of whom examine candidates for degrees. There are, 
however, some institutio:is which are not subject to the jurisdiction of 
the University, as the College of France, the Museum of Natural Histo- 
ry, the Ecole des Charles, School of Oriental Languages, the French 
Institute, and societies of all kinds for the advancement of knowledge. 

The royal colleges are supported chieQy by the government, and the 
salaries of the professors, which are generally from $iOO to i$800, are paid 
from ihe budget of the minister of public instruction. The students are 
divided into two classes, the internes and e.vternes, or boarders and day- 
scholars. The communal colleges are supported principally by the com- 
munes in which they are situate; some of them have endowments, but 
the majority depend chiefly for their support on the fees paid by the stu- 
dents. The professors or teachers receive but small salaries, varying 
from $200 to $600. 

A distinguishing feature of the -system of public instruction in France, 
is the appointment of all professors in all the colleges and lyceums, and 
in the faculties of law, medicine, theology, and letters, and all institu- 
tions of education above the primary school, by public competition (les 
concours.) A concours may last a i'ew days only, or it may last for 
months. The months of September and August are the months of vaca- 
tion in the ditlerent colleges, and are usually devoted to the public com- 
petition of candidates for any professorship or chair declared to be vacant 
by the minister of public instruction. The judges are selected from 
among the most distinguished scholars in France. The mode of con- 
ducting the trial varies with the department to be filled. But it embra- 
ces every mode by which the accuracy and extent of the attainments or 
each candidate in the study can be tested, as well as his ability to com- 
municate his knowledge to classes of pupils. Each candidate is subject 
to the criticism of his competitor. Every professor in all the colleges 
and great schools of France has passed through this ordeal. 

Nearly all the higher schools of learning and science are concentrated 
in Paris. Almost all the young men who want to complete their studies, 
whether in letters, law, medicine, or the arts, — in short, in all those pre- 
paratory to any learned or liberal career, are forced to live in the capital. 
This is attended with a disastrous result, in the neglect or discontinuance 
of all domestic training and discipline, which can not be compensated by 
any superiority of mental culture, secured by the concentration of able 
men. and all the means and appliances of superior education at the capital. 

There are six faculties of Catholic theology, at Aix, Bordeaux, Lyons, 
Paris, Rouen, and Toulouse; and two of Protestant theology^ one of ihe 
Lutheran or Augsburg confession, at Strasburg, and another of the Cal- 
vanist or Helvetic confession, at Montauban, under the academy of Tou- 
louse. 

The faculties of law are nine, at Aix, Caen, Dijon, Grenoble, Paris, Poi- 
tiers, Rennes, Strasburg, and Toulouse. There are three faculties of 
medicine, at Grenoble, Paris, and Montpellier; with seventeen secondary 
schools of medicine. . 

The faculties of science are nine in number, at Paris, Bordeaux, Stras- 
burg, Caen, Toulouse, Montpellier, Dijon, Lyons, and Grenoble; those ot 
letters or literature, seven, at Paris, Strasburg, Bordeaux, Toulouse Ca- 
en, Dijoa, and Besangon. 



PUBLIC raSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 393 

In order to become a student in law or theology, a person must have 
taken the degree of bachelor of letters ; and a course of three years in 
either faculty, is requisite to obtain the degree of bachelor; for the de- 
gree of doctor, four years; and to obtain the degree of doctor in divi lity, 
the candidate must defend a final and general thesis. Candid.ites tor 
the degree of doctor in medicine, must have taken the degree of biiche- 
lor of letters, and also of sciences, and must complete a course of four 
years. The faculties of law and medicine at Paris, are greatly distin- 
guished. The former has sixteen professors, and had, in 1836, upward 
of 3000 students: the latter, twenty-seven professors, and in 1836, about 
4000 students. 

The law ordains at least one elementary school in every commune, and 
those communes in which the population exceeds 6000, are required to 
support one superior primary school, and are aided in opening infant 
schools, evening schools, classes for adults, and high schools. 

Where the number of lamilies of ditierent sects is sulficient, the mini.s- 
ister of public instruction is aulliorized to grant permission, if advisable 
so to do, 10 the commune to establish separate schools for the children of 
each denomination. 

By a law passed in March, 1841, the duty of school attendance is made 
obligatory. No young person below the age of twelve years can be em- 
ployed in any workshop or manufactory, unless his parents or guardians 
testify that he actually attends some public or private school within the 
locality, and all such as were so employed at the dale of this law, were 
required to attend school till the age of twelve. All young persons above 
the age of twelve can be excused from attending a school, only in case a 
certificate can be given by the Mayor of their place of resi.lence, that 
they have received the primary or elementary instruction. To meet the 
wants of those adults, who have grown up without the advantages of 
school attendance, evening schools, and classes for aduUs, are establish- 
ed and provided for, by law. 

The central government, the departmental authorities, the municipal 
authorities, the religious authorities, the heads of tamilies, have each their 
sphere of action, and their influence in the administration of primary 
scliools. 

The local management of a primary school is intrusted to a committee 
of the commune, consisting of the mayor, the president of the council, 
the cure, or pastor, and one person appointed by the committee of the 
arrondissement in which the commune is situated. 

The general supervision of the schools of each arrondissement is as- 
signed to a committee of the arrondissement, which consists of the mayor 
of the chief town, of the jnge de pai:r, a pastor of each of the recognised 
religious sects, a professor of a college, or school of secondary instruction, 
a primary schoolmaster, three members of the council of tlie arrondisse- 
ment, and the members of the council-general of the department who 
reside in the arrondissement. 

These committees meet once a month. The communal committees 
inspect and report the condition of the schools in the commune to the 
committee of the arrondissement. Some member of the committee of the 
arrondissement is present at each local inspection, and a report of the 
whole committee on the state of education in the arrondissement is made 
annually to the minister of public instruction. 

In each department there is a commission of primary education, com- 
posed of at least seven members, among which there must be a minister 
of each of the religious denominations recognized by law, and at least 
three persons who are at the lime, or have been, engaged in t acbing 
public schools of secondary instruction. This committee is charged with 
the examination of all candidates for the certificate of qualification to 



394 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 



leach primary schools, or to enter the Normal School of the department. 
These examinations must be public, at a time fixed, and notified by the 
minister, and in the chief town of the department. The examination is 
varied according to the grade of school for which the candidate ap- 
plies. With a certificate of capacity from this commission, the candi- 
date can teach in any commune in the department, without any local 
examination. 

Besides these local committees the minister of public instruction ap- 
points an inspector for every department, with assistant inspectors, when 
required by the exigences of the public service. The duty of the inspec- 
tor is to visit every school in the department, at least once a year, and to 
inquire into tlie state of the school-house, the classification, moral charac- 
ter, and methods of discipline and instruction of each school. He must 
leave a written memorandum of all deficiencies noted in his visit, for the 
use of the local committee, and report annually to the prefect of the 
department, and through liim to the minister. This stimulates and 
encourages teachers, as well as communes, and informs the minister of the 
true wants of difi'erent localities, as well as the deficiencies of the law. 
The inspectors are required to pay particular attention to the Normal 
Schools in their several departments. The inspector has a salary of two 
thousand francs, and an allowance of three francs a day for traveling 
expenses, and one franc for every school visited. In 1843 there were 
eighty-seven inspectors, and one hundred and fourteen sub-inspectors ; 
and the number of conmiunes visited by them in that year, was 30,081, 
making 50,986 visits to schools. 

The resources of the state, the departments, the communes, and the 
contributions paid by parents, combine to insure the creation and main- 
tenance of the school. Every commune must provide a school-house 
and residence for the school-master, and to the first expense of this outfit, 
the state contributes one third. Every teacher must have a lodging, or 
its equivalent in money, and a fixed salary of 200 francs, or 400 francs, 
(from S40 to $80,) according to the grade of school, in addition to the 
monthly fees paid by parents, and collected by the commune. If the 
commune refuses, or neglects to provide by tax on the property of the 
commune, the government imposes and collects the same. If the com- 
mune, on account of poverty or disaster to crops or depression in business, 
can not raise its necessary sum, the department to which it belongs must 
provide it, and if the revenues of the department are not sufficient to sup- 
ply the deficiencies of all the communes, the deficit must be supplied by 
the Slate. In every department, the prefect and general-council, annually 
draw up in concert a special estimate in which the expense of primary 
instruction is fixed, and necessary revenue provided. In each commune, 
the Mayor and municipal council make a special estimate of the same 
kind ; and at the same time fix the monthly tuition-fee to be paid by each 
parent. 

Every department must by itself, or in concert with adjoining depart- 
ments, support a Normal School, to supply the annual demand for teach- 
ers of primary schools. The sum to be expended on a Normal School, 
for the salaries of teachers, apparatus, and bursaries, or scholarships in aid 
of poor pupils, is not left with the department to fix, but is regulated by 
the council of public instruction. The salary of the Director is borne by 
the state and department combined; that of the assistant teachers by the 
department. The expense of the normal pupils for board is borne by 
themselves, unless they enjoy an exhibition or scholarship, founded by the 
state, department, university, commune, or by individual benevolence. 
The scholarships are sometimes divided so as to meet, in part, the expense 
of two or three pupils. In 1846, there were ninety-two Normal Schools, 
seventy-six of which were for the education of schoolmasters, and sixteen 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. ggg 

for the educatbn of schoolmistresses. To fifty-two of these schools 
enough land is attached to teach agriculture and horticulture. 

The course of instruction in these elementary schools, embraces Moral 
and Religious Instruction, Reading. Writing, the elements of Arithmetic, 
elements of the French Language, legal system of Weights and Meas- 
ures, Geographyr (particularly of France,) History, (particularly of 
France,) Linear Drawing, and Singing. In the superior primary schools, 
or High School, the above course is extended so as to embrace Modern 
Languages. Book-keeping, Perspective Drawing, Chemistry, and the 
Mathematics, in their application to the arts. There is a special course 
of instruction open in evening schools, to those children and youth who 
can not attend the day school ; and in evening clas.ses for adults, whose 
early education was neglected, or who may wish to pursue particular 
studies connected with their pursuits as artizans, manufacturers, and 
master-workmen. 

Provision is made to encourage teachers to form associations, and to 
hold frequent conferences for improvement in their professional knowl- 
edge and skill, and to found libraries of books on education. 

In each department a fund is accumulating for the relief of aged teach- 
ers, and of the widows and children of teachers, who die in the exercise 
of their important functions. Each master must subscribe one twenti- 
eth part of the salary he receives from the commune ; and the sum-total 
which he subscribes, together with the interest upon it, is returned to 
him when he retires, or to his widow and children, when he dies. 

The government awards medals of silver and bronze to those masters 
who distinguish themselves in the management of their schools. This 
encourages and stimulates them to continued efforts, and connects them 
in an honorable way, with the government and the nation. 

The whole charge to the State of the department of public instruction, 
according to the Budget of 1838, was 19,005,673 francs, or nearly $4,000^ 
000, which was distributed as follows : 

Francs. 

Central Administration, 686 623 

General Services, 238,000 

Department and Academic Administration, 919.900 

Superior Instruction, faculties, 1,9*2 0.50 

Secondary Instruction, 1,655.600 

Elementary Instruction, general fund, 1,600.000 

do. do. additional, 3,500.000 

Primary Normal School, ' 200^000 

Literary and Scientific establishments, 7,676.500 

Subscriptions to Literary Works, &c 557,000 

Total, 19.005,673' 

or $3,800,354. 

This does not include the sum to be raised in the departments and com- 
munes, or contributed by parents. 

From the reports of the Minister of Public Instruction, for 1843, it 
appears that in the ten years, from 1833 to 1843. France expended the 
sum of X 2,.565,883 (about $1L000,000.) on the erection of school-houses, 
and residences for teachers. In 1843, the expenditure for the current 
expenses of her educational establishments was a little short of $4,000,000, 
independent of the sum paid by the communes, individuals, and parents in 
school fees, which amount to near S5,000,000. Even this sum was found 
insufficient, and since that date the appropriation has been increased. In 
1833 there was one person in every eighteen of the population, receiving 
education, while in 1843, there was one in every ten. But the primary 
schools are far from reaching the excellence which characterizes the ele- 



396 



PTTBLIC INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 



mentary schools of Germany. Much is yet to be done to carry out the 

liberal provision of tlie law. 

In a late Report. (1849.) on the state of common school instruction in 
Germany, to the President of the Society for Elementary Instruction in 
France, by A. Hennequin, late inspecteur d'academie, the following 
five questions are all answered in the affirmative, by the' author: 

Is the in.spection of schools better practised in Germany than in France? 

Aie the common schools in Germany superior to ours ? 

Are the people in Germany belter instructed than in France ? 

Are the German teachens superior to the French teachers .' 

Are the methods of instruction in Germany belter than ours? 

A volume of 756 pages was published at Breslau, in 1848, by L. Hahn, 
on the schools and school-system of France. The author has resided 
many years in Paris, as a teacher, and has had access to the latest offi- 
cial information. Altiiough much has been done since 1833, to improve 
the prmiary schools, the author thinks that their condition in respect to 
school-houses, attendance of children, universality and quality of instruc- 
tion given, and the qualifications, social and pecuniary position of the 
teachers, is far behind that of the same grade of schools in Germany. 
The Normal Schools are accomplishing much good, but they have not 
been able yet to supply a majority of the communes with well-trained 
teachers. The Normal Schools at Versailles, and Strasbourg, are pro- 
nounced the best in France, and the latter especially, is regarded as mak- 
ing the nearest approach to the best teachers' seminaries in Germany 

The following tables will e.xhibit the workmg of this great system of 
public instruction in several important particulars. 

TABLK I. 

EXHIBITING THE NUMBER OF SCHOOLS EMBRACED IN THE UNIVERSITY OF FRANCE IN IS37. 




Aix, . . . . 
Amiens, . . 
Angers, . . 
jBesancop, . 
Bordeaux, . 
Boiirges, . . 
Caen, . . . . 
Cahors, . , 
Clermont, . 
Dijon, . . . 
Donai, . . . 
Grenoble, . 
Limoge.s, . . 
Lvons, . . . 
Metz, . . . . 
Montpelier, 
Nancy, . . . 
Nimes, . . . 
Orleans, . . 
Paris, . . . . 
Pan, . . . . 
Poictiers, . . 
Rennes, . . 
Rouen, . . . 
Strasburg, . 
Toulouse, . 



a 




F 


— s 




oi:'' 


t 


^a 


1 


1 


3 


1 


3 


1 


3 


1 


3 


1 


3 


1 


3 


1 


3 


2 


4 


3 


3 


I 


2 


1 


3 


1 


3 


1 


3 


1 


2 


1 


4 


2 


3 


1 


4 


3 


3 


2 


7 


7 


3 




4 




5 


3 


2 




2 




4 




86 


~4I 



1 


II 


lyOT 




.1 


14 


160 


230 


~T6 


-1, 


12 


121 


180 


10 


2 


12 118 


110 


18 


1 


12 110 


160 


15 


2 


13 170 


120 




5 


12 129 


120 


9 


1 


15 212 


290 


16 


1 


22 90 


160 


9 


1 


42 287 


292 


12 




13 88 


150 


20 





12 131 


110 


21 


6 


14 133 


141 


7 


4 


111 88 


220 


9 


5 


20 276 


2(54 


6 


10 


15 100 


240 


5 


1 


23 199 


256 


17 


2 


14 110 


260 


15 




39 3i;5 


226 


10 


2 


24 241 


286 


5 


3' 


180 1629 


3324 


19 


77, 


12, 57 


90 


10 


1[ 


15 130 


201 


14 


4! 


33 346 


407 


18 


3 


17. 164 


491 


9 


3 


14 121 


203 


12 


1I 


15 112 


239 


9 


6 


626 


5779 


8870 


318 


1461 



41 
50 
17 
21 
54 
21 
25 
47 
30 
36 
4:5 
25 
18 
52 
26 
36 
25 
26 
31 
251 
32 
34 
35 
68 
15 
55 



1,6.59 
2,697 
1,212 
1,671 
1,209 
532 
2,340 
1.451 

i;i2i 

1,855 
2,643 
1,120 

264 
1,470 
1.541 
1,766 
2 444 
1,594 

730 
4,203 
1,734 
1,536 

941 
1,712 
1.543 
1,327 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 



397 



TABLE II. 

SHOWING THE CONDITION OP PRIMARY EDnOATION IN THE DIFFERENT COMMUNES, IN 1843. 

Number of arrondissemen'ts 363 

Number ol' communes 37,038 

Population 34,230 178 

Number of communes provided with a primary school .... 34,578 

Population of ihe communes provided with primary schools . . 33,080,002 
Number of communes not yet provided with a primary school . . 2 4G0 

Population of the communes not yet provided M-ith primary schools 1,150,176 
Number of communes who require several primary schools, and 

who possess only one 23 

Number of communes who are required by law to support one supe- 
rior primary school • • 290 

Number of communes who ought to support superior primary 

schools, and who do suppoit them ^ 222 

Population of these communes 4,177,047 

Number of communes who ought to support several superior prima- 
ry schools, and who support only one 23 

Number of communes who are not required bylaw to support a 

superior primary school, and who do support one 103 

Total numherof primary schools, elementary and superior, for bo)'s 

and girls, established in France in 1843 59,838 

Total number of primary schools in the 86 departments of France, 

visited in 1843 by the 87 inspectors and 113 sub-inspectors . 50 936 

In addition to these schools for the youth there ought to be added 6,434 class- 
es for the laborers, which are conducted by the primary school teachers in the 
evenings, after the dav's woik, or on the Sunday, and in^which 95,064 adult 
laborers received instruction in 1843 ; and also a greatnumber of infant schools 
which have been recenilv opened in the departments, and which are receiving 
great encouragement and attention from the Government. 

TABLE III. 

SHOWING THE NUMBER OF PRIMARY SCHOOLS BELONGINQ TO THE DIFFERENT SECTS. 



Primary scnools spe 
cially set apart for 
the Roman Catholics 



Primary schools spe- 
cially set apart for 
the Protestants . . 



Primary schools spe- 
cially set apart for the 
Jews 



Mixed schools open 
for all three sects 



■ Public schools 



Private schools 



f Public schools 



Private schools 



'Public schools 



Private schools 



C Public schools 
(^Private schools 



S Boys 
I Girls 

5 Boys 
\ Girls 



{ Boys 
I Girls 

5B0VS 
) Girls 



SBoys 
Girls 

(Boys 
\ Girls 



33 207 
7,660 

7,098 
8,847 



702 
59 

163 
156 



5 Boys . 
) Girls . 



948 
10' 



Boys 
Girls 



326 
450 



[ 1,831 



I 1,055 

I 776 
Total number of Primary Schools in France, in 1843, . ; 59,838 



j 40,867 
j 15,945 

761 
39 

37 



► 56,812 



1,080 



115 



3^8 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 

The number of the Roman Catholic population of France being 33,050,178, 
it follows, (see Table I.,) that in 1843, there was one primary school for every 
581 Roman Catholics. 

'I'he number of the Protestant population of France being 1,000,000, it fol- 
lows, that in 1843, there was one primary shool for every 1,018 Protestants. 
The reason why the proportion of schools for the Protestants to their numbers 
is so small is, that very many of this sect attend the mixed schools. 

The number of Jews being 80,000, it follows, that there was one school for 
every 695 Jews. 

TABLE IV. 

SBOWINO THE NUMBKR OF CHILDREN IN ATTENDANCE AT THE PRIMART SCHOOM Or 
FRANCE, IN 1843. 

Number of Scholars at the Public Elementary Primary 
Schools for Boys, 

Directed by Lay Schoolmasters, 1,699,586 ) 

" " Schoolmasters, members of Religious > 1,857,017 

Societies 157,431 1 



Number of Scholars at the Public Superior Primary 
Schools for Boys, 
Directed by Lay Schoolmasters, ..,,... 15,092 

" " Schoolmasters, members of Religious So- ^ 15,448 

cieties, , . , . 356 

Number of Scholars at the Public Schools for Gjjls, 

Directed by L,s(f Schoolmistresses, 230,213 

" " Schoolmistresses, members of Religious ^ 534,960 

Societies, 304,747 



Number of Scholars at the Private Elementary Primary 
Schools for Boys, 

Directed by Lay Schoolmasters 230,383 

" " Schoolmasters, members of Religious So- J- 272,935 

cieties, 42,r ' 



[),383 i 
2,5523 



Number of Scholars at the Private Superior Primary 
Schools for Boys, 

Directed by Lay Schoolmasters 3,469 

" " Schoolmasters, members of Religious So- ^ 4,272 

cieties, 803 

Number of Scholars at the Private Primary Schools for 
Girls, 

Directed by Lay Schoolmistrfcses, 278,637 

" " Schoolmistresses, members of Religious ^ 479,665 

Societies 201,"" 



Total number of Scholars at all the Primary Schools, 

Directed by Lay Schoolmasters or Schoolmistresses, 2,457,380 

" " Schoolmasters or Schoolmistresses, mem» ^ 3,164,297 

bers of Religious Societies, .... 706,1 



3,637 > 
1,028) 

7,380) 

> 3,164,S 
5,917) 



Total number of children attending the Primary Schools in 1843, 3,164,297 

Total number of children admitted gratuitously into the Com- 
munal Schools in 1843 763,820 

Total number of children who paid something monthly for their 

education in 1843, 2,400,447 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 



399 



TABLE V. 

SBOWINB THK NUMBER AND CONDITION OF TUB CLA.SSES FOR ADULTS, FOR TOUNO OIRLS, 
AND FOR YOUNO APPRENTICES IN FRANCE, IN 1843. 

Number of classes for Adults, 6,434 

" " " Young Girls, 160 

" " " Apprentices, 36 

Number of Infant Schools, 

Public, 685 > g 

Private, 804 J ^'^°^ 

Number of Scholars, 

In the classes for Adults 95,064^ 

" Young Girls 5,908 I ,^.09 

" Schools for Apprentices, 1,268 f ^'^j*^'^ 

" Infant Schools, 96, 192 J 

Number of communes in which there are Adult Classes, . 6,043 
Number of Adult Classes, 

for Men, 6,266 

" Women, 168 

Number of persons who frequent them, 

for Men, : 9,451 

" Women, :..:..: 4,613 

Number of Classes directed by 

Schoolmasters belonging to a Religious Society, . 125 

Schoolmistresses, " " " " 51 

Number of Adult Classes in which are taught 

Moral and Religious Instruction 3,331 

Reading, 5,035 

Writing, 4,483 

Arithmetic, 4,456 

System of Weights and Measures, 3,857 

Linear Drawing, 271 

Vocal Music, 107 

Resources of these Classes, 

Sums furnished by the Communes, 136,836 ) Frano. 

" " " Departments, 38,350 S- 201,886 

« " " State, 26,700) 

TABLE VI. 

SHOWING THE NUMBER AND COURSE OF INSTRUCTION IN THE NORMAL SCHOOLS OF 
FRANCE, IN 1843. 

Number of Normal Schools thoroughly organized, 78 

Number to which a garden is joined for the purpose of teaching the 

pupils the culture of trees, , 52 

Number of Professors in these schools, . . 495 

" " including the Directors 573 

Number of hours devoted weekly to the different branches 

of education : l,t Ye»r. 2d Year. 3d Year. 

Moral and Religious Instruction 2$ 2i 2i 

Reading, 3{ 3 2 

Writing 44 4i 4 

Study of the French Language 6 5i i\ 

History and Geography, 3i 4^ 3^ 

Arithmetic, • 5 3j 3 

Use of the Globes, 2 2i 2 

Elements of Practical Geometry, 4 SJ 3j 

Elements of Physics and Natural History, . . . 2i 2| 3i 

" Mechanics, 2 2i 3 

Surveying 2 2i 3 

Linear Drawing, 3j 4 4j 

Methods of teaching, l| If 2f 

Vocal Music 3i 3i Sj 

Civil Law, 2 IJ U 

Culture of Trees, : . If H U 



400 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 

TABLE VII. 

SHOWING THE STATB OF SECONDARY EDUCATION IN 1843, 

Number of Colleges. Royal, ::::::::::: 4f) ) 

" " Communal, ::::::::. 312 J ^^^ 

Number of Scholars in Colleges ::::.... 44091 

Number ol' Institutions of Secondary Education, ::::.... 102 

" Boarding Schools " " ::::.... 914 

" Private Establishments " " 1,016 

" Public and Private " " « 2|390 

Number of Scholars in the Institutions -which follow the 

course of a College, 6,066) 

Number of Scholars in the Institutions which do not fol- > 3l,3lG 

low the course of a College, 25,250) 

Number of Secondary Pupils, 69,341 

Population of the Departments, 1842, 34,194,875 

Proportion in each Department between the population and the 
total number of establishments of Secondary Educa- 
tion, 1 estab. for 24,887 

Number of Scholars in establishments of Secondary Educa- 
tion, 1 " " 493 

Number of Young Men between eight and eighteen in each De- 
partment, 3,182,397 

Proportion between the total number of Young Men between 
eight and eighteen, and the total number of pupils in Secon- 
dary Establishments in each Department, . 1 school for 45 ycung men. 



CONDITION OF PRIMARY INSTRUCTION 



DEPARTMENT OF TARN, DURING THE SCHOOL YEAR 1^9-50. 



The most satisfactory insight into the practical working and actual 
results of a school system, can be obtained, not by looking to any gen- 
eral summary applicable to the whole State, but to the operations in 
detail, of a particular school, or of the schools of a neighborhood, or of 
some of the larger and yet subordinate divisions of the State. For this 
purpose we select for publication a report on the condition of primary 
education, by M. A. Domergue, the governmental inspector for the de- 
partment of Tarn — one of the 86 territorial and civil divisions of the 
State. Tarn belongs to the old province of Languedoc. and in 1850 
had a population of 330,000, distributed through 79 arrondisements, 20 
cantons, and 300 communes. In 1828, when M. Charles Dupin projected 
his intellectual map of France, the department of Tarn was represented 
by a black spot, to indicate its low state as to schools and education. 
The report does not cover the whole ground, but shows the progress 
which has been made in one of the most backward portions of France 
since the new system went into operation. 

Primary instruction includes the elementary and superior, the commimal and 
private schools. Some of these are attended exclusively by boys, some by girls, 
and some by infants, while others are common* schools ; that is, attended by both 
boys and girls. There are also classes for adults, a primaiy normal school for 
masters, and another for schoolmistresses. 

B0Y6' SCHOOLS. 

There are altogether in the department 309 communal and 40 private schools. 
This gives a total increase of 8 schools over the year 1848. But there have been 
at the same time an increase of communal and a decrease of private schools. This 
result is doubly advantageous ; for, with few exceptions, the public schools are 
superior to private schools, both as regards instruction and discipline. 

With respect to the mode of instruction, the 349 boys' schools are thus divi- 
ded : — Schools directed according to the mutual mode, 12 ; simulUmeous, 261 ; 
individual, 21 •, rnixedf mode, 55 ; total, 349. This last mode is the best that can 
be employed in the schools which have more than 50 pupils ; it demands, on the 
part of the master, indefatigable zeal, but it gives, in exchange, most beneficial 
results. 

There are 314 schools exclusively devoted to Roman Catholics, and 18 to Pro- 
testants, whilst 17 schools receive children belonging to both. The directors of 
these IT schools are all Roman Catholics. 

Civil State of the Teachers. — Of the 349 instructors, 336 are laymen, and 13 
belong to religious societies. There are also employed in the schools 49 assistant- 
brothers. Of the 336 lay teachers, 117 are bachelors, 196 are married, and 23 
are widowers. 

♦Schools where boys and girls are taiijiht together, are generally termed in this country 
mixed schools. Common schools are public schools in our school nomenclature. 
tThis is a combination of the mutual and the simultaneous. 

26 



402 PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN THE DEPARTMENT OF TARN. 

Number of Pupils, ^c. — The communal schools receive 11,882 boys; the 
private schools, 1,981 ; in. all, 13,863. If to this number we add 217 boys who 
attend the common schools, we shall have a total of 14,080 boys, thus showing an 
increase of 807 over the year 1848. 

Besides the 13,863 boys admitted into the 349 schools, there are also taught, 
by the masters of the common schools, 1,234 girls. 

Of the 14,080 boys, 7,943 pay a school fee, which varies from fivepence to 
twenty pence a month; 6,137 are instructed gratuitously. The number of gra- 
tuitous pupils it is hoped will increase ; for the 24th article of the law of the I3th 
March, 1850, states that '■'■primary instruction ought to be given gratuitously to 
all children of those families ivho are not in a condition to pay for such in- 
struction." 

Moral and Political Conduct of the Teachers. — The conduct of our instruc- 
toi's is generally very good. With some exceptions, happily few in number, they 
have all learned that they ought to confine themselves exclusively to the discharge 
of the duties belonging to their profession, and not to engage in political or mu- 
nicipal discussions. 

We can not speak so satisfactorily of the capacity of our teachers. Besides 
those who have been educated at the Normal School, and whose schools are of a 
superior order, there are a hundred instructors who were breveted immediately 
after the promulgation of the law of June 28th, 1833. These know, in general, 
very little ; they are ignorant of good methods of teaching, and- their schools are 
conducted with little order and regularity. But they have rendered services, and 
although they are not at the top of their profession, yet it would be unjust to 
hurry on their superannuation.* The law which assures to instructors a mini- 
mum salary of 600 ft-ancs ($125,) will enable us to demand of them more zeal 
and assiduity. They will not require to seek, in labors foreign to their profession, 
an increase of pay to assure the daily existence of themselves and their families. 
But 19-20ths of the instructors of this department will not be able to claim more 
than the fixed minimum allowance. It is to be regretted that we can not, by 
means of salaries increasing progressively in proportion to the services performed, 
excite the emulation of teachers and establish a system of promotion advantageous 
to the cause of education. 

girls' schools. 

There are in the department 54 communal and 163 private schoolmistresses, 
Tlie increase on 1848 is 18 in number. 

The communal schools receive 3,669, and the private schools 5,662 pupils; in 
all 9,331. When compared with the numbers attending school in 1848, there is 
a decrease of 151 pupils. If we add to the above number 1,234 girls who are 
taught in the common schools, we shall have a total number of 10,565 girls re- 
ceiving elementary instruction. 

Of the 9,331 who are taught by schoolmistresses, 6,674 pay, and 2,657 are 
educated gratuitously. 

Of the 1,234 who attend the conunon schools,! 941 pay, and 293 receive gra- 
tuitous instruction. 

The communal masters alone receive pupils who pay nothing ; the private 
teachers receive none. All the schoolmistresses, on the contrary, whether com- 
munal or private, admit gratuitously a great number of children. 

There is no need to direct your attention to the fact, that the zeal and the devo- 
tion of our schoolmistresses are not sufficiently recompensed. Every one is fully 
convinced of the salutary influence which the education of females exercises upon 
the morality of a country. We ought, therefore, to find some means of properly 
rewarding our schoolmistresses for the eminent services which they have rendered, 
ft is necessary, above all, to encourage the establishment of girls' schools, in order 
to diminish, as much as possible, the number of mixed schools, which, in spite of 
the most careful superintendence, present results most unfavorable. As a proof 
of the low estimation in which these mixed schools are held, take the following 
facts: --In those communes which possess a girW school, the mean number of 

* By a recent law a retiring pension is granted to teachers in proportion to their length of 
service, 
t These common or mixed schools are conducted by masters. 



PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN THE DEPARTMENT OF TARN. 403 

pupils attending is 64 per commune; whereas, in the communes having no girls' 
school, but, on the contrary, a toys' school open to girls, the mean number is re- 
duced to nine. 

There are 189 communes entirely without schoolmistresses; that is to say, in 
189 communes of the department the girls are either wholly deprived of instruc- 
tion, or receive an education which, from being given by a man, is not at all in 
harmony with the duties imposed upon the sex by society. 

From these considerations, I have the honor of proposing to you to ask of the 
general council the sum of 2000 francs, to be appropriated thus — ^1000 francs 
among private schoolmistresses, many of whom find it difficult to live, and 1000 
francs to be divided among the poorest of the communes which shall make sacri- 
fices to establish communal schoi>ls for girls.* 

Children attending the Schools. — Out of 1000 inhabitants, 68 children, on an 
averag.-, attend the primary schools. In 1839, there were only 55 out of 1000 : 
the progress, then, is real. We are, however, below the average which, for the 
whole of France, is about 92 in 1000; while some of the departments, such a.s 
that of Doubs, count 176 pupils out of every 1000 inhabitants. The number of 
children between 6 and 14 years of age, who do not aetuallj' attend the primary 
schools, may be reckoned at 20,000. JVIany of these have already left school, 
carrying with them notions the most imperfect, which they will very soon com- 
pletely forget. The great majority are condemned to absolute ignorance. 

School Houses. — The law of 28th June, 1833, compels communes to provide 
suitable buildings which shall serve both as school-rooms for the children, and 
dwelling-houses for the masters. The law of 15th March, 1850, has preserved 
this obligation. Communes are also advised to become the owners of school- 
houses ; and in 1848 they possessed 86 school-houses, while at the present day 
they have 99. About 15 new school-houses may be reckoned which shall be 
completed during the next year. Every where, in the course of my inspection, 
I have ascertained that the places rented by the comrnunes to serve as schools 
and teachers'' residences are unhealthy .^ badly ventilated, insufficiently Lighted.^ 
inconvenient., and inadequate; v:hilst some are in a completely dilapidated 
condition. 

Purchase of Books for the Poor. — Rural schools are entirely without good 
books. Poverty prevents many parents from purchasing such books as are neces- 
sary for their children, or it makes them select, not those which the teacher indi- 
cates to them, but those which itinerant booksellers sell them at a very small cost. 
Serious inconveniences result from this state of things. I believe that it is neces- 
sary to provide in the budget a grant of 500 francs for the purchase of books for 
poor scholars. 

Assistance to Old and Jnfirm Teachers. — The aged instructors have spent 
their strength in the career of primary instruction- — an office, up to the present 
time, so badly remunerated. They are now worn out, and will suffer all the hor- 
rors of poverty, unless the department render them assistance. I solicit for them 
an allowance of 500 francs. This sum will annually diminish, and, finally, will 
disappear from the departmental budget; since the new law in reference to educa» 
lion assures to instructors a retiring pension in proportion to a duration of their 
services. 

Infant Schools. — -The department contains 9 infant schools for boys and girls, 
containing a total of 1001 children. 

Normal School. — The excellent condition of this establishment continues to 
deser\ e the praises which have been bestowed on it by the general council of the 
department, the academic authorities, and the general Inspectors of the Uni- 
versity. 

The satisfactory results which it is permitted me to state, are owing to the un- 
bouuiled devotion and untiring zeal of the director of the school ; to the strict 
discipline which he maintains with vigor ; to his constant presence at all the ex- 
ercises of the house ; to the religious punctuality which is every where manifest, 
an'd which is the best precept on order and regularity which it is possible to give 
to our future instructors. 

* Every commune is obliserl by law to support at least one primary school, either of ita 
own, or in conjunction with neighboring communes. 



404 PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN THE DEPARTMENT OF TARN. 

The normal school has rendered immense service to the country : it has given 
us our best instructors ; it has raised, to a considerable extent, the love of popular 
instruction ; thanks to it, above all, should M. Charles Dupin trace out again the 
intellectual map of France, we shall behold the black spot disappear by which 
the illustrious statistician had stigmatized the department of Tarn. 

Since 1833 the normal school has produced 174 instructors; of these 120 are 
communal teachers, and 9 are about to become so ; 1 is assistant master in the 
normal school ; 3 are private instructors ; 27 have left the profession ; 14 have 
died in the exercise of their duties ; total 174 who have obtained their brevet on 
leaving the school. 

The teachers who have come from the normal school are infinitely superior to 
their colleagues. They are superior by their capacity — by their faithful observ- 
ances of rules — and, almost always, by their zeal, and by their conduct towards 
the local authorities and the heads of families. In the course of my inspections, 
I have been constantly struck with the marked difference which exists between 
the teachers who have been educated at a normal school and those who have 
not been in any special way prepared for the duties of instruction. People par- 
take of my convictions, in this respect ; and normal students are always chosen, 
in preference to other candidates, by local committees and municipal councils. 

Normal School for Females. — The opinion which I have formerly expressed 
of the importance which I attach to the good education of girls, will, I trust, be 
sufficient to make you appreciate the strong desire which I have for the contin- 
uance of exhibitions for female candidates. The normal school is in excellent 
condition, and the results obtained are satisfactory. At the last examination, out 
of 13 who presented themselves, 3 were breveted with the numbers 2, 4, and 6. 

Such is a faithful and impartial account of the state of primary instruction in 
the department of Tarn. I have endeavored to give, by figures obtained from 
authentic sources, the results due to the law of 28th June, 1833, and at the same 
time to establish the starting-point of the law of 15th March, 1850; so that it 
may be easy, at a later period, to estimate the benefits which the department may 
have derived from it. 



N> 



SCHOOLS AND INSTITUTIONS 



SPECIAL INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 

In addition to tlie regular institutions for primary, secondary, and 
superior instruction, which belong to the supervision of the Minister of 
Public Instruction, there are a number of schools of the class prepara- 
tory for the pursuits of life, which are assigned by law to other depart- 
ments of the government. The Polytechnic School, the Military School 
of St. Cyr, and the Military College of Fleche, are assigned to the Min- 
ister of War ; the School of Roads and Bridges, the two Schools of 
Mines, one at Paris and the other at St. Etienne, to the Minister of 
Public Works ; the Model Farm Schools, the' District Schools of Agri- 
culture, and the National Agronomic Institute at Versailles, the School 
of Arts and Manufactures at Paris, Chalons, Angers, and Aix, to the 
Minister of Agriculture and Commerce ; the Naval Schools at Brest 
and L'Orient, to the Minister of the Marine ; the Conservatory of Arts 
and Manufactures, and of Music, to the Minister of the Interior. These 
schools properly belong to the division of superior instruction, which is 
not embraced, except in a general view, in the plan of this Report, but 
as they are intended to complete the course of studies begun in the 
higher schools and academies of our systems of public instruction, and 
as they furnish useful hints, both as to studies and their applications, 
for similar institutions in this country, whether public or private, an ac- 
count of several of the most important of this class, will be given. 

France is better supplied with schools of special instruction and vol- 
untary and incorporated societies for the promotion of literature, science, 
and the arts, as well as with various forms of active philanthrophy, than 
any other country in Europe. The stimulus given to the universal 
mind of France, by the political revolutions which have changed the 
whole face of modern society, while it has made elementary education 
more general and active, has also given progress to higher studies, and 
great scientific undertakings. 

In addition to 36 learned societies in Paris, recognized and aided by 
governmental grants — besides a multitude of others unchartered and 
but little known either to one another, or the public — there were in 
1851. in the departments of France 189 learned societies, besides twelve 
archeological commissions, seventy-eight agricultural associations, and 
seven hundred commercial societies, to promote the application of science 
to industry. These associations generally feel the impulse described by 
Lamartine in his address to his colleagues of the Academy of Literature 
and Science at Maqon : " You have felt, gentlemen, that knowledge is 



406 SPECIAL INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 

yours only on the condition that you diffuse it ; and to raise tlie low, is to 
elevate the high. Around you all is progressing. Will you stand 
alone? Will you suffer yourselves to be overtaken? No; men of leisure 
or rather workmen — workmen of thought and science, it is for us to be 
the first to participate in the movement. In a state of civilization where 
intelligence gives power, rank is maintained only by the maintenance of 
moral superiority ; when the intellectual order is deranged, disorder is 
not far off." 

There were in 1850. one hundred and sixty-six towns in France, in 
which there were public libraries, containing 5,510,295 volumes ; of these 
libraries, one hundred and nine contained over 10,000 volumes each. 

The following summary of the grants comprised in the French Budget 
of 1847, as voted by the chambers, exhibits the comprehensive charac- 
ter of the aid extended by the government to educational, literary, sci- 
entific, and artistic purposes. 

A. — In the Department of Public Instruction. 
I. Central Administration and to aid institutions of special 
instruction, such as schools for idiots, the blind deaf 

mutes, &c., $112,000 

II. University of France — including schools of primary, sec- 
ondary, and superior education, . . . . . 2,800,000 
III. Literature and science — including libraries in Paris and 
the provinces, museums of natural history, the insti- 
tute of France, &c., 600,000 

B. — In the Department of the Interior. 
Schools of design, and the fine arts, .... 450,000 

C. — In the Department of Public Works. 
Buildings connected with science, and the arts, . . 100,000 

$4,062,000 
The above sum is exclusive of special grants in aid of schools of ag- 
riculture, commerce, and manufactures, or of charitable institutions in 
which agricultural and mechanical instruction was given, or of expendi- 
tures fof the galleries of the Louvre, Luxembourg, and Versailles ; 
amounting to at least another million. 

The following survey of the Industrial Instruction of France is 
abridged from an article in the Retae des deux mondes, for 1851, by A. 
Amphori, entitled, " The intellectual movement among the working 
classes." 

In the scheme of institutions devoted to this special instruction, the fii-st rank 
belong to the conservatory of arts and trades at Paris. This great establishment 
performs a twofold duty ; it collects models, designs or descriptions of machines, 
instruments, apparatus, and mechanical tools, and gives public lessons upon the math- 
ematical and physical sciences as applied in the arts. The first idea of the conser- 
vatory was conceived in the reign of Louis XVL, by a famous mechanic, who 
seemed to have even drawn from the very sources of life, wherewith to gift his 
marvellous mechanisms. The idea of V^aucanson, legislated upon in the year III. of 
(1794,) the revolutionary era, was not realized until the year VJ. (1796.) Since 
that time, the conservatory has followed the developments of the national industry ; 



SPECIAL INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. ^Qfj 

and its methods of action have been increased in number, with reference to its 
double purpose. It now includes four departments ; the collections of machines, 
&c., a technological library, a department for liigher instruction, and a small prac- 
tical elementary school.* 

The galleries filled with precious material treasures, form what may be called 
the archives of the industrial arts. These collections are annually increased, and 
now fill thirteen gallt^'ies. 

The department of higher instruction was established about the commencement 
of the restoration. Up to 1817, there had been at the conservatory only a designer 
and three demonstrators, who gave advice and explanations to those who come to 
ask for them. These accommodations, however, remained nearly useless to the 
public. The regular courses were of more value, as also were those commenced 
in 1819, upon geometry applied to the arts, industrial chemi.stry, and industrial 
economy. Besides these three chairs, others were erected, under the govern- 
ment of July, of industrial mechanics, descriptive geometry, chemistry applied to 
the arts, industrial legislation, agriculture, and the ceramic arts. The situation of 
the institution in the midst of a populous neighborhood, furnishes to its lectures an 
auditory composed chiefly of working men. It is the merit of these lectures, that 
they are clear, simple, intelligible to all. and susceptible of immediate practical ap- 
plication. Theory is explained in close contact with practice. The workmen, 
eager to learn, crowd to these lessons ; they hasten thither from the worksliops 
every evening. A most fevorable indication is given by the admirable order which 
reigns throughout this audience in blouses, bestowed in an immense amphitheater, 
and often overcrowded. Every one is silent and attentive. There is no instance 
there of the indecorums so frequent in institutions giving a higher order of 
instruction. 

The library of the conservatory of arts and trades is appropriated to the mem- 
bers of the institution. It is distinguished by a fine collection of French and for- 
eign scientific works ; and contains much which may afford valuable information 
to practical men in the various branches of industrial art. The lower school, 
founded under the empire, may be regarded as a primary school of explained labor, 
(Industrie raisonnee.) Its three courses, of descriptive and elementary geometry, 
of mechanical and architectural design, and of industrial design, are attended by 
from a hundred and fifty to two hundred pupils. 

The conservatory of arts and trades, as at present constituted, contains very val- 
uable elements of industrial instruction. Workmen, foremen, chiefs of establish- 
ments, children of mechanics and laborers, come thither to obtain an instruction 
which shall enlighten their career of labor. 

The three schools of arts and trades, at Chalons, Angers, and Aix, dependent, 
like the conservatory, directly upon the State, are devoted more especially to prac- 
tical instruction. The eldest, that at Chalons, established for a little while at 
Compiegne, was erected by a decree of the consular government of the year XI. 
The second, created in 181 1, was placed by the imperial government at Beaupreau, 
in the middle of La Vendee, to become a new center of activity for that ignorant 
neighborhood. The third dates only from 1843. The schools of arts and trades 
are intended to train skillful workmen. Each of them is divided into four work- 
shops ; the blacksmiths', the foundry, the finishers', and the carpenters'. To the 
three establishments of Chalons, Angers, and Aix, are appropriated for 1851, 
.•$200,200 ; but deduct from this the sums received by paying scholars, and from 
the sale of articles manufactured, and the net expense to the treasury amounts only 
to about $120,000. 

Official estimates show that more than half the pupils leaving -go into business, 
as finishers, founders, blacksmiths, machinists, or carpenters. And numbers of 
the others are employed in the department of roads and bridges, as overseers or 
conductors; draftsmen in machine shops, or as architects. The schools of arts 
and bridges also contribute a remarkably large proportion of the machinists, &c., 
for the public steamers. Thus, within the last seven years, have been employed 
more than a hundred graduates of these schools, as foremen or firemen. As to 
the proportions of theory and practice in the instruction, it is enough to say that 



* The appropriation to the conservatory in 1851, was S30,000 ; «18,168 for salaries, and the 
remainder for other purposes. 



408 SPECIAL INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 

the pupils pass seven hours and a half daily in the workshops, and only five hours 
and a half daily in classes and in the apartments for design. The professors are 
rigorously obliged, in their lessons, to take the most usual point of view ; that from 
which the pupil can best see how to use the knowledge he acquires. Since the 
vote was substituted for ministerial selection of professors, two years since, the 
courses of instruction have been so arranged as to drop out jhose theoretical gen- 
tlemen who are unable to do what they teach. 

The principal advantage of these schools is not, in our opinion, the direct influ- 
ence which they exert upon the national industry. The two hundred and fifty 
pupils or thereabout vvlio leave them every year, are scarcely the thousandth part 
of the workmen who grow -up in France during the same time ; but the schools 
show a style of instruction which serves as a model for comparison. The pupils 
carry into private workshops theoretical knowledge which they could not acquire 
there, and which is most useful in the explanation of practical labor. Although 
yet imperfect workmen, they improve more rapidly than the others, and sooner 
become excellent foremen. Although we know that among some foreign nations, 
habits supply the place of institutions, among us, these schools will stimulate a little 
our untoward habits. They have another destination, of higher importance ; they 
may become seminaries of professors for the industrial instruction which the coun- 
try waits to see organized, and for which we are now endeavoring to prepare a 
way. Once improved by the practical training of the private workshops and manu- 
factories, the best pupils of these schools will become most useful in the develop- 
ment of this special instruction ; which needs a body of instructors adapted to its 
peculiar needs. 

An institution established at Paris, the central school of arts and manufactures, 
also helps the accomplishment of this same work. The similar nature of its in- 
structions alone justifies the assistance granted it by government, which confers 
upon it a sort of public character.* During an existence of twenty years, the cen- 
tral school has fully justified the expectations of its founders, it is devoted to the 
education of civil engineers, directors of machine-shops, and chiefs of manufacto- 
ries. Besides the four principal courses studied, the mechanic arts, the chemical 
arts, metuUurgy and architecture, it instructs its pupils in all the pursuits of indus- 
trial labor. Since chemistry has left laboratories to enter workshops and to per- 
fect there the results of manufacturing processes ; since the physical world has 
been searched for the means of employing heat and steam, which have become 
such powerful agents of production, industry has ceased to be abandoned to em- 
piricism. Every manufacture has asked from science methods quicker, surer, and 
more economical. The central school satisfies this demand. By physical and 
chemical study, it prepares pupils expressly for the direction of industrial labor, 
just as the polytechnic school, by the study of mathematical science, becomes 
a seminary for the department of public works, and for some other special 
professions. 

Under these institutions, which have a general character, may be ranked those 
institutions which we will term local. These may be divided, in respect to their 
destination, into two great classes ; one, consisting of those whose design is to 
instruct in the applications of some one science to the industrial arts ; and the 
other, of those which confine their instruction to the practice of an art or trade ; 
or to the collaterial knowledge necessary to exercise it. To estimate the actual in-« 
flucnce of both, they must be considered in the place where they exist. 

In the northern section, where manfacturing industry reigns supreme, we see 
only the arts of design as applied to arts and trades, gratuitously taught. The 
schools of design established in most of the important towns, are generally of 
recent creation. The oldest date from the restoration or from the empire, except 
that three or four, have an earlier origin. For instance, the school of Arras, where 
some instruction is given, which relates partly to industrial occupations, was 
founded by the states- general of Artois, in 1775 ; that of St. Omer in 1780, and 
that of Calais in 1787. These institutions are every where much valued among 
the working classes. Some of them contain classes of as many as a hundred and 
fifty pupils. Some of them are particularly for children, but most for adults. 

* The State allows the central school an annual sum of 86,000, which is distributed to can- 
didates (for prizes) by a vote. 



SPECIAL INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 



409 



Architectural design and practical geometry, as applied to cutting stone, wood, 
&c., are often among the studies. In all that populous district which extends from 
the Belgian frontier to the western extremity of Normandy, and contains such 
manufacturing metropolises as Rouen and Lille, there are only two small institu- 
tions which really have the character of industrial schools. Une is at Diejipe ; it 
is a school for lace-making and open-stitch for young girls. It was founded during 
the restoration, and increased during the government of July. It receives about 
three hundred pupils, and while giving them a primary school course of instruc- 
tion, it also instructs them in an occupation. It has exercised a favorable influence 
upon the laee manufacture ; there has been organized in connection with it, a 
boarding department, where some poor girls are supported gratuitously, and edu- 
cated to become skillful work-women and assistant teachers. The other institutions 
situated at Mesnieres, in the arrondissement of Rouen, receives about sixty orphan 
boys, and trains them for business in workshops appropriate for different trades. 
Some local societies, as the society of workmen at St. Quentin, «Src., endeavor to 
instruct the laboring classes in some occupations. 

In our eastern departments, the domain of industrial instruction is less confined. 
There are there gome schools, some technic institutions, for the working classes. 
The schools of design are more numerous than in the north, and are more de- 
cidedly directed towards manufactures. The manufacturers of Switzerland, Ger- 
many, and England, have more than once had upon their fabrics the marks of the 
designers, engravers, and colorists, trained in the gratuitous schools of the Ilaut- 
Rhin. Some schools of design of rather wider scope, do great service to industry. 
Among these may be especially mentioned the school of Saint- Etienne, where are 
intructed all the designers employed in the neighboring manufactories, and in par- 
ticular by the ribbon-makers, who are so very jealous about the good taste of these 
articles of ornament. Besides instruction in design, there are given from time to 
time public courses of instruction, established and supported by the towns, and 
particularly elementary courses in chemistry, in mechanics, physics and mathe- 
matics, such as may furnish the workingmen with an intelligent understanding of 
their profession. Among the cities which enjoy to some extent instruction of this 
sort, may be mentioned Metz, Mulhouse, Colmar, Bar-Je-Duc, Besan^on, Rheims, 
Nancy, Dijon, Rive-de-Gier, Langres, &c. These institutions are sometimes the 
results of individual effort ; thus, at Besan^on, a private citizen founded in r829 
a public and free course of study upon mathematics as connected with the arts. 
At Bar-le-Duc, industrial courses were established by an association of subscribers, 
and were taken charge of by the commune. Local societies, among which the 
industrial society at Mulhouse is first in influence and resources, have increased 
the local activity, and give the initiative to the population in general. In Semur, 
a small town of the C6te-d'-0r, a private society. Some manufacturers have imi- 
tated this example ; for instance, in the great establishment of Guebwiller (Ilaut- 
Rhin) gratuitous lessons are given to the operatives in linear design, geometry, 
and machinery. 

There are also in the east of France, several institutions devoted more exclu- 
sively to special purposes. The most important, whose regulations are worthy of 
most attention, are at Lyons, Strasbourg, Nancy, and Saint-Etienne. Lyons stands 
first, both for population and manufacturing wealth. Besides the Lamartine school, 
in which are given instructions in mechanics, physics, chemistry, and design, and also 
a course in the manufacture of cloth, a number of private institutions give practical 
instruction in loom-weaving, and the theory of the decomposition of cloth, (decompo- 
sition des etoffes ;) they instruct also how to set up looms after any required pattern. 
Instruction is also given in making patterns, in designing for woven fabrics, and in 
keeping accounts for workshops. These lessons, as will be observed, go to the 
lieart of the industry of Lyons. It is only to be wished that it were more liberally 
dispensed ; and that the city would make it gratuitous. Lyons has also schools 
for teaching designing of figures, stone-cutting, and several schools of design for 
journeymen carpenters ; but it is to be regretted that payment is necessary for ad- 
mission to them. Strasbourg has a well organized school of design, maintained by 
the commune. The practical instruction given there, besides elementary theoretic 
instruction in mathematical and physical science, includes iron-work at forge and 
vice, turning, carpentry, lithography, and chemical manipulations. In selecting the 
workshop for a pupil, reference is had to his tastes and aptitudes. At Nancy 



410 SPECIAL INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 

there has been for several years established a " house for apprentices" on an en- 
tirely new plan. The results have been considered deserving of encouragement 
by tlie council-general of the department of the jMeurthe. The apprentices form a 
family, and call one another brother. Infractions of rules tji'e determined upon by 
a tribunal composed of all those apprentices who have obtained a certain number 
of good marks. A good mark is given by vote of all tlie pupils. , The penalties 
consist of a system oi' reparations founded upon the nature of each fault. Thus, 
one who breaks silence when silence is ordered, is condemned to keep silence until 
permitted to break it. If two apprentices quarrel, they must embrace and become 
companions at play for a set time. The pupils of this establishment labor in the 
workshops established in it, and attend the communal schools to receive primary 
instruction. At Saint-Etienne, a school of mines is intended to furnish conductors 
of mines, and directors of explorations and rnineralogical workshops. As this in- 
struction is gratuitous, workmen may attend the school to be taught mining. 

In the department of I Joubs, a practical school of liorology was founded in 1836, 
at Morteau, for the purpose of preserving and increasing the beautiful employment 
which is important to the labor of that section. In the leisure of winter, always 
so long among the mountains, the iarmers, shut in so much by the snow, have no 
other means of occupying their time. The town of Besan9on, the department, 
even the supreme government, had encouraged the establishment of the school at 
Morteau, which seemed to promise great success ; but different causes having di- 
minished the demand for the clocks from Doubs, the school, after having already 
done some good, was forced to be closed. Similar institutions have been unable 
to support themselves at Dijon and Ma^on. The departments and towns ought to 
have afforded them a more liberal support. The same may be said of a school of 
another species, for mounting looms, established at Rheims by a local society, in 
which skillful mounters and weavers had already been trained, but which per- 
ished for lack of funds. 

In this same region, at one of the most ignorant points of the department of the 
Meurtho, a project is being put in execution to which we wish the best success. 
It is intended to establish a special school for a branch of industry to which, though 
humble, a considerable population is confined. The inhabitants of the six com- 
munes of the ancient county of Dabo, at the foot of the Vosges, which was united 
with' France only in 18(il, have no other means of gaining a living than their 
forest-rights in the public forests, and the execution of carefully carved wood-work. 
Their hereditary industry, remaining absolutely stationary, has become surpassed 
by other products of the same kind, and commerce gradually refuses them. The 
projected school is designed to instruct these unskillful turners in methods of labor 
more suited to existing tastes and demands. Instruction will be given in making 
playthings and domestic utensils, such as those made in Switzerland and in the 
Black Forest. In order to have some chances of success, it will be necessary to 
instruct the young, and not the adult workmen, whose traditional habits it would 
be difficult to alter. These latter, having been exclusively employed in doing 
coarse work, would find it very difficult to acquii'e delicacy of hand. With this 
proviso, the plan of the founders of this school appears excellent; when it has suc- 
ceeded, it will be another good example of what our eastern departments can offer 
in the way of industrial instruction. 

The southern section of France is not so favored in this respect ; it presents a 
similar aspect to the northern. Schools of linear design of trade, architecture or 
decoration, existing at Marseilles, Avignon, Montauban, Digne, Aude, Grenoble, 
Tarbes, Grasse, &c., a few courses of instruction in three or four towns in the ele- 
ments of chemistry, of physics, of mechanics, of geometry, are almost the only in- 
stitutions for industrial instruction. The town of Nismes alone is better supplied ; 
perhaps there is not in all France another city where special instruction is given 
on so extended a scale. A course of design for manufactures embraces instruction 
in damasked and in stamped flowers. Another course of geometrical design com- 
pletes the knowledge which the children have received in the elementary schools. 
The instruction in chemistry comprehends lessons in dyeing, an important branch 
of local industry. Admission to all the classes is free. A school of vv'eaving, dat- 
ing from 1836, is liberally opened for theoretic and practical instruction in the 
manufacture of cloths. The theory is of the processes employed both in brocaded 
and in plain stuffs ; the practice consists in the actual weaving of the cloths in the 



SPECIAL INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 411 

loom. The town furnishes the tools, machines, and raw material, necessary for the 
work. B}^ explaining the art of weaving in two aspects, this school has had an 
excellent influence upon the manufactures of Nismes. It was only necessary to 
endeavor to gather into it as many foremen and workmen as possible. In this 
same department, of the Gard, at Alais, has been established a school of master- 
miners. The instruction has not so high a character or purpose as that at Saint- 
Etienne, at least in that part(jf the course designed for directors of machine-shops. 
The practical exercises consist in drawing plans both of the surface of the groniid 
and of the mines, and in mining in the mints of pit-coal about Alais. The pupils 
also practice blacksmithiug, wagon-making, and carpentry. Admission is not free, 
and scarcely any pupils are expected except those maintained by some department, 
or by some of the coal companies. 

In our western departments the two large cities of Jiordeaux and Nantes ai'e 
the only ones which have paid much attention to special instruction. In the capi- 
tal of ancient Guyenne, in 1834 and 183.5, the municipal council founded public 
and gratuitous courses of instruction in industrial chemistry, mathematics and me- 
chanics, as applied to arts and trades. The chamber of commerce also, a rich and' 
active body, established in 1843 a course of chemistry and natural iiistory. A pri- 
vate society called the philomathic society, whose assistance has often been valua- 
ble to the laboring population of Bordeaux, has for six years defrayed the expense 
of special instruction ; the practical part of which consists in linear design and 
instruction about the steam-engine. At Nantes, besides that the town maintains 
a free school of design, founded in 1T89, there is a private society known as the 
industrial society, whose effi)rts for young workmen are now appreciated through- 
out France, which is at the head of the industrial training of the masses. It re- 
ceives from the connnune, the department, and the State, assistance which is 
increased by private subscriptions. The workmen are counted by hundreds, whose 
first steps it has guided in the rude career of labor. The object of this society is 
two-fold ; to give its pupils instruction carefully adapted to their condition, and to 
arrange for their apprenticeship in different trades. 

La Rochelle and Brest have also made some effiu-ts to introduce industrial edu- 
cation in the west of France. At La Rochelle, was established in 1844 a theo- 
retic course in ship-building ; at Brest, a society called the society of emulation 
endeavors to instruct in linear design, in drawing plans, &c. In this part of 
France, all children, not merely of those of easy circumstances, but of all who are 
not altogether too poor, attend, without exception, the classical schools. They are 
often interrupted in their studies, by the inability of their parents to bear their 
prolonged expenses, and rarely succeed in reducing to practice, even at a late 
period, the imperfect education they receive. Families unable to send their sons 
to the high school, content themselves with the ordinary instruction. The idea of 
special instruction is scarcely a germ in this soil, which seems ungenial to it. No- 
where is the word " professional" applied to insti'uction in a narrower or falser 
sense. 

The center of France, excepting the department of the Seine, whose establish- 
ments deserve a distinct notice, is scarcely less ill supplied than the vi'est. Most of 
the departments are destitute of graded (serieux) establishments also. Schools of 
linear design, or of design more or less api>licable to industry, exist only at great 
distances. There are, however, a few institutions in which some practical instruc- 
tion is given. For instance, the prytanajum of Menars, established in 1832 in the 
department of the Loire and Cher, and recently reopened after having been some 
time shut, is devoted to industrial studies. The plan of the institution is similar to 
that of our schools of arts and trades, but unfortunately has not as great resources 
at command. The city of Tours has established a course in physics and chemistry, 
but it has not been organized upon a sufficiently wide basis to attract many auditors. 
At Limoges, the municipal council and the agricultural society, by uniting their 
efforts, have done much good by m( ans of public and free lessons, in geometry, 
mechanics, design, modeling, and stereotomy. In the Ilaute-Loire, Le Puy 
received the gift of a free industrial school from private subscriptions, the town 
paying its annual expenses. This institution, though less complete than that of 
Strasbourg, is constructed upon the same model, and accommodates a hundred 
children of workmen. There are some special courses at Le Puy also ; but the 
practical applications of science are not brought out there. In the department of 



413 SPECIAL INSTRUCTION IN FRANCK. 

the Correze, though small and unkindly treated by natui'e, we see with pleasure, 
at Tulle, a free school of mechanical geometry. Linear design is applied there to 
the drawing of figures and of machines, to stone cutting, carpentry, and architecture. 

At the other extremity of the central section, in the department of the Seine, 
whose riches and activity contrast singularly with the nakedness and simplicity of 
the country we are leaving, have been united most of the means of industrial in- 
struction which are scattered here and there over the surface of France. Paris, 
nevertheless, contains nothing comparable with the school of weaving at Nismes, 
with the private institutions for teaching weaving at Lyons, with the national 
schools of arts and trades at Chalons, Angers, and Aix. We seek there in vain 
for an organized system of practical instruction, provided with all resources neces- 
sary to meet the public demand. All the establishments of this class in Paris, 
except the national conservatory of arts and trades, may be classed in two divisions; 
one appropriated to those in easy circumstances, or who can pay a monthly fee, 
the other gratuitous, and thei'efoi'e accessible to the working population. In the for- 
mer class are the Chaptal municipal college and the Turgot school, in both of 
which there is a department of industrial teaching ; several schools preparatory to 
the school of arts and trades ; schools of architecture, horology, &c. From our 
present point of view, the latter class calls for our especial attention. The number 
of public establishments included in it is inconsiderable. Besides the small school 
of the conservatory, there are hardly any other than free classes in industrial de- 
sign. Design for woven stuffs does not occupy so prominent a place as it ought; 
the artistic element of design is preponderant, which will not be surprising when it 
is known that by a singularity of which our administration affords more than one 
example, these schools are altogether separate from the department of connnerce, 
and under the direction of that of the fine arts. 

In the vast field for industrial instruction among the working classes, the prin- 
cipal burden has fallen upon private institutions established by charity or by econo- 
mic foresight. In the immense gulf of the capital, the action of these establish- 
ments does not appear to the indifferent, or to those immersed in business ; but 
though silent and almost unknown, they are a valuable help to the unfortunate and 
to the helpless, and very profitable to the community. The institution for appren- 
tices in the city of Paris, under the direction of M. Armand de Melun, trains up 
to labor, from the pavements of the cit}' and from garrets and misery, a crowd of 
children who would otherwise have hastened to populate the prisons. "While their 
instructors train their minds by primary Instruction, and seek to inspire right sen- 
timents into their hearts, they are gradually prepared for the actual life which 
awaits them. Another institution, that of Saint-Nicolas, receives several hundred 
pupils in two establishments, one at Paris and the other at Issy. Its judicious 
directors mingle a proper amount of elementary instruction with manual labor. 
LTnfortunately the limited resources of this establishment do not permit it to furnish 
a very great variety of instruction. Other similar institutions are entering the 
same course. The work-rooms for girls are actual industrial schools for the most 
feeble and exposed portion of the laboring population, and that needing most care. 
There are also in Paris small school for apprentices, established almost entirely by 
the contributions of foremen for poor orphans. Such enterprises are worthy of 
judicious encouragement by the municipal council. 

Other public and gratuitous courses of study, founded by private societies, with 
different designs and by different means, are assisting to disseminate technical in- 
struction among the workmen. When a man has some property, and is thus in a 
way to fill a useful place in society and to gain his own living, instruction of this 
kind, carefully adapted to his requirements, dealing with fact rather than with 
theory, simple, and appealing to the good sense of the masses, is likely to produce 
excellent moral effects. I do not say that all these qualifications actually exist ; 
some additions and retrenchments are necessary. The philosophic sentiment of 
the great task of industrial improvement for the masses is not clearly brought out; 
and the conditions of true practical instruction are often not fulfilled. Yet many 
honorable individual efforts have been made in .this direction. They have pro- 
duced real good, and merit efiective encouragement from the Parisian municipal 
authority. 



HISTORY 



NORMAL SCHOOLS IN FRANCE. 



The earliest movement towards the professional training of teachers 
was made in France by the Abbe de Lasalle, while canon of the Cathe- 
dral at Rheims, in 1681, and perfected, in his training school for his Insti- 
tute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, in 1684. 

In 1794, by an ordinance of the National Convention a normal school 
was established at Paris to furnish professors for colleges and the higher 
seminaries. The institution was projected on a scale beyond the prepa- 
ration which its earliest pupils could bring, and beyond the wants to be 
supplied. The instruction was mainly by lectures, which were delivered 
by Lagrange, Laplace, Sicard, Laharpe, and other distinguished teach- 
ers and men of science. The experiment was abandoned in 1795, and 
not resumed till 1808, when Napoleon re-established the school in the 
ordinance creating the " Imperial University of France." It has since 
been maintained for the purpose of training a class of pupils for profes- 
sorships in the colleges and secondary schools. 

In 1810 the first seminary designed for teachers of elementary schools, 
was established at Strasbourg, through the liberality of Count de Lezai 
Marnesia, and the co-operation of the Rector of the Academy, and the 
prefect of the department of the Lower Rhine. It opened in 1811 as a 
'• Normal class of primary school teachers." No pupil was admitted who 
was under sixteen yearsof age. or over thirty, or who was not acquainted 
with the studies pursued in elementary schools. The course embraced 
four years, and included as wide and thorough range of studies as is now 
required in the best Normal Schools of France. The number of pupils 
was limited to sixty, and those who enjoyed the benefit of a bourse, or 
scholarship, came under obligation to teach at least ten years in the 
schools of the department. Those scholarships were founded partly by 
individual liberality, and partly by the department, and by the communes, 
which sent candidates to the school. Under the organization estabUshed 
in 1810, with such modifications as experience suggested, this school has 
continued ifo^ exert a powerful influence on the cause of popular educa- 
tion through that section of France, and it now ranks not only as the old- 
est, but one of the best in Europe. The department of Upper Rhine, 
witnessing the results of this experiment in the neighboring communes, 
appropriated six thousand francs to found scholarships, for the benefit ot 
a certain number of candidates in the seminary at Strasbourg. Accord- 
ing to a Report of M. Guizot to the King, in 1833, it appears that the 
state of primary education m the two departments constituting the Acad- 



414 HISTORY OF NORMAL SCHOOLS IN FRANCE. 

emy of Strasbourg, was far in advance of any other section of France. 
Good schools were more numerous; fewer communes were destitute of 
Gchoois; and the slow and defective method of individual instruction had 
given place to more lively and simultaneous methods of class instruction. 
*' In all respects the superiority of the popular schools is striking, and the 
conviction of the people is as general that this superiority is mainly due 
to the existence of this Normal School." 

The establishment of two Normal Schools for the departments of Mo- 
selle and Meuse, in 1830, was followed by the same results, — the estab- 
lishment of schools in communes before destitute, and the improvement 
of schools already in operation, by the introduction of better methods. In 
1828 a new impulse was given to educational improvement by public- 
spirited individuals and teachers' associations in Paris, and other parts of 
France, which led to the establishment of a fourth Normal School in the 
department of Vosges, and a fifth in that of Meuth. About the same 
time a Normal course of instruction was opened in the college of Charle- 
ville, for the department of Ardennes, and the foundations of superior 
Normal Schools were laid at Dijon, Orleans, and Bourges, as well as a 
Training School for the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine at Rouen. At 
the close of 1829, there were thirteen Normal Schools in operation. The 
movement already commenced, received a new impulse in the right direc- 
tion by the Revolution of 18.30, which in this respect was as beneficent as 
the Revolution of 1791 was disastrous. In the three years immediately 
following the change of dynasty in 1830, thirty-four new Normal Schools 
were established in ditferent sections of France, and wherever they were 
established they contributed to the opening of primary schools in com- 
munes before destitute, and of diffusing a knowledge of better methods 
among teachers who did not resort to these seminaries. But the most 
auspicious event was the publication of M. Cousin's " Report on the con- 
dition of Public Instruction in several of the States of Germany, and espe- 
cially in Prussia,''^ in 1832. A considerable portion of this report was 
devoted to an account of the best Normal Schools of Prussia, and to the 
most emphatic recommendation of the same policy in France. The fol- 
lowing valuable suggestions were made on this subject, most of which 
were subsequently embodied in the Law of Primary Instruction, and the 
Regulations of the Minister relating to Normal Schools. 

" I have already remarked, that as every commune must have its pri- 
mary school, so every department must have its primary Normal School. 
If the same law which shall render the former imperative on the com- 
munes, should render the latter equally imperative on the departments, 
we should have made a great advance. If the law does not go so far as 
that, you must at all events come at the same results by administrative 
measures ; you must require every council-general of a department, 
through the medium of the prefect, to vote funds for the establishment of 
a primary Normal School, under condition of binding yourself to contrib- 
ute a greater or less portion of the total expenditure, and to take upon 



HISTORY OF NORMAL SCHOOLS IN FRANCE. 415 

yourself, 1. the salary of the director, whom you would nominate; 2. the 
books, maps, and instruments necessary for the use of the students. It 
must be laid down as a principle, tiiat every department must have its 
JJormal School; but that school should be proportioned to the extent and 
the wealth of the department, and it may, with equal propriety, be small 
in one and large in another. I take the liberty of referring to a very 
simple and very economical plan on which a primary Normal School may 
at first be organized. 

Choose the best-conducted primary school in the department, that 
which is in the hands of the master of the greatest ability and trust-wor- 
thiness. Annex to this school a class called Normal, in which this same 
master shall teach his art to a certain number of young men of 'the de- 
partment, who are willing to come to it to form themselves for school- 
masters. None should be admitted till after an examination, made by a 
commission appointed by you. This commission must send you the re- 
sults of its labors ; and it would be well that the admission of the students 
to the primary Normal School should be signed by you, as is the case in 
the admission of students to the great Normal School for the instruction 
of the second degree. This small Normal School ought never to be placed 
in a very large town, the influence of which would be adverse to that 
spirit of poverty, humility and peace, so necessary to the students. There 
is no objection to their being day-pupils, provided they are responsible for 
their conduct out of the house. Nor is it necessary that all should receive 
exhibitions, or purses, especially whole purses. In all small towns there 
are families in which a young man may be boarded and lodged for about 
300 francs a year, ($60;) so that 3000 francs, ($600,) prudently divided 
into whole, half, and quarter purses, would easily defray the cost often or 
fifteen students. Give the master the title of Director of the Normal 
School, which would be a real gain to him, inasmuch as it would increase 
his consideration ; and for the additional labor you impose upon him, give 
him a salary of 700 or 800 francs. Add a yearly allowance of 400 or 'jOO 
francs for books, maps, and other things required in teaching ; and thus, 
for 5000 francs, ($1000,) at the utmost, you have a small Normal Schoolj 
which will be extremely useful to the department. The pupils should be 
permitted to leave it if they choose, in a year, provided they be able to go 
through the examination at quitting, on which depends their obtaining 
the brevet of primary teacher. Yes, it rests with you, by means of a 
circular to this effect, addressed to all the prefects of the kingdom, to have 
in a few months, eighty-four small primary Normal Schools in France. 
The plan which I propose does not commit you to any future measures, 
yet it at once covers France with Normal Schools which will supply our 
first wants. It is for time, zeal, intelligence, and perseverance to do the 
rest. There must always necessarily be a great difference among the 
Normal Schools of our eighty-four departments ; but the best way is, to 
go on gradually improving, in proportion as experience shows you what 
is required. Even with this wise tardiness, three or four years will suffice 
to improve all these small Normal Schools, and to raise a great number 
to the rank of complete great Normal Schools. 

The difference between a great and a small Normal School consists in 
this : a small Normal School is only an appendage to a primar}'' school, 
whilst a great Normal School is an establishment subsisting by and for 
itself, to which a primary school (and if possible that should comprise 
both an elementary and a middle school) is annexed. 

This difference gives the measure of all other differences. In the 
small Normal School there are only day-pupils, or at most a few board- 
ers. In the great, the majority may be boarders. In the one, the course 
may be terminated in a year ; in the other, it should extend through two 
years, as at Bruhl ; and even, in time, according to the resources of the 



416 HISTORY OF NORMAL SCHOOLS IN FRANCE. 

departments and the progress of public education, it might embrace three 
years, as in most of the great Normal Schools of Prussia, — Potsdam, for 
example. The departments must be the judges of their resources and ot 
their wants. A department which wants twenty schoolmasters a year, 
and which has a certain number of middle or burgher schools, as well as 
many elementary schools, can very well receive twenty pupils a year ; 
which, supposing the course to occupy two or three years, amounts to forty 
or sixty pupils at a time in the school. Then there must be accommoda- 
tion Ibr boarding them, a large building, a greater number of masters, 
more exhibitions, (bourses,) more expense of every sort. 

In the hope that the i'ew great primary Normal Schools we already 
possess will soon be succeeded by others, I beg your attention to the Ibl- 
lowing maxims, deduced from general experience, and from all the data 
I have accumulated here. 

I. To begin by giving instructions rather than rules ; to confine your- 
self in these instructions to the establishing of a few essential points, and 
to leave the rest to the departmental committee. To discuss and decide 
this small number of points in the royal council; not to multiply them, 
but inriexibly to enforce their execution. The fewer they are, the more 
easy will this execution be, and the more susceptible will they be of ap- 
plication to all the Normal Schools of France ; so that there would be a 
common groundwork for all ; a unity, which, passing Irom the Normal 
Schools into the whole body of popular education, would have a beneficial 
influence in strengthening the national unity. At the same time, this 
unity would not be prejudicial to local diversities ; for the departmental 
committee would be desired to apply your general instructions according 
to the peculiar manners or usages of the department. From the combina- 
tion of the uniformity of these instructions, with the diversity of arrange- 
ments which the prudence and intelligence of the committee, and the 
experience of each year, will recommend, a set of regulations for each 
Normal School will gradually arise, more or less definitive, and therelbre 
fit to be made public. The plan of study of the great Normal School at 
Paris, for the supply of the royal and communal colleges, is the fruit of 
fifteen years' experience. This school, which was founded in 1810, had 
no written laws till 1815. We made important modifications in those 
laws at the Revolution of 1830, and it was not till then that we ventured 
to print them, as the result, nearly definitive, or at least likely to endure 
for some time, of all the experiments successively tried. Let us imitate 
this caution, and begin with a simple set of instructions from the minister. 
Rules for the studies and the discipline will gi'adually arise. Every year 
will modify them. The important thing is, to exact an accurate account 
of the proceedings and results of the year, drawn up by the director, and 
transmitted to you, together with all the necessary documents, by the de- 
partmental committee and the prefect, who will subjoin their own opinion. 
Then, and then only, you will interpose your authority, with that of tJie 
royal council, which will revise this report every year at the vacation, and 
pronounce on the improvements to be introduced. 

II. To attach the greatest possible importance to the choice of a director. 
It is a principle generally established in Prussia, that the goodness of a 
Normal School is inexact proportion to the goodness of the director ; just 
as the primary school is what its master is. What constitutes a Normal 
School is not a fine building; on the contrary, it is not amiss that it should 
not be over commodious or splendid. It is not even the excellence of the 
regulations, which, without a faithful and intelligent execution of them, 
are only a useless bit of paper. A Normal School is what its director is. 
He is the life and soul of it. If he is a man of ability, he will turn the 
poorest and humblest elements to account ; if he is incapable, the best 
and most prolific will remain sterile in his hands. Let us by no means 



HISTORY OF NORMAL SCHOOLS IN FRANCE. 417 

make our directors mere house-stewards. A director ought to be at the 
head of the mo.st important branches of instruction, and to set an example 
to all the other masters. He must have long lulfilled the duties of a mas- 
ter; first, in different classes of a Normal course of education, so that he 
may have a general knowledge of the wliole system ; secondly, in several 
Normal Schools, so that he may have experience of difficulties of various 
kinds; lastly, he must not be placed at the head of a Normal School oi 
the highest class, till he has been director of several of an inferior class, 
so as to graduate promotion according to merit, and thus keep up an hon- 
orable emulation. 

III. An excellent practice in Germany is, to place the candidates, im- 
mediately on their leaving the Normal School, as assistant masters in 
schools which admit of two. The young men thus go through at least a 
year of apprenticeship. — a very useful novitiate : they gain age and ex- 
perience, and their final appointment depends on their conduct as assist- 
ant masters. I regard every gradation a-= extremely useful, and I think 
a little graduated scale of powers and duties might be advantageously 
introduced into primary instruction. 

1st. Pupil of a Normal School admitted after competition, holding a 
more or less high rank in the examination list at the end of each year, 
and quitting the school with such or such a number. 2d. Same pupil 
promoted to the situation of assistant master. 3d. Schoolmaster succes- 
sively in diflerent schools rising in salary and in importance. 4th. After 
distinguished services, master in a primary Normal School. 5th. Lastly, 
director of a school of that class, with the prospect of gradually rising to 
be director of a numerous and wealthy Normal School, which would be a 
post equal to that of professor of a royal college. The human soul lives 
in the future. It is ambitious, because it is infinite. Let us then open to 
it a progressive career, even in the humblest occupations. 

IV. We can not be too deeply impressed with this truth — that paid 
instruction is better than gratuitous instruction. The entire sum paid for 
board at a Normal School must be extremely moderate, for the young 
men of the poorest classes to be able to pay it. We must give only quar- 
ter or half exhibitions, (^bourses,) reserving two or three whole ones Ibr 
the two or three young men, out of the fifteen admitted annually, who 
Btand first on the list ; and even this should not be continued to them the 
second year, unless their conduct had been irreproachable and their appli- 
cation unremitting. 

On the same principle as that laid down above, the elementary school 
annexed to the Normal School ought not to be entirely gratuitous ; it 
ought to have no other masters than the forwardest pupils of the Normal 
School, acting under the direction of their masters. The profits of the 
elementary school for practice would go to diminish the total cost of the 
Normal School. As for the middle school for practice, it would be con- 
trary to the principle of all middle schools to have it gratuitous. 

V. Divide the studies of all Normal Schools into two parts: during 
the first, the pupils should be considered simply as students, who.se ac- 
quirements are to be confirmed, extended, and methodized : during the 
second, as masters, who are to be theoretically and practically taught the 
art of teaching. If the Normal course only lasts a year, this part of it 
ought to occupy at least six months ; if it lasts two years, it ought to oc- 
cupy a year ; if three years, it would still occupy only a year. The stu- 
dents in this last year would give lessons in the elementary and middle 
schools annexed to the Normal School. 

VI. The examination at quitting ought to be more rigid than that at 
entering the school. The important thing is to have young men of good 
capacity, even if they know little; for they will learn rapidly; while 
some, who might not be deficient in a certain quantity of acquired know- 

27 



418 HISTORY OF NORMAL SCHOOLS IN FRANCE. 

ledge, but were dull or wrong-headed, could never be made good Fchool- 
masters. No latitude vvliatever must be left to the Comiiiission of Exam- 
ination at departure. Here, intelligence must sliow itself in positive 
attainments, since opportunitj^ to acquire them has been given. Nothing 
but negligence can have stood in their way. and tiiat negligence would 
be the greatest of all faults. This latter examination, therefore, must be 
directed to ascertain the acquired, and not the natural fitness. But in 
the examination on entering, I wish that the Commission should more 
particularly inquire into the talents and natural bent, and, above all. into 
the moral character and disposition. A little discretionary power ought 
to be confided to it. This applies more especially to those Normal 
Schools, the course of which lasts two or three years. Three years of 
study will not give intelligence; but they will give all the necessary 
attainments in abundance. 

Vli. It is my earnest desire, that conferences* should be formed among 
the schoolmasters ol'each canton. I wish it, but have but little hope of it, 
at least at first. Such conferences suppose both too great a love for their 
profession, and too great a familiarity with the spirit of association. A 
thing much more easy to accomplish is, that during the vacations of the 
primary schools, a certain number of masters should repair to the Normal 
School of the department to perfe(;t themselves in this or that particular 
branch, and to receive lessoiis appropriate to their wants, as is the case 
in Prussia. This time would be very usefully, and even very agreeably 
employed ; for the young masters would be brought into contact with 
their old instructors and companions, and would have an opportunity of 
renewing and cementing old friendships. Here would be an interesting 
prospect for them every year. For such an object, we musi not grudge 
a httle expense lor their journey and their residence. I siiould therefore 
wish that the vacations of the primary schools, wiiich must be regulated 
by certain agricultural labors, should always precede those of the primary 
Normal Schools, in order that the masters of the former might be able to 
take advantage of the lessons in the latter, and might be present at the 
parting exammations of the third year, which would be an excellent ex- 
erci.se for the young acting masters. 

1 am convinced of the utility of having an inspector of primary schools 
for each department, who would spend the greater part of the year in 
going from school to school, in stirring up the zeal of the masters, in giv- 
ing a right direction to that of the communal committee.s, and in keeping 
up a general and very beneficial liarmony among the uiaires and the 
cures. It is unnecessary for me to say, that this inspector ought always 
to be some old master of a Normal School, selected for his talents, and 
still more for his tried character. But if this institution, which is univer- 
sal in Germany, were not popular among us, nearly the same results 
might be obtained by authorizing the director, or in default of him, some 
masters of the Normal School, to visit a certain number of the schools oi 
the department every year, during the vacation of their own school, and 
to do what would be done by the inspector above named. They would 
find great facilities from their old habits of intercourse and friendship with 
most of the masters, over whom they would exercise almost a paternal 
influence. On the other hand, they would gain by these visits, and would 
acquire a continually increasing experience, which would turn to the ad- 
vantage of the Normal Schools. You have seen that in Prussia, besides 
the visits of tiiecircle-inspectors.the directors of Normal Schools make visit- 
ations of this kind, for which they receive some very slender remuneration ; 
for these little journeys are sources oi' pleasure to them, as well as of util- 
ity to the public. 

• See notes to Professor Stowe's Essftyy page 243. 



HISTORY OF NORMAL SCHOOLS IN FRANCE. 419 

VIII. Let solidity, rather ihnn extent, be aimed at, in the course ofin- 
Etruction. The young masters must know a lew tilings tundaiaentally. 
rather lliau .many thing.s supei-ficialiy. Vague and suiJerticial altai'i- 
ments must be avoidt'd al any rate. The steady co.itinuous labor which 
must be gone through lo know any t hi ig whatsoever thoroughly^ i.s an 
admirable discipline lor the mind. Besi.ies, nothing is so proliHc as one 
thing well known ; it is an excellent starting point for a thousand others. 
The final examinations must be mainly direcied to the elements. — they 
must probe lo the bottom, they must keep solidiiy always in view. 

IX. Avoitl ambitious methods and exclusive systems: attend, above 
all to results, that is to say, to solid acquirements ; and, witii a view to 
them, consult experience. Clear explanations on every subject, connect- 
ed. less and continuity in the lessons, vvilh an ardent love for the business 
ofteaching, are worth all the general rules and methods in the world. 

X. A branch of study common to all schools ought to be the French 
tongue; the just pronunciation of words, and tlic purity and correctness 
of language. By this m.ans the natio:ial language would insensibly 
super^^ede the rude unintelligible dialects and provincialisms. In the Nor- 
mal Schools 'rtlierc; German is still the language of the people, German 
and F'rench must both be lauglit, in order not to oii'end against local 
attachments, and at the same time to implant the spirit of nationality. 

XI. Without neglecting physical science, and the knowledge applica- 
ble to the arts of life we nui.st make moral science, which is of far higher 
importance, our main object. Tlie mind and the character are what a 
true master ought, above all. to fashion. We uuist lay the foundations of 
moral life in the souls ol'our young masters and theretbre we must place 
religious instruction, — that is to speak distinctly, Christian instruction. — in 
the first rank in the education of our Normal Schools. Leaving to the 
cure, or to the pastor of the place, the care of instilling the doctrines pecu- 
liar lo each communion, we must constitute religion a special object of 
instruction, which must have its place in each year of the Normal course; 
so that at the end of the entire course, the young masters, without being 
theologians, may have a clear and precise knowledge of the history, doc- 
trines and, above all, the moral precepts of Chi'istianity. VV'itiioul this. 
the pupils, when they becoiae masters, would be incapable of giving any 
other religious instruction than the mechanical repetition of the catechism, 
which would be quite insutficient. I would particularly urge this point, 
which is the most ini[)ortant and the most delicate of all. Betbre we can 
decide on what shoulil constitute a true primary Normal School, we must 
determine what ought to be the character of a simple elementary school, 
that is, a humble vUlage school. TUe popular schools of a nation ought 
to be imbued with the religious spirit of that nation. Now without going 
into the question of diversities of doctrine, is Christianiiy. or is it not. the 
religion of the people of France? It can not be denied that it is. I ask 
then, is it our object to respect the religion of the people, or to destroy it? 
If we mean to set about destroying it, then, I allow, we ought by no 
means lo have it taught in the people's schools. But if the object we 
propose to ourselves is totally ditlerent, we must teach our children that 
religion which civilized our fathers; that religion whose liberal spirit pre- 
pared, and can alone sustain, all the great institutions of modern times. 
We must also permit the clergy to fulfil their first duty, — the superintend- 
ence of religious instruction. But in order to stand the test of this superin- 
tendence with honor, the schoolmastej- umst be enabled lo give adequate 
religious instruction; otherwise parents, in order to be sure that their 
children receive a good religious education, will require us to appoint 
ecclesiastics as schoolmasters which though assuredly belter than having 
irreligious schoolmasters, would be liable to very serious objections of 
various kinds. The less we desire our schools to be ecclesiastical, the 



420 HISTORY OF NORMAL SCHOOLS IN FRANCE. 

more ought they to be Christian. It necessarily follows, that there must 
be a course of special religious instruction in our Normal Schools. Reli- 
gion is, in my eyes, the best, perhaps the only, basis of popular educa- 
tion. I know something of Europe, and never have I seen good schools 
where the spirit of Christian charity was wanting. Primary instruction 
flourishes in tliree countries, 'Holland-, Scotland, and Germany; in all it is 
profoundly religious. It is said to be so in America. The little popular 
instruction I ev^er found in Italy came from the priests. In France, with 
few exceptions, our best schools for the poor are those of the Freres de la 
Doctrine Chretienne. (Brothers of the Christian Doctrine. ) These are facts 
which it is necessary to be incessantly repeating to certain persons. Let 
them go into the schools of the poor, — let them learn what patience, what 
resignation, are required to induce a man to persevere in so toilsome an 
employment. Have better nurses ever been Ibund than those benevolent 
nuns who bestow on poverty all those attentions we pay to wealth? 
There are things in human society which can neither be conceived nor 
accomplished without virtue, — that is to say, when .speaking of the mass, 
without religion. The schools tor the middle classes maybe an object of 
speculation; but the country schools, ihe miserable little schools in the 
south, in the west, in Britanny, in the mountains of Auvergne, and, with- 
out going so far, the lowest schools of our great cities, of Paris itself, will 
never hold out any adequate inducement to persons seeking a remunera- 
ting occupation. There will doubtless be some philosophers inspired 
with the ardent pliiianthropy of Saint Vincent de Paule. without his reli- 
gious enthusiasm, who would devote themselves to this austere vocation; 
but the question is not to have here and there a master. We have more, 
than Ibrty thousand schools to serve, and it were wise to call religion to 
the aid of our insufficient means, were it but for the alleviation of the 
pecuniary burdens of the nation. Either you must lavish the treasures 
of the state, and the revenues of the comnnmes, in order to give high 
salaries, and even pensions, to that new order of tradesmen called school- 
masters ; or you must not imagine you can do without Christian charity, 
and that spirit of poverty, humility, courageous resignation, and modest 
dignity, which Christianity, rightly understood and wisely taught, can 
alone give to the teachers of the people. The more I think of all this, the 
more 1 look at the schools in this country, the more I talk with the direct- 
ors of Normal Schools and councilors of the ministry, the more I am 
strengthened in the conviction that we must make any eflbrts or any 
sacrifices to come to a good understanding with the clergy on the subject 
of popular education, and to constitute religion a special and very care- 
fully-taught branch of instruction in our primary Normal Schools. 

i am not ignorant that this advice will grate on the ears of many per- 
sons, and that Ishall be thought extremely devout at Paris. Yet it is not 
from Rome, but from Berlin, that I address you. The man who holds 
this language to you is a philosopher, formerly disliked, and even perse- 
cuted, by the priesthood ; but this philosopher has a mind too little affect- 
ed by the recollection of his own insults, and is too well acquainted with 
human nature and with history, not to regard religion as an indestructi- 
ble power: genuine Christianity, as a means of civilization for the people, 
and a necessary support tor those on whom society imposes irksome and 
humble duties, without the slightest prospect offortune, without the least 
gratification of self-love. 

I am now arrived at the termination of this long report. May it be of 
use to you in the important work which now engages your attention ! 
My illustrious colleague, M. Cuvier, has already exhibited to France the 
organization of primary instruction in Holland. The experience of Ger- 
many, and particularly of Prussia, ought not to be lost upon us. National 
rivalries or antipathies would here be completely out of place. The true 



HISTORY OF NORMAL SCHOOLS IN FRANCE. 421 

f neatness of a people does not consist in borrowing nothing from others, 
ut in borrowing from all whatever is good, and in perfecting whatever it 
appropriates. 

I am as great an enemy as any one to artificial imitations ; but it is 
mere pusillanimity to reject a thing for no other reason than that it has 
been thought good by others. With the promptitude and justness of the 
French understanding, and the indestructible unity of our national char- 
acter, we may assimilate all that is good in other countries without lear 
of ceasing to be ourselves. Placed in the center of Europe, possessing 
every variety of climate, bordering on all civilized nations, and holding up 
perpetual intercourse with them, France is essentially cosmopolitan ; and 
indeed this is the main source of her great influence. Besides, civilized 
Europe now forms but one great family. We constantly imitate England 
in all that concerns outward life, the mechanical arts, and physical refine- 
ments; why, then, should we blush to borrow something from kind, hon- 
est, pious, learned Germany, in what regards inward life and the nurture 
of the soul? 

For my own part, I avow my high esteem and peculiar affection for 
the German people; and I am happy that my mission proved to them 
that the revolution of July, — that revolution, as necessary and as just as 
the legitimate right of self defense ; that revolution, sprung from the 
unanimous resistance of a great people to a capricious aggression, an 
open violation, not of hypothetical rights, but of liberties secured by law, — 
is not, as its enemies pretend, a return to the impiety, the licentiousness 
and the corruption of a fatal period ; but, on the contrary, the signal for 
a general improvement in opinion and in morals ; since one of the first acts 
of the new government has been the holy enterprise of the amelioration of 
public education, of which the instruction of the people is the basis." 

With this preparation, — a good beginning already made in several de- 
partments, and the long and successful experience of Prussia and other 
German states before him, — a regulation was framed by M. Guizot, and 
sanctioned by the Council of Public Instruction, by which, in connection 
with the law of 1833, a system of Normal Schools has been established 
and is fast regenerating the elementary instruction in France. The fol- 
lowing is an outline of the system : 

Each department is obliged, either alone or in conjunction with other 
neighboring departments, to support one Normal School for the education 
of its schoolmasters. 

The expense of this establishment for building, apparatus, and instruc- 
tion, is borne mainly by the department, whilst the direction of the educa- 
tion given in it is vested in the Minister of Public Instruction, who is re- 
sponsible to the Chambers, of both of which he is an ex officio member, 
for the right exercise of his power. 

The immediate management of Normal Schools and of the model 
schools annexed is committed to a Director who is appointed by the Min- 
ister, on the presentation of the prefect of the department, and the "rector 
of the academy. These directors are paid wholly or partially from the 
public funds set apart by the department for public instruction. If the 
department refuses or neglects to provide sufficient funds, the govern- 
ment enforces the collection of the necessary tax; if the department is 
overburdened, the government contributes its aid. 

To meet the expense of board, the pupils are assisted by gratuities, or 
bursaries, which the communes, departments, the university, the state, 
and even individuals, have established for this purpose. These burses 
are usually granted in halves or quarters, the rest of the expense being 



422 HISTORY OF NORMAL SCHOOLS IN FRANCE. 

borne by the pupils. Of 1944 pupiF-teachers in 1834, 1308 were bursars 
ol'the departments, 118 of the communes, 245 of the state, and 273 were 
maintained at their own expense. 

Every candidate for admission to these institutions, and to the enjoy- 
ment of a bourse, or any part of one, must bind himself to follow the pro- 
fession of a parish schoolmaster for ten years at least after quitting the 
institution; and to reimburse it for the whole expense of his maintenance, 
if he fail to fulfill his decennial engagement. He must have completed 
his sixteenth year; and besides the ordinary elementary acquirements, 
must produce evidence both of good previous character, and of general 
intelligence and aptitude to learn. Most of the bursaries are adjudged 
upon a comparative trial among competitors, who are likely to become 
every year more nnmerous : and the examination for admission is so well 
arranged and conducted, that it tends to raise higher and higher the 
standard of previous acquirement. 

The course of instruction and training to which the youth is thus intro- 
duced, occupies two years of eleven months each, i. e. from tiie first of 
October to the first of the ensuing September, and embraces the follow- 
ing objects: — 

1st. iVIoral and religious instruction. The latter, in as far as it is dis- 
tinct from the former, is given by the clergyman of the particular faith 
which the pupil happens to profess. 

2d. Reading, with the grammar of their own language. 

3d. Arithmetic, including an intimate and practical acquamtance with 
the legal system of weights and measures. This knowledge is made to 
hold so prominent a part in the program of instruction, as atlbrding the 
best means of introducing that admirable system into the habits of the 
French people, among whom, from ignorance and prejudice, it is still far 
from being generally adopted. 

'1th. Linear drawing, and construction of diagrams, land-measuring, 
and other applications of practical geometry. 

otli. Elements of physical science, with a special view to the purposes 
of ordinary life. 

6th. iVlusic, taught by the eye as well as by the ear. 

7th. Gymnastics. 

8th. The elements of general geography and history, and the particu- 
lar geography and history of France. 

9th. The pupils are instructed, and, wherever the locality admits, exer- 
cised also, in the rearing of esculent vegetables, and in the pruning and 
grafting of trees. 

10th. They are accustomed to the drawing out of the simpler legal 
forms and civil deeds. 

A library for the use of the pupils is fitted up within the premises ; and 
a sum is set apart every year Ibr the purchase of such works as the Coun- 
cil of Public Instruction may judge likely to be useful to the young 
schoolmasters. 

The course of study is, for the present, limited to two years, instead of 
three, which is the term ultimately contemplated as the most desirable. 
During the second of those years, instruction in the principles of the art of 
teaciiing is kept constantly in view ; and for the last six months, in partic- 
ular, the pupils are trained to the practical application of the most approved 
methods, by being employed as assistants in the different classes of the 
primary schools, which are invariably annexed to the JNormal, and form 
part and parcel of the establishment. 

The director, besides general superintendence, is charged with some 
important branch of the instruction ; the rest is devolved on his adjuncts, 
or assistant masters, who reside in the establisimient. 

Any graduate of a Normal School can attend any of the courses of in- 



HISTORY OF NORMAL SCHOOLS IN FRANCE. 423 

Btruction in the Normal School of the department in which he resides, to 
learn new methods, or improve ':•;? previous acquirements. The depart- 
ments are authorized to grant assistance to such teachers. The IVormal 
Schools admit pupils of dillerent religious denominations. All sectarian 
instruction is avoided in the general lessons, and the j)upils receive this 
instruction at times set apart for it li'om clergymen of their own church. 
Until a pupil has obtained a certificate of his proficiency in the doctrines 
of liis own religion, fi-om a minister of his own church, he can not officiate 
as a schoolmaster. Any person who ventures to conduct a public school 
without having obtained from the departmental committee of examination 
a certificate of qualification, is liable to a fine of two hundred francs. 

The Departmental Committee, or Commission of Examination, is com- 
posed of at least seven members appointed by the Minister of Public 
Instruction, upon the recommendation of the rector of the academy. 
Three members at least must be selected from among those who have 
already exercised, or are at the time exercising the function of public 
teachers, and who are most hkely to unite ability and integrity. It is 
recommended that one of the seven be a clergyman. " To act." saya 
the Minister, in a circular addressed to each of the twenty-six rectors, — 
" to act in concert with the three members belonging to the body of Pub- 
lic Instruction in these Commissions (V examen, a minister of religion will 
doubtless be summoned. The law has put moral and religious instruction 
in the foremost rank; the teacher, therefore, must give proof of his being 
able to communicate to the children intrusted to his care, those important 
ideas which are to be the rule of their lives. Doubtless every functionary 
of public instruction, every father of a family who shall be placed on thia 
commission by your recommendation, as rector of the academy, will be 
llillyable to appreciate the moral and religious attainments of the candi- 
dates; but it is, nevertheless, fit and proper, that the future teachers of 
youth should exhibit proof of their capacity in this respect, belbre persons 
whom their peculiar character and special mission more particularly qual- 
ify to be judges in tliis matter." 

" Tlie most important of all the duties devolved upon these examining 
commissions, is that of conferring on the pupil, when he quits the institu- 
tion, a brevet de capacite. Carelessness, partiality, or ignorance, in the 
discharge of it, would entirely defeat the main object of the law on primary 
instruction. This brecet, certifying the holder's fitness to be a teacher, 
either in the lower or higher grade of primary schools, constitutes his 
passport to the labors and honors of his profession. With it, and his cer- 
tificate of good conduct in his pocket, he may carry his skill and industry 
to any market he pleases, without further let or impediment. 

There are three grades of certificates of qualification for both element- 
ary and superior primary; Ires bien, (very good.) bien. (good,) and assez- 
bien. (sufficient.) which infuses a spirit of competition throughout the 
pupils of the Normal Schools, and the public schools generally. 

The system of Normal Schools has remained substantially on this basis 
to the present time. Every year has extended and consolidated its influ- 
ence in spite of the interested opposition of old and inefficient teachers, 
who find themselves less and less appreciated, and the complaint of local 
committees, who in many instances are disposed to take up with the first 
teacher who presents himself, whether qualified or not. Their number 
has increased from forty-three in 1833 to ninety-three in 1849, including 
ten Institutes belonging to the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine, and 
three for female teachers, under the ausjiices of an association of Christian 
Education, on a similar plan. In 1834 there were but 1,044 graduates ol 



424 HISTORY OF NORMAL SCHOOLS IN FRANCE. 

Normal Schools employed in the primary schools ; in 1848, this number 
had increased to 10,545. The expense of this branch of the school sys- 
tem cost in 1841, according to a report of M. Villemain, — 

To the State, 164,445 francs. 

« Communes, 23,890 

" Departments, . . . 1,081,348 
" Pupils, 268,520 

Total, , . . 1,538,203 



CONFERENCES. OR TEACHERS' ASSOCIATIONS, 

AND TEACHERS' LIBRARIES. 



The suggestion of M. Cousin in his Report* as to the utility of conferen- 
ces of teachers, was not acted upon by the Council of Public Instruction 
until 1837. In February of that year, a law was presented by the Minis- 
ter of this department and passed by the Chambers on this subject. The 
substance of this law is presented in the following remarks by M. Willm, 
m his valuable treatise on the Education of the People. 

" This law treats, in the first place, of the object of conferences ; and then, of 
their epochs and government. The first article authorizes ' the teachers of one 
or several districts to assemble, with the sanction of the local authorities, and, 
under the close inspection of the committee of the department, to confer amongst 
themselves on the different subjects of their teaching — on the ways and methods 
they employ — and on the principles which ought to be adopted in the education 
of children and conduct of masters. Every other subject of discussion must be 
excluded from these conferences.' In regard to this article, I would observe, 
that it would not be advantageous for teachers who thus assemble to be very 
numerous; and that they must avoid coming from too great a distance to the 
place of meeting. Neither must they be very few in number; because, in that 
case, there would be too little variety and animation in their labors; but, were 
they more than twelve or fifteen, each would not be able to take an active part 
in the proceedings. 

The second article reminds teachers that the law has placed at the head of 
the subject-matters of instruction, moral and religious instruction ; and that it 
is their duty to occupy themselves with it. From this it seems to follow, that 
teachers belonging to different sects must not assemble together in the same 
conferences. In Alsace, for example, priests or ministers are generally presi- 
dents — which is a stronger reason for teachers of different communions not as- 
sembling promiscuously together. 

The third article says, that the superior committees will point out to the dif- 
ferent assemblies the subjects on which the attention of the teachers ought more 
especially to be fixed. These committees hitherto have, unfortunately, occupied 
themselves very little with such conferences; some even have opposed their 
formation, or given them an organization very different from that recommended 
by the royal council. Can there be no means of remedying this omnipotence 
of the committees, and regulating that liberty, in such a way as not to risk 
anarchy 1 

According to the fourth article, ' each teacher may beg permission to give an 
account of what he has read since last meeting, to make observations on the 
works in connection with primary instruction recently published, to read some 
essay of his own on the discipline of schools, or on some one of the branches of 
instruction.' Each may, besides, address to the assembly a verbal communi- 
cation on the art of teaching, submit to it a doubt or difficulty, which in his 
daily practice he may have met. 

The eighth article says that the president of the conferences must always be 
appointed by the rector of the academy. The president ought, wherever pos- 
sible, to be selected from such as are not members of the association ; he should 
be some friend and connoisseur of popular education, without being teacher; 
he will thus direct the debates and labors of the conference with more authority 
and a wider range of view ; the information which he displays in the discharge 

* See page 418. 



426 CONFERENCES OF TEACHERS IN FRANCE. 

of his duties will be more varied and profound ; and he will be, in the midst of 
teachers, the interpreter of what the world expects from them. 

Every thing will depend on the manner in which their labors are directed, ' 
and on the zeal with which ihe teachers engage in them. One of the principal 
results of conference ought to be, the exercising them in speaking. Speech is 
the instrument of the ait of teacliing. In the management of a school, and in 
all that concerns the mechanism of teaching, the teacher ought to speak little; 
his commands ought to be brief; and, in most cases a word, a gesture, a look 
will suffice. But in teaching, properly so called, when he is engaged in ex- 
pounding the first truths of morality and religion, in explaining whal has been 
read by the pnpils, in narrating to them the history of the Bible or national his- 
tory, (sacred or profane history,) in telling them of the wonders of the heavens 
and the earth — then he must be able to speak with fluency, clearness, and pre- 
cision, if ndt eloquently. Children, like men, are fascinated by the charms of 
speech. The choicest things, badly saici, p.^vluceon them no impression ; and 
— like arrows, darted by a feeble and tremb'jng hand — glide, so to speak, over 
the surface of their mind, and never reach its depths. 

The essays of the teachers may consist of two kinds. One class may be 
written on any subjects, but should be analogous to what teachers prescribe to 
their most advanced pupils — such as some scene of nature or of human life, a 
grand or-useful thought, an historical fact, &c. These essays ought not to be 
long; and must be written wilti that correct simplicity, which is as far lemoved 
from the inelegancies of a vulgar style, as from the far-fetched phraseology of 
the Wit. These first essays — exercises in composition and thought — will also 
be a means of perfecting the teachers in the art of speaking. The other kind 
of essays, treating of some branch of the pedagogic art, may be more directly 
useful to them. In composing them, theirmemory. their own experience rather 
than books, ought to be consulted ; and simplicity and truth, rather than novelty 
and originality, ought to be aimed at. The greatest possible clearness, pre- 
cision, and actual utility ought to be the distinguishing features of these essays. 

In some societies of teachers, the same question is offered to the consideration 
of all the members — thus creating amongst them a species of competition : but 
as every essay must be read and discu.ssed during the meeting, they would be 
restricted, in following this mode of procedure, to the composition only of two 
or three a-year ; or obliged to multiply, beyond measure, the number of the 
meetings; and in both cases the interest would be, inevitably, diminished. It 
is desirable, however, that at each sitting, the same subject be handled by two 
members. The two essays would compete with each other, and occasion a 
discussion ; M^hich the president would take care to manage, so that all inight 
speak in rotation, and that no one, while speaking, tat; undue adv.Tntage. 
Every expression of praise or censure, every ob>ervation tending to shock self- 
esteem or modesty, ought, on all sides, to be prohibited. If at the termination 
of the sitting, the majority be not sufficiently instructed, they could cominission 
the president, or another member, to resume the discus.sion at the next con- 
ference. 

On other occasions, to vary still farther the proceedings, the author of an 
essay could address it soine days before the meeting in the form of a letter, to 
one of his colleagues, requesting his opinion of it. The letter and rei ly might 
then be read, and their contents discussed in the ordinary manner. This pro- 
cedure is preferable, in my opinion, to the practice of several societies in Ger- 
many. After the reading of an essay, a member is then enjoined to present a 
criticism of it at next meeting. This method is accompanied with seiious in- 
conveniences. Self-love becomes a willing co-operator. The critic endeavors, 
by every means, to find cause for controversy, and believes himself, in some 
sense, obliged to think diffeiently from him whom he has been appointed to 
judge. In this manner concord and friendship, so necessary to the prosperity of 
the association, are, without great benefit to truth, seriously compromised. 

I would add, that copies of all the essays should be deposited in the library, 
where every one might consnlt them. 

I have said that each member may demand permission to make to the assem- 
bly any communication relative to the art of teaching; to submit to it a ques- 
tion, a doubt, an observation, which his practice may have suggested to him. 
Such communications add much to the interest and utility of conferences, By 
means of them, the experience of each becomes, in some sense, the experience 



LIBRARIES FOR TEACHERS IN FRANCE. 427 

of all. Those who have been occupied many years in teaching will aid their 
junior fellow-laborers. 

In fine, it may happen, and it happen.s but loo often, that, in their relation.s 
with the local authorities and the parents, differences arise, to disturb the good 
understanding — the perfect harmony between them and the teacliers. These 
differences should be submitted in the conferences to the appreciation of their 
colleagues — to the judgment of iheir compeers. They will thus be less subject 
to mistakes and anger; and, when necessary, more undaunted in repelling in- 
justice, and in maintaining their rights. 

LIBRARIES FOR THE USE OF TEACHERS IN FRANCE. 

The fifteenth article of the Inw of February, 1837, on conferences of 
teachers, provides for the establishment of libraries for the use of those 
who attend the conferences. By means of the funds which the parishes 
or the county have granted for this purpose, or by means of clubbing 
among the teachers, a library should be formed for those who attend 
the conferences regularly. The books composing the library should be 
inserted in a catalogue, Avhich must be verified every year. A copy of 
said catalogue must be sent to the Minister of Public Instruction. 

M. Willm makes the following remarks on the subject: 

" Such libraries may be established by teachers who do not assemble in 
regular conferences, or associate for such a purpose. A distinguished teacher 
may he conceived to address the following language to his colleagues, to induce 
them to establish such a society: 'Two principal objections maybe made 
against this scheme. In the first place, how, with the scanty resouices at our 
disposal, can we establish a library, in the smallest degree, complete; and 
then, amongst such a host of books, whose number augments every day, will 
not a proper selection be difiicult — even impossible ? In replying lo these ob- 
jeclions, I will, at the same time, let you know my views on the course to be 
pursued in the acquisition of books. These views are the results of my own 
experience, and of the counsels which, in former times, I was fortunate to 
receive. 

I do not dissemble the importance of the doubts I am attempting to remove ; 
the first, especially, seems but too well founded. How, indeed, willi our trifling 
resources can we hope to establish in a few years a library ever so little worthy 
of the name 1 We are ten members; each of us will j)ut into the society's 
strong box, three shillings as entry money, and a shilling per month, or twelve 
shillings per annum : this is much for us — too much peihaps; and it is to be 
desired, that, at a later period, this monthly payment be reduced. We will 
thus have at our disposal, the first year, the sum of one hundred and fifty shil- 
lings. Of this sum, fifteen shillings must he spent in purchasing registeis!| pens, 
and paper ; and. by adding ten shillings for small incidental expenses, our in- 
come will be reduced to one hundred and twentv-five shillings. We must be- 
come subscribers lor two pedagogic journals, which may cost about twenty-five 
shillings a year. To lay the foundation of our library, about one hundred shil- 
lings remain. 

To found, with a hundred shillings, a library, appears absurd^impossible. 
But let us forget for an instant the ambitious name of library, and simply say 
that we unite together for the purpose of procurirg, in one year, ten times more 
books than each of us singly could purchase, and it will be granted that we are 
doing a judicious thing, and making an excellent speculation. Will it not be a 
sufficiently good result of our association, if, instead of one or two works, which 

Eerhaps each of us might have purchased, besides what are indispensable, we 
ave at the end of the year irom ten to twenty at our disposal 1. And supposing 
we continue at this rate for ten years; instead of from ten to twenty, would we 
not hnve from one hundred to two bundled, and perhaps morel And Cuuld 
not our collection, then, without too much vanity, be styled a library 1 Great 
things have often sprung from small beginnings. If you persevere, you will 
have the merit of bequeathing to your successors a considerable number of 



428 LIBRARIES FOR TEACHERS IN FRANCE. 

books; and, after two or three generations, the teachers of our district will 
have for their use a valuable library. Is, then, the thought of working for the 
future of no estimation to the good man, and is not even that thought for us, as 
says Lafontaine, a fruit which fo-dai/ we enjoy? 

Bm, besides the "satisfaction of founding a work for which our successors 
will bless as, we ourselves will reap Irom it precious advantages. By associa- 
ting, we unshackle the means of instruction. The books besides, which after 
deliberation and common consent we procure, will be better selected, than if 
each had been left to his own knowledge. And if you adopt my views of the 
course to be followed in the acquisition of books, if you select them according 
to fixed principles, agreed to beforehand, they will form, in the very firsi year, 
in spite-of their fewness, a finished whole. Ten, twenty volumes selected with 
judgment, according to a certain plan, and which, by referring to each other, 
mutually complete and explain each other, are — in spite of the variety of their 
contents and immediate object — more valuable than three or four times as 
many works, excellent, perhaps, but chosen at random and inconsequently. 
From this, it follows, that after ten years" association, we might have at our 
command, not only ten times more books than we would have had, if each had 
been left to his own resources ; but that these books, more judiciously selected, 
will have a relative value much greater than the same, or double the number 
of volumes collected at random. 

An association affords still another advantage in this respect. There are 
works composed of several volumes, and whose price is such, that the majority 
of teachers are incapable of procuring them at their own expense. United, we 
can acquire, if necessary, even very expensive works, and some of these publi- 
cations may be indispensable. 

We may, besides, entertain the hope that other teachers will soon join us. I 
cherish another hope ; I hope, if we persevere, that the communities of our dis- 
trict, that the higher committee of our parish and the academy, will come to 
our aid. As we think not of ourselv'es alone whilst we are endeavoring to en- 
large the limits of our instruction, but of our schools and of the fu'itre, we can, 
without a blush, invoke the assistance of all who are intei-ested in popular edu- 
cation — of the citizens who discover in it a means of public felicity — and of the 
authorities intrusted with its direction. Works, we do not doubt, will pour in 
from different sources, and, if we seriously wish it, we will soon have at our 
disposal a stock of books, sufficiently respectable to constitute the nucleus of a 

DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARY. 

I come to the second objection — the difficulty of making a suitable selection 
among so many books. This difficulty is serious ; but in proportion to the 
scantiness of our means, we are less liable to be misled. This consideration, 
far from discouraging us, ought only to impress still more deeply the principles 
which ought to guide our selection. 

The number of works on all subjects, has, for a century especially, prodi- 
giously increased. The science of education, for a long time neglected, and 
treated by some distinguished writers only at distant intervals, reckons, in our 
days, its books by hundreds — if we comprehend those addressed especially to 
childhood and.t}'^outh. But we must not be frightened by this mixititude; this 
riches, in the main, is but apparent. Many of those works whose titles swell 
the catalogues of the booksellers, are old and obsolete; many others are but 
imitations and of little value. Good writers of every kind are not numerous ; 
and even among the good, a selection can be made. The essential point is to 
know how to select well. As to old books, we will trust to their reputation, 
■which seldom misleads ; and as to new books, we will consult enlightened men. 

Of the works recognized as good, we will always select the best and the 
most complete. To read m^ich is not the principal point, but to read veil; and 
to read often the best productions. The fruits which may be reaped from read- 
iirg, depend as much upon the manner of reading, as upon the excellence of the 
books read. 

Our library will be composed of three kinds of works. In the first rank, we 
shall place such as treat of the art of education; of teaching in general; of 
primary instruction in particular. It will not be necessary to secure a great 
number of books of this class; a few solid and complete treatises, which epito- 
mise the science, will suffice for the commencement. The most essential pre- 
cepts and the rules tmiversally approved, are found in all good productions of 



LIBRARIES FOR TEACHERS IN FRANCE. 429 

any length. To good treatises, however, to encyclopedic manuals, -which exhibit 
pedagogy as a whole, and which, I'aithlul to the precept, prove all things and 
cleave to v;hnt is good — unite what even the ditlerent methods possess of most 
practical and reasonable — we will add, later works upon the most remarkable 
special methods. Still later, in a few years, we may be able to admit into our 
collection a certain number of works already old, which, like Rousseau's Emile, 
have formed an epoch in the history of the an of education ; then, to keep pace 
with the progress of the science, we only have to procure, at distant intervals, 
some good new treatise. 

The second series of works of our future library, should consist of such as 
expound either the whole or some branch of primary instruction ; of manuals of 
religion and morality; of arithmetic, geography, and general or national his- 
tory : natural history, phs-^sics, hygiane, agriculture, and technology ; written 
expressly for teachers, children, and the people. 

Finally, the richest portion of our library might be composed of instructive 
and rare works, which, while adding to our knowledge, will afford useful relax- 
ation, and the means of inlusing into our lessons a wholesome variety; of ex- 
citing and sustaining the attention of our pupils, and of throwing an interest 
aroimd our teaching. 

I rank in this third class of books, /r5<, extracts or selections from travels in 
the different quarters of the globe. They will supply the place of the original 
narratives, too dear, and which include, besides, generally many very useless 
details, or things already known. There is scarcely any kind of reading more 
interesting than the history of travels in distant countries, and which furnishes 
the most useful materials for the instruction of youth. 

Secondly, hi.storical works, particularly natural history, selecting, in prefer- 
ence, such as have been composed for the ypung of schools. We might extract 
from them, to narrate to our pupils, those traits of magnanimity and devoted- 
ness to one's country and Immanity, which constitute the beauty and honor of 
history. 

Thirdly, I would place in our library a few religious and national poets; 
good anthologies; selections and collections of pieces in prose and verse ; a few 
books more especially written for the instruction and amusement of childhood 
and youth, and which can be read to and by our pupils. 

Fourthly, popular works which, addressed directly to the people, in towns 
and in the country, strive to snatch them from the misery of ignorance, to ren- 
der them better and happier; and which adapt to their capacity, morality, 
counsels of prudence, and the most interesting and useful results of science in 
general. Till each parish pos.sess its own library, we shall form, as it were, an 
intermediate stage, a connecting link, between science and the people. To ex- 
plain these books, and to facilitate the comprehension of them, we must our- 
selves be thoroughly acquainted with them. We will find in them, besides, an 
abundant source of instruction for ourselves and for our pupils. 

'In short, my dear Colleagues, our library ought to consist of a small number 
of works on methods; manuals of all the branches of primary instruction and 
of the education of the people; and many instructive and popular works. 
Thus, all works of pure amusement, and "such as are not addressed directly 
either to schools or youth, to the people or to the teachers of the people, mus't 
be excluded. By confining ourselves within these limits, our selection will not 
be difficult ; especially if we be guided by men well versed in such matters. 
Let us begin the work; let us persevere in the prosecution of it; and soon we 
shall have to congratulate ourselves on having undertaken it, and on having 
founded, at the expense of a few light sacrifices, an institution of incontestible 
utility.' " 



MEANS OF IMPROVING 

THE 

PECUNIARY CONDITION OF TEACHERS IN FRANCE. 



The provisions of the French law respecting Teachers' Conferences 
and Libraries, and the remarks of M. Wilhii, are intended to show how 
teachers, by association, may add to the acquirements of the Normal 
School, keep pace with new methods and discoveries, clear up the diffi- 
culties and supply the wants met with in their particular position, and es- 
cape from that meaningless routine of practices, and dull uniformity of 
character, to which their profession pursued alone exposes them. But 
the French law aims, although imperfectlj'. to ameliorate the teacher's 
condition, and the condition of his family, by guarding against present 
and future want. On these points M. Willm makes many judicious sug- 
gestions from which American teachers may profit. 

" It poverty be always an evil, it is especially so to the teacher; because it 
prevents him from performing etficiently his duty, and enjoying due distinction. 
His functions will be doubly painful, if the caies of the morrow deprive him of 
the e.iergy sufficient to aceampiish his daily task. I demand not wealth for the 
teacher: 1 ask not that he be rich but he3^ond the reach of indigence; that 
he be able to live in honest ease, without being obliged to devoie himself to la- 
bors f)reiga to his profession; that he have the power to continue his studies, 
to support a f.Hmilv. and to enjoy an honorable repose in his old age — if Heaven 
accord him length of days — or die undisturbed as to the future lot of his 
children, if carried away i'rom them in the midst of his career. 

The condition of the teacher is at present widely different from this. The 
law of 1833 has unlouhiedly bettered his lot; — and it were imgraleful to deny 
it. It may be said, indeed, that in general, schoolmasters are better paid in 
France than in most other countries. In Germ;iny there are a considerable 
number whj do not gain the minimum salary of four hundred francs; and even 
in Prussia, the average — every thing included — is, for a town-teacher, eight 
hundred francs; for a couutry teacher, about three hundred francs; and let us 
remark that in Prussia, living is much deaier than in France. It is not neces- 
sary to reckon up in detail our every-day expenses, to be convinced that, with 
such a paltrv income, it is wholly impossilile to maintain housekeeping on the 
mist economical principle; and that a family of industrious laborers has much 
greater chance of prospering than that of a teacher. 

In France, I repeat, teachers are, in general, much better paid. In towns, it 
is seldom that they do not gain fiom one thousand to twelve hundred francs; 
and in several localities their income exceeds this. In the country, there are 
few whose salary is under five hundred francs; and manv gain a great deal 
more. But five hundred francs and one thousand francs are but poor remunera- 
tion for three hundred and sixty-five days' labor ; for to gain even that sum. the 
teacher is most freq'ii^ntly obliged to add to the functions of schoolmaster, those 
of beadle organist, and ch^ner; such a sum is loo inconsiderable to support a 
fimily ; for we alwnys take tor sranied that the teacher is married and has a 
family: and that so he sets a good example, and is rendced mure q.u:ilified to 
train men and citizens. 

The condition of teachers must therefore be improved ; it m:i-l • e rendered 
more pleasant, and, at thesame time, more respected, not only with a regard to 
their interests, but especially tor the sake of schools, of the people, and of the 
stale itself. 



MEANS OF IMPROVING TEACHERS' CONDITION. 43 J 

I. Teachers may themselves do much to ameliorate their lot, and raise their 
condition. They mu.st remember the old proverb — help yoursc/f, and Heaven 
wll help you. M. ^'chlez, a much esteemed German teacher, thinks that a 
teacher should always follow some trade, avoiding scrupulously, however, 
every degrading calling, or which might bring him into competition with the 
inhabitants of the district. He proposes, as compatible wiih the functions of 
the teacher of the people, gardening; the cultivation and grafting of trees ; the 
rearing of bees and silk-worms ; musical instrument-making; "clock-making; 
bookbindmg; bandbox-making; moulding; painting; the art of turning; the 
construction of barometers and thermometers ; the duties of copyist and book- 
keeper — and, finally, private lessons. But many of these occupations would 
require too long an apprenticeship, or engage 100 much time, to render them 
lucrative ; or they would need an outlay beyond the ordinary means of a teacher. 
Country teachers might find a valuable resource, as well as a noble recreation, 
in the cultivation of a garden of limited extent, which all districts ought to 
have at their disposal ; and the ground of which, if if could not be purchased, 
they might almost always find opportunity to rent. 

The art of gardening, which includes the grafting of trees, the cultivation of 
useful plants and of flowers, appears the most compatible with the occupation 
of teachers; between them are close analogies. That art can be learned at 
small expense, and in a short time. The teacher who, fiom his being well 
paid, needs not devote himself to pursuits foreign to his profession, might follow 
it simply for amusement; others would find it a means of improving their con- 
dition : and the employment would neither be degrading nor fatiguing. I have 
seen one of these gardens cultivated by a teacher, whose school was a garden 
bles.sed to him by Heaven. One division of it furnished kitchen vegetables ; 
another was planted with fruit-trees of the best sorts; a third, was a nursery 
exceedingly varied, and flowers abounded in every quarter. Often he led to ft 
his select pupils; his garden was at once a source of pleasure and profit to him- 
self and of instruction to his school. This example ought to be generally imi- 
tated. To the cultivation of a garden and orchard, country teachers might join, 
according to circumstances, ihe rearing of bees or silk-worms. During winter, 
study and instruction ought exclusively to occupy them, and nothing should 
prevent their keeping an evening-school for adults, or for young people from 
fifteen to twenty years of age, as is done in several districts of Alsace. This 
evening-school, which might be of great utility, would supplement a little in- 
come ; and it depends but on the interest they had in it, to induce a great num- 
ber of their old pupils to take an active part in this additional instruction. 
Bandbox-making and book-binding, would likewise be suitable occupations, 
but not very lucrative. 

Shall I inform the coimtry teachers that they have in their own power an- 
other means of being in less uneasy circumstances, and that this means is rigid 
economy, a retired and unassuming life ? I have scarcely courage to do so, for 
the majority are indeed forced to be economical. There is, however, a consid- 
erable number who frequent inns and cofl^ee-shops ; and who are loo much en- 
gaged in public amusements, little compatible with the moral authority which 
they ought to exercise, or with the state of their fortune. Without preventing 
them, on certain occasions, from mingling with public life, and sharing the 
honest pleasures of society, they ought to be counseled not to be prodigal of 
themselves, nor to court these occasions; but carefully to avoid whatever may 
tend to compromise their dignitv, or lead them into useless expense. 

In several Normal Schools, the pupil-masters are taught to draw up civil ads, 
as a srcat many of them will one day become registrars at the mayoralty. 
Such functions very well correspond with those of teachers in small parishes 
■where there are few acts to write, provided the registrar-teacher can abstain 
from mixing himself up with the mvnicipal p^sions; often very violent in the 
smallest villages. Some, likewise, compete with the notary, and for a trifling 
salary, draw out contracts in private. 

Land-surveying aflx)rds another resource ; a very inconsiderable number can 
be emploved in it. and little dependence should be'placed on it. 

In short, besides a life sober and modest, the cultivation of trees, the rearing 
of bees and silkworms, a little rural and domestic economv, private lessons, the 
functions of registrar, land-surveying, and, perhaps, book-binding and bandbox- 
making, are the methods by which teacbera may ameliopate tieir condition, 



432 MEANS OF IMPROVING TEACHERS' CONDITION. 

■without neglecting their duties, or derogating from their dignity. There is, 
however, still another resource which might be valuable : it is that which 
teachers'may find in the assistance of their partners: if they kne\V well how to 
choose — if they chose not such as are rich, but such as are economical, well- 
educated, good, and intelligent. I know some who are not only good house- 
keepers, but who render great services to the community by the examples and 
lessons they give to the voung girls of the district. 

Teachers' wives, in the absence of sisters or governesses, properly so called, 
ought to be able to undertake the teaching of needle-work and other similar 
branches, as well as the management of infant-schools, throughout all the rural 
districts. Their rank, as mothers, far from being an obstacle, would adapt 
them still better for the discharge of such functions; and when temporarily pre- 
vented from accomplishing them themselves, they would easily find among 
the young girls they had trained, assistants to supply their place. 

2. Communes (corresponding to our parishes, towns and districts) may place 
at the disposal of the teacher a portion of ground capable for farming, an orchard 
and garden. To the school-house, which the l-2th article of the organic law- 
obliges every parish to provide for the teacher, ought always to he annexed, in 
the country, a piece of ground for a garden. If it were impossible to purchase 
such a piece of ground, the parish might secure it on a long lease, or supply its 
place by an annual indemnification of fifty francs to the teacher. In fine, the 
parishes that possess the means, should be obliged to supplement the fixed 
legal salary, in proportion to the increase of their ordinary revenue. Several 
general councils have voted fimds to indemnify teachers who attend conferences, 
and to aid in the maintenance of libraries established by them. This example 
ought to be generally imitated. Instead of limiting themselves to making up 
the exact legal salary of teacher.s, when the revenues of the parishes are defi- 
cient, the counties ought to aid such as can not raise the salary of their school- 
masters to the minimum of five hundred francs, comprising every kind of 
emolument. The majoritv of the general councils vote funds for improving the 
breed of horses and cattle; whv could they not establish a few premiums for 
the amelioration of mankind 1 "Whv could they not grant, every year, a few 
prizes to the best teachers of each district— those whom the reports of the in- 
spectors and the committees recognized as the best 1 In fine, the parishes— 
and, they failing, the counties and the state— ought always to provide a mode- 
rate retiring provision for deserving teachers ; so that they may not dread re- 
tiring, when age unfits them for the maintenance of discipline. The higher 
school authorities,— the departmental and county councils,— could add to the pre- 
mium now required by law. 

3. The nation alone can make thorough provision for the necessary amelio- 
ration of teachers, who are now public functionaries, and intrusted with the ed- 
ucation of the people. That they may discharge their functions with courage 
and devotedness, it is necessarv, after they have been properly trained in the 
Normal Schools, and their morality and capacity well attested, to make them 
a suitable appointment, so as to enable them to devote themselves exclusively 
to their school-duties; to live honorably, though unostentatiously, and to con- 
tinue improving themselves. It is necessary, besides, to afford them a pension 
when old age renders retreat imperative, and to remove from them all appre- 
hensions as to the lot of their families should they die prematurely— victims of 
their zeal in executing their painful duties. 

Let me be permitted to observe, that the law of June, 1833 — that law, in 
other respects, so full of wisdom, which grateful posterity will always quote 
with respect, and from which dates truly good primary instruction in France— 
that law, I sav. whilst declaring popular schools a public obligation, a social 
necessity, and raising teachers to the rank of commimal and irremoveable 
functionaries, has not done enot^h to render their condition what it ought to be, 
nor sufficientlv armed the executive for the strict execution of the law. 

The twelfth article savs, that every parish teacher shall be provided with a 
locality, properly situated for a habitation and the reception of pupils. I have 
mentioned, elsewhere, how this order of the law has, in many places, been exe- 
cuted; and in what sense many parishes understand the word properly. 

The same article guarantees the primary teacher a fixed salary of at least 
two hundred francs: it is now pretty generally acknowledged, that the minimum 
should be raised to three hundred francs: it results from calculations made by 



MEANS OF IMPROVING TEACHERS' CONDITION. 433 

the Minister of Public Instruction in his last report, that to raise the minimum 
to three hundred francs, it would be requisite to add a million to the budget, and 
that the said sum would I'all to the account of the department. 1 will not ask 
■what is a million amid a budget of a thousand millions, and what is a million 
portioned nut among the eighty-six counties ; 1 know fiial the resources of 
France are great: her wants are likewise immense. But I will say, that the 
country should consider no sacrifice too costly to secure a service so important 
as that of popular instruction ; and that it ought not, in this respect, to be be- 
hind any civilized nation. 

The monthly fee, which, according to the fourteenth article, ought to be col- 
lected by tax-gatherers in the ordinary form, is the principal source of the 
teachers' income; but the law has left the fixing of if, too much to the arbitrary 
inclination of the mimicipal councils. An additional paragraph inserted, upon 
the proposal of M. Antoine Passy, in the third article of the law of receipts, 
1841, submits this fee and the number of gratuitous pupils to the approval of 
the prefects, who, on the advice of the district commiitees, may fix a minimum 
rate for the monthly iee, and a maximum one for the number of gratuitous ad- 
missions. The faithful execution of this legislative enaciment would be a great 
benefit: let me hope, that in the next report of the minister, the lot of teachers 
shall appear every where ameliorated by its means. We must not believe, 
however, that it will be so productive as to exempt the legislature from raising 
the minimum fixed salary to three hundred francs. 

The law has, at the same lime, wished to guarantee the future of teachers. 
Two methods presented themselves for this object. To deduct from their fixed 
salaryfive per cent., as is done with the functionaries of the University, and thus 
to acquire for them a right to a retiring pension, or to establish simply a savings' 
or provident-box, in every respect like the ordinary ones; with this diflierence, 
that the deposits should be obligatory, and that they could not be withdrawn 
but at the retiring or death of the depositors. The first of these two systems 
has the disadvantage — in case of the more or less premature death of a teacher 
— of depriving his family of the amount deducted from his salary in favor of 
the surviving teachers. The second system, on the contrary, that of savings'- 
boxes, makes them run no chance of risk ; having reached the end of their 
career, the product of their economy is restored either to themselves when they 
retire, or to their families, should they die in the discharge of their duties. 

It is this last system which the law has sanctioned by establishing sav- 
ings'-boxes, formed by the annual deduction of a twentieth fiom the fixed salary 
of each parish teacher. This system has been found fault with, lor producing 
but a poor resource for a deserving teacher and his family. Indeed, the deduc- 
tion of a twentieth from a fixed salary of two hundred francs will produce, of 
capital and interest, at the end often years, only a reserve of one hundred,and 
twenty francs, five centines ; at the end of fifteen years, only a reserve of two 
hundred francs, fifteen centines ; at the end of twenty years, it will produce 
about three hundred francs ; at the end of twenty-five years, a little more than 
four hundred francs; at the end of thirty years, about five hundred trancs ; 
and forty years' service are necessary to save, in thie manner, a thousand 
francs. The same deduction made upon a fixed salary of three hundred 
francs will produce one hundred and eighty francs, at the end of ten years ; 
four hundred and fifty francs, at the end of twenty years; eight hundred 
and forty francs, at the end of thirty years; and about one thousand lour 
hundred and twenty-five francs, after forty years' service. A deduction of 
twenty francs per annum would amount, in teir years, to two hundred and Ibrty 
francs; in twenty years, to about six hundred francs; in thirty years, to about 
one thousand one hundred and twenty francs ; at the end of forty years, one 
thousand nine hundred francs. 

We see that, in supposing each teacher to deposit twenty francs a year, this 
system would still leave much scope for improvement ; since, after twenty or 
forty years' hard labor, it guarantees the teacher only from fifty to one hundred 
francs of revenue. 

To render these saving-boxes of great importance, it would be necessary, in 
my opinion, to make the deduction of a twentieth, not only from iheir Jixcd 
salary, but likewise from the casual one, from the mo atlily fee ; a thing easily 
done, as this fee must be collected by the ordinary tax-gatherers. 

A mixed system would perhaps be preferable— a system that would unite, as 

28 



434 MEANS OF IMPROVING TEACHERS' CONDITION. 

much as possible, the advantage of savings'-boxes and of deductions made from 
the salaries, to constitute a fund for retiring pensions. For this purpose, it 
would be necessary to establish in each chief city, a box, which should be both 
for savings and deductions, to which the teachers, the districts, and the counties 
should contribute, and which might receive gifts and legacies. I shall leave to 
n;ore skillful financiers, the task of developing this idea, and of showing how it 
might be executed; I limit myself to laying its foundation. Let me suppose a 
county composed of five hundred districts, and reckoning six hundred and fifty 
public teachers : this is almost the condition of the Lower Rhine. Let me sup- 
pose that this county consents to disburse per annum into the schools'-box, the 
sum of five thousand francs; that, on their part, the five hundred districts pay 
into it, annually, at an average, ten francs, which is one thousand francs — in 
fine, that a deduction of ftfteen francs is made from the salaries of the six hun- 
dred and fifty teachers, which makes annually seven thousand seven hundred 
and fifty francs; let me suppose farther, that all these payments amount to- 
gether to twenty thousand francs per annum, and we will have, at the end of 
ten years, without counting interest, or probable gifts and legacies, a sum of 
two hundred thousand francs; and, after twenty years, four hundred thousand 
francs; a capital which, placed at four per cent., would produce sixteen thou- 
sand francs of interest. This interest would be divided, according to an under- 
stood ratio, between the deserving and infirm teachers, and the widows and or- 
phans of teachers deceased. To have a right to a retiring pension, it should be 
necessary to give proofs of infirmity, or of at least thirty years' service. Widows 
would lose their claims on remarrying; and the children would cease to receive 
their portion at twenty-one years of age. It should be understood that the dis- 
tricts, small in number, which themselves might engage to provide retiring 
pensions to deserving teachers, should be at liberty to do so, and be exempted 
from contributing to the county-box. 

This box — which should, especially and essentially, be a fund ior pevsions — 
would be a saviii<rs'-box only for such teachers as have been obliged, from bad 
conduct, to resign their functions, or who voluntarily give them up, and with- 
out being unwell, before having served thirty years. The amount only of what 
they had paid in, should, without interest, be restored to them. The same 
should be done with such as leave for situations elsewhere ; their disbursements 
should be transmitted to the box of the county to which they go. 

Every one would gain by realizing this scheme : there would be a loss sus- 
tained only by such as abandoned their calling, or by children become majors 
at the death of their fathers. The enactment, again, might, according to cir- 
cumstances, stipulate for some succor to the latter, and even in favor of the 
children of destitute teachers. But to render such a box truly productive, the 
concurrence of the counties and districts is indispensable. We might hope, 
likewise, that many friends of popular education would assist it, especially at 
the commencement. After twenty or twenty-five years, the box would subsist 
of itself, and without any other fresh contributions, save of those concerned. 

In short, what is necessary to render the condition of the teachers comforta- 
ble, is, in the first place, a convenient dwelling-house, with a garden in the 
rural districts; then a fixed salary of at least 300 francs, with a casual salary 
proportioned to the number of scholars, and resulting from a monthly fee, fixed 
by the municipal councils, subject to the approval of his prefects, and collected 
by the tax-gatherers; finally, a county-box for retiring pensions, and for aid to 
the widows and orphans, supplied by the concurrence of the counties, the dis- 
tricts, and the teachers. Encouragements, premiums adjudged by the counties 
to the most deserving, and succor granted to the most necessitous districts, 
would usefully complete this system. 

The medals which at our anniversaries are distributed every year can have 
no real value until their recipients are beyond the reach of want. ' Honorary 
distinctions add, besides, to the consideration of such as are the objects of 
them; and they contribute more to the interests of the body to which they be- 
long, than to those of the men who have been decorated by them. It would, 
therefore, be very useful, that, from time to lime, this bullion recompense, to 
which M. Guizot refers in his beautiful circular, attest to the most experienced 
and devoted teacher that the government watches over their service^ and knows 
how to honor them. 



NORMAL SCHOOL 



THE FRERES CHRETIENS, OR CHRISTIAN BROTHERS. 



Any description of popular education in Europe would be incomplete, 
which should not give prominence to the Institute of the Christian 
Brothers — or the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine — including in that 
term the earliest professional school for the training of teachers in Europe ; 
one of the most remarkable body of teachers devoted exclusively and 
without pay to the education of the children of the poor th.at the world 
has ever seen, — and the introduction of improved methods in the organ- 
ization, instruction, and government of elementary schools. 

The Institute was established as a professional school in 1681, and to 
Abbe John Baptist de la Salle, belongs the high honor not only of found- 
ing it, but of so infusing into its early organization his own profound 
conviction of the Christ-like character of its mission among the poor, that 
it has retained for nearly two centuries the form and spirit of its origin. 
This devoted Christian teacher, was born at Rheims on the 30th of 
April, 1651, of parents distinguished alike by their piety and their high 
social position, To his mother he owed a prayerful and watchful home 
training, and to his father every facility for obtaining a university edu- 
cation. He was early distinguished for his scholarly attainments and 
maturity of character; and at the age of seventeen, before he had com- 
pleted his full course of theological study, he was appointed Canon in 
the Cathedral church of Rheims. From the first, he became interested in 
the education of the young, and especially ol'the poor, as the most direct 
way of leading them to a Christian life ;— and with this view before he 
was twenty-one years old, he assumed the direction of two charities, de- 
voted to female education. From watching the operation of these 
schools, conducted by teachers without professional training, without 
plan, and without mutual sympathy and aid, he conceived the design of 
bringing the teachers of this class of schools from the neighboring par- 
ishes into a community for their moral and professional improvement. 
For this purpose, he invited them first to meet, and then to lodge at his 
house, and afterwards, about the year 1681, he purchased a house for 
their special accommodation. Here, out of school hours and during their 
holydays, they spent their time in the practice of religious duties, and in 
mutual conferences on the work in which they were engaged. About 
this period, a large number of free schools for the poor were established 
in the neighboring towns; and applications were constantly made to the 
Abbe, for teachers formed under his training, care, and influence. To 
meet this demand, and make himself more directly useful in the field of 



436 NORMAL SCHOOL OF THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERS. 

Christian education, he resigned his benefice, that he might give his 
whole attention to the work. To close the distance between himself, 
having a high social position and competence from his father's estate, 
and the poor schoolmasters to whom he was constantly preaching an 
unreserved consecration of themselves to their vocation — he not only re- 
signed his canonry, with its social and pecuniary advantages, but dis- 
tributed his patrimony, in a period of scarcity, in relieving the necessities 
of the poor, and in providing for the education of their children. He 
then placed himself on the footing equality — as to occupation, man- 
ner of hfe, and entire dependence on the charity of others — with the 
schoolmasters of the poor. The annals of education or religion, show 
but few such examples ol" practical self-denial, and entire consecration to 
a sense of duly. His reasons for the step are thus set forth in a mem- 
orandum found among his papers. 

1. " If I have resources against misery, I can not preach to them an entire con- 
fidence in Providence. 

2. " In remaining as I am, they will always find a specious pretext in my rev- 
enue to warrant their diffidence. 

3. " A temptation, so plausible in appearance, can not ultimately fall to produce 
the effects which the demon desires ; and the masters in part or in whole will de- 
sert the schools, and leave me without persons to conduct them. 

4. " The rumor of their desertion will spread through the city : and those who 
would have a vocation to become masters, will be attacked by the same tempta- 
tions, even before they enter. 

5. "The schools without permanent masters will fail, and the Institute will 
become buried under their ruins, never more to be re-established. 

6. " Should none of these anticipations be realized, can I be superior of these 
masters without ceasing to be a canon ? are the two duties compatible ? I must 
renounce either. 

7. " Now, in this choice, what should determine me ? The greater glory of 
God, the greater service of the church, my own perfection, and the salvation of 
souls. If I consult but such motives, so worthy of a priest of the Lord, I must 
resign my canonry to take upon me the care of the schools, and to form masters 
capable of conducting them. 

8. " I feel no further attraction in the vocation of a canon ; and though I have 
entered upon it legitimately, it appears to me that God now calls me to renounce 
it. He has placed me in my present situation ; but does he not show me another 
which merits a preference ?" 

Having completed his act of resignation and self-imposed poverty, he 
assembled his teachers, announced to them what he had done, and sung 
with them a Te Deum. After a retreat— a period set apart to prayer 
and fasting, — continued for seventeen days, they devoted themselves to 
the consideration of the best course to give unity, efficiency, and perma- 
nence to their plans of Christian education for the poor. They assumed 
the name of " The Brothers of the Christian Doctrine," as expressive 
of their vocation — which by usage became to be abbreviated into 
" Christian Brothers." They look on themselves vows of poverty, celib- 
acy, and obedience for three years. They prescribed to themselves the 
most frugal fare, to be provided in turns by each other. They adopted 
at that time some rules of behavior, which have since been incorpo- 
rated into the fundamental rules of order, viz., not to' speak of any in- 
dividual in censorious terms — not to contradict, or correct each other, 



NORMAL SCHOOL OF THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERS. 43*7 

this being reserved to the brother-director — not to jest, or speak of idie 
and frivolous topics, but to introduce such matters only as might lead to 
the love of God and practice of virtue — to exhibit equal affection for 
all poor scholars, and more for the poor than the rich — to give a contin- 
ual example of modesty and of all the virtues which these pupils ought 
to practice ; and never to punish when they were irritated. 

Their dress was fixed by a sort of accident. The mayor of Rheims saw some 
of the brothers badly clothed ; and, as it was the depth of winter, he feared lest 
their health might suffer, from want of defense from the inclemencies of the 
weather. He represented this to the founder, who accordingly procured some 
coarse black cloth, part of which he got made into cloaks, and part into soutans, 
such as were worn in former times by ecclesiastics — closed in front by hooks and 
eyes. To this he added a collar of coarse linen, strong shoes, and a hat of ample 
dimensions, which is the dress still worn by the brothers. 

Ardent zeal, like that of these Christian schoolmasters, is liable, if not joined 
with discretion, to run into excess. Some of the brothers carried their austerities 
so far that their health was destroyed, and three of them fell victims to their indis- 
creet ardor. This left a sad blank in the establishment. However, in spite of these 
losses, the number of the brothers soon began rapidly to increase, and still more 
the demand for their services ; so great was their reputation for skill, patience, and 
indefatigableness in teaching. 

From the great increase of the establishment, M. de la Salle resolved to vacate 
the office of principal. He also judged it necessary, for his soul's health, to be 
subject like the rest, to the orders of a superior. Accordingly, he persuaded the 
brothers to elect brother Felix, as his successor. He was the first to greet the new 
superior ; and, for a time, became an ordinary brother. He swept the house in 
his turn ; washed the utensils ; and submitted himself implicitly to all the rules of 
the institution. However, it was judged expedient that he should resume the 
office of superior, which he did from a sense of duty, though with great reluctance. 

The life which this pious man had chosen was not without its disappointments 
and drawbacks. His former friends, and even his relations, scoffed at his pious 
labors, and publicly insulted him ; all of which he bore vi'ith patience. Some of 
the younger members of the institute were unable to command the respect of the 
children under their instruction ; aud, in the hope of maintaining discipline, had 
recourse to undue severity. M. de la Salle knew the source of the evil : he ex- 
horted his disciple to watch over themselves ; to restrain their impatience; and to 
make themselves beloved by mildness. His instruction and example had the de- 
sired effect ; and the leading characteristic of the Christian Brothers is, that im- 
perturbable patience, joined with kind benevolence, which are the most valuable 
qualities of the teachers of youth. If the teachers would but watch over them- 
selves, they would soon learn to influence others. 

The demand for teachers, in connection with the brothers, exceeded 
the supply ; and to remedy this, those who stood in need of teachers 
sought out young men of good dispositions to attend on the instructions 
of M. de la Salle. These young candidates were lodged and in- 
structed by the most experienced brothers, and thus received a normal 
training in their future duties. 

In 1688, M. de la Salle, with two brothers, took charge of a school in 
the parish of St. Sulpice, in Paris. They found the schools in great dis- 
order ; without regulation, as the time of opening and closing, the order 
and length of lessons, and without discipline. By skill and patience the 
school was improved, and a desire created for similar schools in other 
parishes. But all this was done at a time when some of the brothers 
proved weak and faithless ; and the founder was under the necessity of 



488 NORMAL SCHOOL OF THE CHRISTIAN BROTrfERS. 

reorganizing this institute, and providing for its permanence by a novi- 
tiate at Vaugirard. near Paris, in which pious young persons who felt it 
to be a duty and a pleasure to teach and labor for the poor, might go 
through a course of tried and preparation for the self-denying life of the 
brothers. He accordingly associated with him two brothers, and they 
together consecrated themselves entirely to God, '• to procure by all our 
power, and all our care, the establishment of Christian schools, and for 
this purpose make vow of association and union, to procure and main- 
tain this establishment, without liberty to swerve, even though there 
should remain but three in the society, and that we should be obliged to 
ask alms, and live on bread only." And they did persevere in seasons 
of scarcity, when they lived on herbs only, against the misapprehensions 
of good men, and the interested opposition of the teachers of Paris, who 
found that the gratuitous and skillful labors of the brothers interfered 
with their emoluments. The schoolmasters of Chartres, where M. de 
la Salle had sent six brothers to open a large school, succeeded in ob- 
taining from the bishop an order, that no children should be admitted 
into this school unless they were inscribed on the list of paupers. This 
regulation was fatal to the school. In 1700, a school was opened at 
Calais. 

In 1699, M. de la Salle attached to the novitiate in Paris, a Sunday 
school for apprentices and other young persons under twenty years of 
age. In these schools, besides oral instruction in the catechism and 
Bible, lessons in reading, arithmetic, and drawing, were given to those 
whose early education had been entirely neglected. But he was not 
allowed to continue these schools many years without opposition. In 
1706, the society of writing masters presented a memorial to the officer 
of police, charging the brothers with keeping, under pretext of charity, 
schools not legally authorized, to the prejudice of those that were, and 
asking if these schools were to be tolerated, they should be confined to 
those only who were paupers, and that such children should be taught 
only those things which were suitable to the condition of their parents. 
They succeeded, and at a subsequent application, obtained a grant, pro- 
hibiting parents who had means from sending to free schools. By these 
efforts the Sunday schools were broken up, after some six years trial. 

In 1702, the first step was taken to establish an Institute at Rome, 
under the mission of one of the brothers, Gabriel Drolin, who after years 
of poverty, was made conducter of one of the charitable schools founded 
by Pope Clement XI. This school became afterwards the foundation 
of the house which the brothers l\ave had in Rome since the pontificate 
of Benedict XIII., who conferred on the institute, the constitution of a 
religious order. In 1703, under the pecuniary aid of M. Chateau Blanc, 
and the countenance of the archbishop, M. de Gontery, a school was 
opened at Avignon. The archbishop, in a certificate addressed to the 
Pope in 1720, says : " since the establishment of the gratuitous schools 
in the city of Avignon, the brothers have already discharged their duties 
with zeal and assiduity. The public have derived great advantages 



NORMA^, SCHOOL OF THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERS. 439 

from their application to the Christian education of the children ; and 
their modesty and purity of morals have, at all times, given singular 
edification." 

In 1704 a school was opened at Marseilles, for the children of sailors, 
under the care of two brothers. They were so successful, that in 1735 
their number was increased to 10, and they were received into the regu- 
lar communities, or guilds, of the city. 

In 1705, two teachers, under the invitation of the archbishop of Rouen, 
opened a school in that city, and in the course of a few months, M. de la 
Salle, decided to remove and establish his Novitiate there. But here 
the established order of schoolmasters interposed their claim against the 
new comers, and it was only after submitting to the following conditions 
prescribed by a committee of the great hospital, to whom the right of 
granting permi-ssion to teach belonged by charter. 

1 . That the brothers should be present when the poor of the city hospital were 
rising and going to bed ; and that they should recite for them morning and eve- 
ning prayers. 

2. That they should, moreover, instruct them, and attend also to the four large 
schools of the city. 

3. They were to return from the schools, though situated in the most remote 
parts of the city, to take their refrection at the hospital. 

4. On their return from the schools, they were to serve the poor at table. 

5. Five brothers were to perform all these duties. 

The brothers acceded to these terms. And in the neighborhood estab- 
lished, in 1705, a novitiate on an estate called St. You — through the aid 
of Madame de Louvois. Here candidates for admission to the commu- 
nity came and entered the novitiate — here he renewed the annual re- 
treats, in which the brothers who were now dispersed abroad in differen* 
cities, reassembled and renewed their vows of poverty and obedience. 

In 1710, a priest of Vans, Vincent de St. John Delze du Rouze, hav- 
ing witnessed the success of the schools at Avignon, made provision in 
his will for the support of a school to be taught by the brothers, " per- 
suaded as I am, that the greater part of young children fall into irregu- 
larity of morals, for want of a religious education." 

In the same year a school was established at Moulins, where the 
Abbe Languet was so pleased with their methods of instruction, that he 
engaged the senior brother to instruct the children in the church of St. 
Peter, the principal church in the town, and required all the young ec- 
clesiastics to attend on his instruction with a view of acquiring his 
methods. The last labor of M. de la Salle, was to assist in establishing 
a school at Boulogne under the auspices of M. de la Cocherie, and the 
Marquis de Colembert. 

In the year 1716, he urged the acceptance of his resignation as supe- 
rior over the community ; and brother Bartholomew was elected in his 
stead. At this time, the rules of the order were revised and confirmed. 
He died on the 7th of April, 1719, at the Institute of St. You, near Rouen ; 
a portion of the last year of his life was devoted to a class of little chil- 
dren, confided by their parents to the care of the brothers for their 



440 NORMAL SCHOOL OF THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERS. 

training. Born with a large endowment of mental faculties, which he 
had enriched by studious and careful culture, after a hfe of laborious 
usefulness, he died poor, having in possession only the New Testament, 
the Imitation of Christ, a crucifix, a breviary, and liis beads, on the 17th 
of April, 1719, in the sixty-eight year of his age. 

In 1724, the society obtained a corporate existence under letters-patent 
from Louis XV., and early in 1725 the rules of the institute were approved 
by Pope Benedict XIII., and tlie community raised to the dignity of a 
religious order. The Bulls of the Pope were approved by the king's 
council, and immediately accepted by the society. St. Yon continued 
to be the residence of the superior general until 1770, when it was 
changed to Paris, and in 1778 to Melun. In 1777, the society raised a 
fund to sustain the aged and infirm brothers who could no longer labor 
in their vocation as schoolmasters, and at the same time established a 
normal school at Melun, for the training and education of novitiates. 
In addition to the common or ordinary gratuitous day schools, for rich 
and poor, as taught by the brothers, there were two classes of boarding 
schools under their care — the first consisted of ladie of noble and respec- 
table parents, whose early profligacy and bad character, required a 
separation from home ; and the second was composed of children of 
parents in easy circumstances. There was one of the first class a board- 
ing schools at St. Yon, and its establishment was one of the conditions 
on which the lease, and afterwards the purchase of the property, was 
obtained. It was a sort of reform school. Of this last class, there were 
five or six, which were established in consideration of liberal subscrip- 
tions in aid of the day schools, for the benefit of the children of the sub- 
scribers. These schools did not fall within the regular plan of the 
brothers, but were maintained until their dispersion in 1792. 

In 1789, the national assembly prohibited vows to be made in commu- 
nities; and 1790, suppressed all religious societies; and in 1791, the insti- 
tute was dispersed. At that date there were one hundred and twenty 
houses, and over one thousand brothers, actively engaged in the duties 
of the school room. The continuity of the society was secured by the 
houses established in Italy, to which many of the brothers fled, and over 
which Pope Pius VI., appointed one of the directors vicar-general. 
The houses were suppressed in 1798, on the success of the French arms, 
and of the once flourishing society, there remained in 1799 only the two 
houses of Ferrara and Orvietto. In 1801, on the conclusion of a Con- 
cordat between the Pope and the government, the society was revived 
in France by the opening of a school at Lyons ; and in 1815, they re- 
sumed their habit, and opened a novitiate, the members of which were ex- 
empt from military service. At the organization of the university in 1808, 
the institute was legally reorganized, and from that time has increased 
in numbers and usefulness. Since 1833, they have opened evening 
schools for adults in Paris, and the large provincial towns. To supply 
teachers for this class of schools, a preparatory novitiate was established 
in 1837 at Paris, which has since became the normal school of the society. 



NORMAL SCHOOL OF THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERS. 441 

In 1842, there were 390 houses, (of which 326 were in France) witli 
3,030 brothers, and 585 novices. There were 642 schools with 163.700 
children, besides evening schools with 7,800 adults in attendance, and 
three reformatory schools with 2,000 convicts, under instruction. 

The sell-devotion and missionary spirit of the Christian Brothers, and 
the religious influence which pervades their schools have attracted the 
attention, and won the admiration of every visitor 

Tlie following sketch is taken from Kay's " Education of the Poor in 
England and Europe,^'' published by J. Hatchard and Son, London, 1846. 

" The Freres are a society of men devoted entirely and exclusively to 
the education of the poor. They take the vow of celibacy, renounce ail 
the pleasures of society and relationship, enter into the brotherhood, and 
retain only two objects in life, — their own spiritual advancement and the 
education of the people. But before a young man can be received into 
the society, he is required to pass an intermediate period of education and 
trial, during which he is denied all the ordinary pleasures of life, is ac- 
customed to the humblest and most servile occupations, and receives an 
excellent and most liberal education. During this period, which lasts 
three years, he is carefully instructed in the principles of the Roman 
Catholic religion, in the sciences, in the French and Latin languages, in 
history, geography, arithmetic, writing, &c., and at the same time he is 
required to perform the most humble household duties. The Freres and 
the young men who are passing through their first novitiate, manage in 
turn all the household duties, as the cooking, the preparation of the meals, 
and all the ordinary duties of domestic servants; whilst their simple and 
perfectly plain costume, their separation from the world and from their 
friends, who are only permitted to visit them at long intervals, accustom 
them to the arduous and self-denying life they are called upon afterward 
to lead in the primary schools. 

By these means they form a character admirably fitted for the impor- 
tant office of a schoolmaster. 

The Freres never leave the walls of one of their houses except in com- 
pany. One Frere is not permitted to travel without being accompanied 
by another ; and when a department or commune requires their services 
in a primary school, three are sent out, one of whom manages their do- 
mestic concerns, whilst the other two conduct the school classes. If, how- 
ever, there is in any town more than one school conducted by Freres, 
they all live together under the superintendence of an elder Frere, who is 
styled director. 

If at the end of the first novitiate the young man is still willing and 
desirous of entering the brotherhood, he is admitted by gradual advance- 
ment and preparation into the bosom of the society. He is then at the 
disposition of the principal of the order, who sends him. in company with 
two brothers, to some district which has demanded a master from them. 

What remains of their salaries after defraying the expenses of their 
frugal table, is returned to the treasury of the society, by which it is ex- 
pended in the printing of their school-books, in the various expenses of 
iheir central establishment, and in works of charity. 

Before a Frere is allowed to conduct a primary school, he is obliged to 
obtain, in like manner as the other teachers, a brevet de capacite ; gov- 
ernment demanding in all ca.ses assurance of the secular education of the 
teachers, and of the character of the instruction given by them in their 
schools. All their schools are of course open as well to the inspectors of 
government, who visit, examine, and report upon them, as to their own, 
who strictly examine the conduct and progress of the Freres in their dif- 
ferent schoolsj and report to the principal. 



442 NORMAL SCHOOL OF THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERS. 

The following table will show the number of schools conducted by 
Freres in 1844, and the number of children educated in them : — 

No. of Children. 

169,501 
9,535 
5,110 
6,490 
4,199 
1.840 
580 
444 





No. of Schooli 


Prance, 


658 


Belgium, 


. 41 


Savoy, 
Piedmont. 


28 
. 30 


Pontifical States, 


20 


Canada, 


6 


Turkey, 
Switzerland, . 


2 
2 



Total, . . 787 ... 197,699 

The education given in their schools is very liberal and the books used 
very good. The Freres consider that if they neglect todevelope the intel- 
lect of their pupils, they can not advance their religious education satisfac- 
torily ; they consequently spare no pains to attain the former develop- 
ment, in order that the latter, wliich is the great end of their teaching and 
of all instruction whatsoever, may not be retarded. 

The following are among the regulations of the Society : 

1. The Institution des Freres des Ecoles Chretiennes is a society which pro- 
fesses to conduct schools gratuitously. The design of this institution is to give 
a Christian education to children. With this object in view, the Freres conduct 
schools where childien may be placed under the management of masters from 
morning until evening so that the masters may be able to teach them to live 
honestly and uprightly, by instructing them in the principles of our holy reli- 
gion, by teaching them Christian precepts, and by giving them suitable and 
sufficient instruction. 

2. The spirit of the institution is a spiritof faith which ought to encourage its 
members to attribute all to God, to act as continually in the sight of God, and in 
perfect conformity to His orders and His will. The members of this associa- 
tion should be filled with an ardent zeal for the instruction of children, for their 
preservation in innocence and the fear of God, and for their entire separation 
from sin. 

3. The institution is directed by a superior; who is nominated for life. He has 
two assistants, who compo.se his council, and aid him in governing the society. 
These assistants live in the same house with him, assist at his councils, and 
render him aid whenever necessary. 

4. The superior is elected by ballot by the directors assembled at the principal 
houses ; the two assistants are chosen in the same manner, and these latter hold 
office ten years, and can then be re-elected. 

5. The superior may be deposed, but only by a general chapter, and for grave 
causes. 

6. This chapter is composed of thirty of the oldest Freres, or directors of the 
principal houses, who assemble by right once every ten years, and whenever it 
is deemed necessary to convoke an extraordinary meeting. 

7. The private houses are governed by Freres-directors, who are appointed for 
three years, unless it appears advisable to the superior and his assistants to 
name a shorter period, or to recall them before the end of it. 

8. The superior names the visitors. They are appointed for three years, and 
make a round of visits once every year. They require of the directors an ac- 
count of their receipts and expenses, and as soon as their visits are completed, 
they present a report to their superior of the necessary changes and corrections 
to be made by him. 

9. No Frere can take priest's orders, or pretend to any ecclesiastical office, 
neither can he wear a surplice or serve in the churches, except at daily mass; 
but they confine themselves to their vocation, and live in silence, in retreat, and 
in entire devotion to their duties. 

10. They are bound to the institution by three simple religious vows, which 
are taken at first for only three years, as well as by a vow of perseverance and 
a renouncement of any recompense for the instruction they give. These vows 
can only be aiinulled after dispensation granted by the Pope. 



NORMAL SCHOOL OF THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERS. 443 

11. They are not admitted to take the vows until they have been at least two 
years in the institution, and until they have passed one year in the novitiate 
and one year in the school. 

12. They are only admitted after a severe examination, and then only by a 
majority of the votes of the Freres of the house where they have passed their 
novitiate. 

13. There are two novitiates, one where they admit young men between 13 
and 16 years of age, the other for older men. But all young men who are ad- 
mitted below the age of 25 renew their vows every year till they attain that age. 

14. They banish from the society every Frere who conducts himself unbe- 
comingly. But this is only done for grave offenses, and by a majority of votes 
at a general chapter. 

15. The same regulation is observed when a Frere desires to leave the soci- 
ety and to obtain a dispensation from his vows. 

16. The Freres do not establish themselves in the dioceses without the con- 
.sent of the bishops, and they acknowledge their authority as their spiritual gov- 
ernment, and that of the magistrates as their civil government. 

10. The Freres shall instruct their pupils after the method prescribed to them 
by the institution. 

20. They shall teach their scholars to read French and Latin, and to write. 

21. They shall teach them also orthography, and arithmetic, the matins and 
vespers, le Pater, I'Ave Maria, le Credo et le Confiieor, and the French trans- 
lations of these prayers, the Commandments of God and of the Church, tlie 
responses of the holy mass, the Catechism, the duties of a Christian, and the 
maxims and precepts that our Lord has left us in the holy Testament. 

22. They shall teach the- Catechism half an hour daily. 

27. The Freres shall not receive from the scholars, or their parents, either 
money or any other present, at anytime. 

30. They shall exhibit an equal affection for all their poor scholars, and more 
for the poor than f>rthe rich; because the object of the institution is the in- 
struction of the poor. 

31. They shall endeavor to give their pupils, by their conduct and manners, 
a continual example ofraotlesty, and of all the other virtues which they ought 
to He taught, and which they ought to practise. 

37. The Freres shall take the greatest care that they very rarely punish their 
children, as they ought to.be persuaded that, by refraining as much as possible 
from punishmetit. they will best succeed in properly conducting a school, and 
in establishing order in it. 

38. When punishment shall have become absolutely necessary, they shall 
take the greatest care to punish with the greatest moderation and piesence ol 
mind, and never to do it under the influence of a hasty movement, or when they 
feel irritated. 

39. They shall watch over themselves that they never exhibit the least anger 
or impatience, either in their corrections, or in any of their words or actions; 
as they ought to be convinced, that if they do not take these precautions the 
scholars will not profit from their correction, (and the Freres never ought to 
correct except with the object of benefiting their children) and God will not 
give the correction his blessing. 

40. They shall not at any time give to their scholars any injurious epithet oi 
insulting name. 

41. They shall also take the greatest care not to strike their scholars with 
hand, foot, or stick, nor to push thetn rudely. 

42. They shall take great care not to pull theirears, their hair, or their noses, 
nor to fling any thing at them; these kinds of corrections ought not to be prac- 
tised by the Freres, as they are very indecent and opposed to charity and Chris- 
tian kindness. 

43. They shall not correct their scholars during prayers, or at the time of 
catechising, except when they cannot defer the correction. 

They shall not use corporal punishment, except when every other means of 
correction has failed to produce the right effect. 

58. The Frere-director shall be inspector over all the schools in his town ; 
and when more than one inspector is necessary for one house of Freres, the 
other inspector shall report to the Frere-director twice a week on the conduct of 
each Frere, on the condition of his class, and on the progress of his scholars. 



444 NORMAL SCHOOL OF THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERS. 

The following remarks on the Training School of this Brotherhood of 
Teachers are taken from "the Second Report of J. P. Kay Shuttleworth, 
on the Schools for the Training of Parochial Schoolmasters at Batter- 
sea." 

We had frequently visited the schools of the Brothers of the Christian Doc- 
trine in France, and had spent much time in the examination of their Ecolcs- 
mires, or Mother-School. Our attention was attracted to these schools by the 
gentle manners and simple habits which distinguished the Freies; by their 
sympathy for children, and the religious feeling which pervaded their element- 
ary schools. Their schools are certaiidy deficient in some of the niceties of 
organization and method ; and there are subjects on which the instruction might 
be more complete and exact; but each master was, as it were, a parent to the 
children around him. The school resembled a harmonious family. 

I'he self-denying industry of these pious men was remaikable. The habits 
of their order would be deemed severe in this country. In the Mother School 
(where they all reside,) ihey rise at four. After private meditation, their pub- 
lic devotions in the chapel occupy the early hours of the morning. The do- 
mestic drudger}' of the household succeeds. They breakfast at seven, and are 
in the schools of the great cities of France at nine. When the routine of daily 
school-keeping is at an end, after a short interval for refreshment and exercise, 
they open their evening schools, where hundieds of the adult population receive 
instruction, not merely in reading, writing, and the simplest elements of num- 
bers, but in singing, drawing, geography ; the mensuration of planes and solids; 
the history of 1^'rance. and in religion. Their evening schools do not close till 
ten. The public expenditure on account of their services is one-third the usual 
remuneraiioiT of an elementary schoolmaster in France, and they devote their 
lives, constrained by the influence of a religious feeling, under a rule of celibacy, 
but without a vow, to the education of the poor. 

The unquestionable self-denial of such a life; the attachment of the children, 
and of the adult pu[iils to their instructors, together with the constant sense of 
the all-subduing presence of Christian principle, rendered the means adopted 
by the Christian Brothers, for the training of their novices, a matter of much 
interest and inquiry. 

The Mother School differs in most important respects from a Normal School, 
but the extent of this difference is not at first sight apparent, and is one of those 
results of our experience which we wish to submit. 

The Mother School is an establishment comprising arrangements for the in- 
struction and training of novices ; for the residence of the brothers, who are 
engaged in the active performance of the duties of their order, as masters of 
elementary day and evening schools ; and it affords an asylum, into which they 
gradually retire from the fatigues and cares of their public labors, as age ap- 
proaches, or infirmities accumulate, to spend the period of sickness or decrepi- 
tude in the tranquillity of the household provided for them, and amidst the 
con.solations of their brethren. The brothers constitute a family, performing 
every domestic service, ministering to the sick and infirm, and assembling for 
devotion daily in their chapel. 

Their novices enter about the ages of twelve or fourteen. They at once as- 
sume the dress of the order, and enter upon the self-denying routine of the house- 
hold. The first yearsof their novitiate are of course devoted to such elementary 
instruction as is necessary to prepare them for their future duties as teachers 
of the poor. Their habits are formed, not only in the couise of this instruction, 
but by joining the religious exercises; performing the household duties; and 
enjoying the benefit of cofistant intercourse with the elder brethren of the Mother 
School, who are at once their instructors and friends. In this life of seclusion, 
the superior of the Mother School has opportunities of observing and ascertaining 
the minutest traits of character, which indicate their comparative qualifications 
for the future labors of the order ; nor is this vigilance relaxed, but rather increas- 
ed, when they first quit the private studies of the Mother School, to be gradu- 
ally initialed in their public labors as instructors of the people. 

Such of the novices as are found not to possess the requisite qualification.s, 
especially as respects the moral constitution necessary for the duties of their 
order, are permitted to leave the Mother School to enter upon other pursuits. 



NORMAL SCHOOL OF THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERS. 445 

During the period of the novitiate, such instances are not rare, but we have 
reason to believe, that they seldom occur after the brother has acquired ma- 
turity. 

As their education in the Mother School proceeds, the period devoted every 
day to their public labors in the elementary schools is enlarged ; and they thus, 
under the eye of elder brethren, assisted by their example and precepts, gradu- 
ally emerge from the privacy of their novitiate to their public duties. 

In all this there is not much that differs from the life of a young pupil in a 
Normal School ; but, at this point, the resemblance ceases, and a great diver- 
gence occurs. 

The brother, whose novitiate is at an end, continues a member of the house- 
hold of the Mother School. He has only advanced to a higher rank. He is sur- 
rounded by the same influences. The daily routine which formed his domestic 
and religious habits continues. His mind is fed, and his purposes are strength- 
ened by the conversation and examples of his brethren, and his conduct is under 
the paternal eye of his superior. Under such circumstances, personal identity 
is almost absorbed in the corporate life by which he is surrounded. The strength 
of the order supports his weakness : the spirit of the order is the pervading 
principle of his life: he thinks, feels, and acts, by an unconscious inspiration 
from every thing by which he is surrounded, in a calm atmosphere of devotion 
and religious labor. All is prescribed ; and a pious submission, a humble faith, 
a patient zeal, and a self-denying activity are his highest duties. 

Contrast his condition with that of a young man leaving a Normal School at 
the age of eighteen or nineteen, after three or four years of comparative seclu- 
sion, under a regimen closely resembling that of the Mother School. At this 
age, it is necessary that he should be put in charge of an elementary school, in 
order that he may earn an independence. 

The most favorable situation in which he can be placed, because remote from 
the grosser forms of temptation, and therefore least in contrast with his previous 
position, is the charge of a rural school. For the tranquil and eventless life of 
the master of a rural school, such a training is not an unfit preparation. His 
resources are not taxed by the necessity for inventing new means to meet the 
novel combinations which arise in a more active state of society. His energy 
is equal to the task of instructing the submissive and tractable, though often 
dull children of the peasantry ; and the gentle manners and quiet demeanor, 
which are the uniform results of his previous education, are in harmony with 
the passionless life of the seclusion into which he is plunged. His knowledge 
and his skill in method are abundantly superior to the necessities of his posi- 
tion, and the unambitious sense of duty which he displays attracts the confidence 
and wins the regard of the clergyman of the parish and of his intelligent neigh- 
bors. For such a life, we have found even the young pupils whom we intro- 
duced into the training schools at their foundation well fitted, and we have pre- 
ferred to settle them, as far as we could, on the estates of our personal friends, 
where we are assured they have succeeded. Those only who have entered the 
Normal School at adult age, have been capable of successfully contending with 
the greater difficulties of town schools. » 

But we are also led by our experience to say, that such a novitiate does not 
prepare a youth of tender age to encounter the responsibilities of a large town 
or village school, in a manufacturing or mining district. Such a position is in 
the most painful contrast with his previous training. He exchanges the com- 
parative seclusion of his residence in the Normal School for the diflicult position 
of a public instructor, on whom many jealous eyes are fixed. For the first time 
he is alone in his profession ; unaided by the example of his masters ; not stim- 
ulated by emulation with his fellows ; removed from the vigilant eye nf the 
Principal of the school ; separated from the powerful influences of that corpo- 
rate spirit, which impelled his previous career, yet placed amidst difficulties, 
perplexing even to the most mature experience, and required to tax his inven- 
tion to meet new circumstances, before he has acquired confidence in the un- 
sustained exercise of his recently developed powers. He has left the training 
school for the rude contact of a coarse, selfish, and immoral populace, whose 
gross appetites and manners render the narrow streets in his neighborhood 
scenes of impurity. He is at once brought face to face with an ignorant and 
corrupt multitude, to whose children he is to prove a leader and guide. 

His difiiculties are formidable. His thougnts are fixed on the deformity of 



446 NORMAL SCHOOL OF THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERS. 

this monstrous condition of society. It is something to have this sense of the 
extremity of the evil, but to confront it, that conviction should become the spur 
to persevering exertion. We have witnessed this failure, and we conceive thai 
such difficulties can only be successfully encountered by masters of maturer 
age and experience. 

The situation of the novice of a Mother School, founded in the centre of a great 
manufacturing ciiy, is in direct contrast with that of the young student, ex- 
changing his secluded training in a Normal School for the unaided charge of a 
great town school. 

If such a Mother School were founded in the midst of one of our largest 
commercial towns, under the charge of a Principal of elevated character and 
acquirements ; if he had assembled around him devoted and humble men, ready 
to spend their lives in reclaiming the surrounding population by the foundation 
and management of schools for the poor; and into this society a youth were 
introduced at a tender age, instructed, trained, and reared in the habits and du- 
ties of his profession; gradually brought into contact with the actual evil, to 
the healing of which his life was to be devoted; never abandoned to his own 
comparatively feeble resources, but always feeling himself the missionary of a 
body able to protect, ready to console, and willing to assist and instruct him : 
in such a situation, his feebleness would be sustained by the strength of a corpo- 
ration animated with the vitality of Christian principle. 

We are far from recommending the establishment of such a school, to the suc- 
cess of which we think we perceive insurmountable obstacles in this country. 
The only form in which a similar machinery could exist in England is that of a 
Town Normal School, in which all the apprentices or pupil teachers of the 
several elementary schools might lodge, and where, under the superintendence 
of a Principal, their domestic and religious habits might be formed. The mas- 
ters of the elementary schools might be associates of the Normal School, and 
conduct the instruction of the pupil teachers, in the evening or early in the 
morning, when free from the duties of their schools. The whole body of mas- 
ters would thus form a society, with the Principal at their head, actively em- 
ployed in the practical daily duties of managing and instructing schools, and 
also by their connection with the Town Normal School, keeping in view and 
contributing to promote the general interests of elementary education, by rear- 
ing a body of assistant masters. If a good library were collected in this central 
institution, and lectures from time to lime delivered on appropriate subjects to 
the whole body of masters and assistants, or, which would be better, if an upper 
school were founded, which might be attended by the masters and most advan- 
ced assistants, every improvement in method would thus be rapidly diffused 
through the elementary schools of towns. 



PRIMARY NORMAL SCHOOLS 

OF VERSAILLES AND DIJON. 



The Prim iry Normal School of Versailles is for the Department of Seine 
and Oise. It comprises within its ample premises* several establishments 
for the instruction and practice of teachers. The sciiool itself contains 
eighty pupils under regular instruction throughout the year, iind furnishes a 
two months' course to adult schoolmasters. The establishments for practice 
begin wiih the infant school, and rise through the primary to the grade of 
primary superior. Of the elementary schools, one affords the y( nng teach- 
ers an example of the method of mutual, and another of simultaneous in- 
struction. The primary superior school had been recently established, at 
the date of ray visit, in 1837. There is, besides, an evening department for 
the element n-y instruction of adults, taught by the pupils of the Normal 
School, and also a school of design, which is established here rather for 
convenience than as properly belonging to the range of the institution. 

The whole establishment is under the immediate control of a director 
(Mr. Le Brun), subject to the autliority of a committee, and of the univer- 
sity, the inspectors of which make reguLn- visits. The eonunittee inspect 
the school (>y sub-committees once a month, visiting the recitation-rooras of 
the professors without giviug special notice — ^a plan much to be preferred to 
that of stated visits. If a member of a committee desires questions to be 
put upon any particular points, he calls upon the professor to extend his 
examination, or asks questions himself The director examines the classes 
frequently, or is present at the lessons. There are eight professors for the 
various courses, and two "repeaters" (repetiteurs), these latter superintend- 
ing the pupils when not with the professors, and giving them assistance if 
required. The repeaters are responsible for the execution of the order of 
the day in the institution, and for the police, and one of them sleeps in each 
of the two dormitories. Some of the teachers in the Normal School also 
give instruction in the model schools, and have charge of the pupils while 
engaged in the practical exercises. The domestic economy is under the 
charge of the director, but he is allowed an assistant, who actually dis- 
charges the duty of superintendence, and who has brought this department 
into most excellent order.f 

Tiiere are a certain number of gratuitous places, to which pupils are ad- 
mitted by competition, those found best prepared at the examination for 
admission having the preference. Pay pupils are also received at a very 
moderate rate,| but are exactly on the same footing, in reference to the 
duties of the institution, with the former. Young men who wish to com- 
pete for a place, and are not sufficiently prepared, may enter as pay pupils, 
and thus receive instruction directly applicable to their object. The age of 
admission is, by rule, between sixteen and twenty-one, but the former limit 
is considered too early for profitable entrance. The qualifications for ad- 
mission consist in a thorough knowledge of the subjects taugiit in the ele- 
mentary schools. 

The period of instruction is two years. The first year is devoted to the 

* Used under a former dynasty to accommodate ttie hounds of Charles X. 
t During the first year of the institution, the fare of each student cost flfty-nine centimes (twelve 
cents; per day. They had meat twice a day, except on the fasts of the Church, 
t Five bundred francs, or about one hundred dollars, per annuin 



448 NORMAL SCHOOL OF VERSAILLES. 

revision of elementary studies, and tlie second to an extension of them, and 
to theoretical and practical instruction in the science and art of teaching. 
The subjects of revision or instruction are, reading, writing, linear drawing, 
geography, history, the drawing of maps, morals and religion, vocal music, 
arithmetic, elementary physics, terraculture, and pedagogy. 

The religious instruction is given by an ecclesiastic, who is. almoner to the 
school ; it includes lessons on the doctrines and history of the church, given 
twice per week. Protestants are not required to attend these lessons, but 
receive instruction out of the institution from a minister of their own con- 
fession. 

Physical education is conducted by means of exercises in gymnastics, by 
walks, and the practice of gardening. In summer the pupils bathe once a 
week. The gymnastic exercises are taught by the more expert pupils to 
the scholars of the model schools, and appear to have taken well among 
them. 

The pupils study in a room common to all, and the degree of attention 
which they pay, and their conduct, are marked, according to a uniform scale, 
by the superintending " repeater," and reported daily to the director. Once 
every month the professor examines these classes on the studies of the past 
month, and reports the standing. Marks are also given for great proficiency 
and attention, which are reported with the standing. These marks, and 
those of the examination, are summed up, and when they amount to a cer- 
tain number for the month, the pupil is entitled to a premium. The premi- 
ums consist of books uniformly bound, and accompanied by a certificate 
Report is made of these pupils to the minister of public instruction, and the 
record may serve them when desirous to secure a particular place. The 
director assembles the school to hear an account of these monthly reports, 
and makes such remarks as they may suggest. 

Besides the more usual school implements, this institution has a library, a 
small collection of physical and chemical apparatus, of technological speci- 
mens, already of considerable interest, and of models of agricultural imple- 
ments. There are also two gardens, one of which is laid out to serve the 
purposes of systematic instruction in horticulture, the other of which con- 
tains specimens of agricultural products, and a ground for gymnastic exer- 
cises. Tiie pupils work by details of tlu-ee at a time, under the direction ot 
the gardener, in cultivating flowers, fruits, vegetables, &c. They have the 
use of a set of carpenters' and joiners' tools, with which they have fitted up 
their own library in a very creditable way.* In the second year they receive 
lectures on the science and art of teaching, and in turn give instruction in 
the schools, under the direction of the teachers. Their performances are 
subsequently criticised for their ithprovement. 

The order of the day in summer is as follows : 

The pupils rise at five, wash, make up tiieir beds, and clean their dormi- 
tories, in two divisions, wliich alternate ; meet in the study-hall at half past 
five for prayers, breakfast, engage in studies or recitation until one ; dine 
and have recreation until two ; study or recite until four ; have exercises or 
recreation, sup, study, and engage in religious reading and prayers ; and 
retire at ten, except in special cases. Before meals there is a grace said, and 
during meals one of the pupils reads aloud. 

In distributing the time devoted to study and recitation, an hour of study 
is made to precede a lesson, when the latter requires specific preparation ; 
when, on the contrary, the lesson requires after-reflection to fix its principles, 
or consists of a lecture, of which the notes are to be written out, the study 
hour follows the lesson. The branches of a mechanical nature are inter- 

• A carpenter who came to attend the evening classes was found by the director so intellie;ent, 
that he advised him to prepare for the school. The yount; man succeeded in entering, at the 
annual competition, and subsequently, on leaving the school, received one of the best appoint 
ments of his year as a teacher. 



NORMAL SCHOOL OF DIJON. 4i9 

spersed with the intellectual. The students of the second year are em- 
ployed, in turn, in teaching, and are relieved from other duties during the 
hours devoted to the schools of practice. 

On Sunday, after the morning service, the pupils are free to leave the 
walls of the institution. The same is the ease on Thursday afternoon. The 
director has found, however, bad results from these indiscriminate leaves of 
absence. 

The discipline of the school is mild, the age and objects of the pupils 
being such that the use of coercive means is seldom required. The first 
step is admonition by a " repeater" or professor, the next a private admo- 
nition by the director. If these means prove inetfectual, dismission follows. 
The director has great influence, from his personal character, and from the 
fact that his recommendation can secure a good place* to the pupil imme- 
diately on leaving the school. The mode of life in the institution is very 
simple. The pupils are neatly but roughly dressed, and perform most of the 
services of police for themselves. The dormitories are very neat. The 
bedsteads are of wrought-iron, corded at the bottom. During the night the 
clothes are deposited in small bo.xes near the beds. The extra articles of 
clothing are in a common room. Cleanliness of dress and person are care- 
fully enjoined. The fare is plain, but good, and the arrangements connected 
with the table unexceptionable. There is an infirmary attached to the 
school, which is, however, but rarely used. 

The schools for practice do not require special description, as their organ- 
ization will be sutticiently understood from what has already been said of 
prinuiry schools, and they have not been long enough in operation to acquire 
the improved form which, I cannot doubt, they will receive under the present 
able director of the Normal School. 

The Primary Normal School at Dijon, for the Department of Cote d'Or, 
in its general organization, is the same as that at Versailles. It ditt'ers, how- 
ever, in one most important particular, which involves other diflerences of 
detail. All the instruction, except of religion and music, as well as the su- 
perintendence, is under the charge of the director and a single assistant, 
who, by the aid of the pupils, carry on the schools of practice, as well as the 
courses of the Normal School. This arrangement limits the amount of 
instruction, and interferes very materially with the arrangement of the stud- 
ies. The school is conducted, however, with an excellent spirit. An idea 
of the plan will be obtained from the order of the day, which also contains 
an outline of the course of instruction. 

From five to six A. M., tlie pupils say their prayers, wash, &c. From six 
to seven the higher drvision has a lesson in French grammar. The lower 
receives a lesson in geography or history alternately. From seven to eight, 
the higher division has a lesson in geography or history alternately ; the 
lower division in arithmetic. From eight to half past eight, breakfist and 
recreation. From half past eight until eleven, a portion of the higher di- 
vision is employed in the prinuxry schools of practice, and the others are 
engaged in study. From eleven until one, writing and linear drawing for 
both divisions. From one until two, dinner and recreation. From two until 
half past four, as from half past eight to eleven. Recreation until five. 
From five to six, instruction in instrumental or vocal music for each division 
alternately. From six to seven, the higher division has a lesson in geome- 
try, or its applications ; the lower division in French grammar. From seven 
until a quarter before eight, supper and recreation. From this time until 
nine, the higher division has a lesson in physical science or natural history, 
mechanics, agriculture, and rural economy, or book-keeping ; the lower di- 

* The best pliices, in point of emolument, are worth from fifteen to eighteen himdred franca 
(about $300 to $360). 

29 



450 NORMAL SCHOOL OF DIJON. 

vision in reading. The last quarter of an hour is occupied by both divisions 
in prayers, after which they retire. This order applies to all the days of the 
week but Thursday, when, from eight to ten, the pupils receive moral and 
religious instruction ; from ten to eleven, instruction in the forms of simple, 
legal, and commercial writings ; and from two to four, engaged in the review 
of part of the week's studies. On the afternoon of Thursday the schools of 
practice are not in session. 

On Sunday, after the duties following their rising, the pupils are occupied 
in studying and revising some of the lessons of the week. From nine to 
ten o'clock, in religious reading, aloud. At ten they go to service in the 
parish chapel, attended by the director and his assistant. Receive moral 
and religious instruction, on their return, until dinner-time. After dinner, 
attend the evening service, and then take a walk. In the evening, assemble 
for conversation on pedagogical subjects, and for prayers. 



NORMAL SCHOOL* 

FOR 

TEACHERS OF COLLEGES AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS, 

AT PARIS. 



The " Normal School," intended to furnish professors for colleges, was 
established in 1794, by the same convention which created the polytechnic 
school. The organization proposed by the law was upon a scale entirely 
beyond the wants to be supplied ; and, notwithstanding the exertions of its 
eniinent professors, the school had but a temporary existence, and ill suc- 
cess, meanly from the unprepared state of the pupils who had entered it, and 
to wiiom the kind of instruction was entirely unadapted. There were thir- 
tee*courses of lectures, and among the professors were Lagrange, Laplace, 
Haiiy, Monge, BerthoUet, Volney, Bernardin St. Pierre, Sicard, and Laliarpe. 
The school was suppressed by a decree of April, 1795, and its pupils dis- 
persed. After the reorganization of the university, in 1806, the expediency 
of reviving the normal school appears to have been felt, and it was reorgan- 
ized ill 1808. The number of pupils provided for in the new plan was three 
hundred; but from 1810 to 18-J6 there were never more than fifiy-eight 
actually in attendance. According to the plan of instruction, lectures were 
to be attended out of doors, and interrogations and study to take place witliin 
the school, under the charge of the elder pupils. The recitations of the 
pupils to each other were called conferences ; a name which is still pre- 
served, being applied to the lessons given by the teachers, who are called 
masters of conferences. The duration of the course of instruction was lim- 
ited at lirst to two years, but subsequently extended to three. The school 
was a second time suppressed, in 1822 ; and in 1826 an institution, termed 
a "preparatory school," was subsiituted for it, which in its turn was abol- 
ished, and the old normal school revived by a decree of the lieutenant-genen.l 
of the kingdom, on the 6th of August, 1830. A report was made by M. 
Cousin, Secretary of the Council of Public Instruction, in October, 1830, 
the recommendations of which were adopted substantially. New regulations 
for the course of study, the general arrangements and discipline, have been 
gradually prepared, and the school has commenced a career of usefulness 
which it bids fair to prosecule wiih increasing success. 

The ciiief purpose of the normal school is to give its pupils ample oppor- 
tunities of preparation for the compe'.hion for places of adjuncts in the col- 
leges (cours d'agregalion), and its arrangements are all subordinate to this 
object. In this compeiidon. however, the pupils of the school meet on an 
equal footing, merely, with all otiier candidates. 

The officers, in 1837, were, the director, who did not reside at the school, 
nor take part in the instruction ; the director of studies, the resident head of 
the establishment; eight masters of conferences for the section of letters; 
six masters of conferences, and one for the drawing department, for the sec- 
tion of sciences; two preparers (preparateurs) ; a sub-director, charged wi:h 
a general superintendence of the pupils, and two assistants, called superin- 
tending masters. The masters of conferences have, in general, equivalent 
duties to the professors in the colleges. In 1837 there were eighty pupils 
in the !-ciiool, of whom forty-nine were supported entirely by the funds al- 
lowed by the government, and eighteen had half their expenses defr.iyed. 

The normal school at present occupies a part of the buildings belonging 

• From Bache's Education in Europe. 



452 SECONDARY NORMAL SCHOOL AT PARIS. 

to the Royal College of Louis-le-Grand, and the college furnishes the food 
and clothing of the pupils by ngreemeiU with the school. This connection 
has advantages, and among them, that of enabling the pupils to have some 
practice in teaching ; but they are more than counterbalanced by disadvan- 
tages, and the friends of the school are earnest in their endeavors to procure 
a separate domicile for it. The accommodations for lodging, study, instruc- 
tion, and exercise, as far as the building and its site are concerned, are cer- 
tainly of a most limited kind. 

Admission. — The number of pupils who may be admitted is determined 
every year by the probable number required to till the vacancies in second- 
ary instruction. The admissions are made by competition, and for the 
most successful competitors a limited number of bursaries (bourses) are 
established, divisible into half bursaries, which are distributed to those who 
require assis-tance. The candidates enter their names at the academy near- 
est to their residence, between the fifteenth of June and of July, every year. 
Each candidate deposits the following certificates, viz., of the date of birth, 
showing that he is over seventeen and under twenty-three years of ag^ of 
having been vaccinated; of moral conduct ; of having completed, or l^ng 
about to complete, his studies, including philosophy, and, if he intends to 
become a teaciier of science, a course of special mathematics and of phys- 
ics ; a declaration from his parent or guardian, if the candidate is a minor, 
that he will devote himself for ten years, from the period of admission, to 
public instruction. These lists are forwarded by the rectors of the several 
academies, with their remarks, to the council of public instruction, which 
returns, before the first of August, a list of those persons who may be ex- 
amined for admission. This examination is made in the several academies, 
with a view to select the most prominent candidates, whose cases are to be 
ultimately decided by competition at the school in Paris. It consists of 
compositions upon subjects which are the same for all the academies, and of 
interrogations and oral explanations. For the candidates, as future instruct- 
ors in letters, the written exercises are a dissertation, in French, on some 
points of philosopliy, an essay in Latin, an essay in French, a Latin and 
Greek version, and Latin verses. 7"he oral examinations turn upon the 
classical authors read in college, and upon the elements of philosophy, 
rhetoric, and history. The candidates in science have the same written ex- 
ercises in philosophy and in Latin versions, and in addition, must solve one 
or more questions in mathematics and physics. The oral examinations are 
upon subjects of mathematics, physics, and philosophy, taught in the philos- 
ophy class of the colleges. All the written exercises and notes of the oral 
examinations are forwarded to the minister of public instruction, and sub- 
mitted severally to a committee of letters and a committee of science, taken 
from among the masters of the normal school, the director being chairman 
of each committee. These committees decide whether the candidates are 
fit to be allowed to present themselves for examination at the school, and 
those who are deemed worthy, receive a notice to report themselves on or 
before the fifieenth of October. Previous to this competition the candidates 
are required to present tiieir diploma of bachelor of letters or of sciences. 
The masters of the normal school are divided into two committees, one of 
letters and the other of science, for conducting these examinations, which 
are oral, and the result of which determines the admission or rejection of 
the candidate. On admission, the pupil makes an engagement to devote 
himself to public instruction for ten years. 

Instruction. — The present arrangement of the courses of instruction can 
only be regarded as provisional, improvements being gradually introduced, 
as observation shows their necessity. The principle declared by the direct- 
or, M. Cousin, to be that of tiie school in this respect, is worthy of all com- 
mendation. " When," says M. Cousin, in his Report of 1835-6,* " experi- 
* Ecole Normale. Reglemeots, programmes, et rapports. Paris, 1837. 



SECONDARY NORMAL SCHOOL AT PARIS. 453 

ence shows the necessity or utility of a measure which the fundamental 
regulations of the school have not provided for, it is by no means proposed 
at once to the royal council for adoption as an article of the regulations ; 
authority is asked to put it to the test of practice, and it is only when found 
repeatedly successful that it is deemed prudent to convert it into a regula- 
tion." A close observation of the merits and defects of the system is thus 
made to pave the way for judicious changes. 

The full course of the school, at present, occupies three years. The 
pupils are divided into two sections, that of letters and of science, which 
pursue separate courses. In the section of letters, the first year is devoted 
to a revision, and the second to an extension, of the higher courses of the 
colleges, and the third is especially employed in fitting the pupils to become 
professors. In fulfilling this object, however, no instruction in the science 
or art of teaching is given in the establishment, nor is it obligatory upon the 
pupils to teach, so that, as tar as systematic practice goes, they derive no 
direct benefit from the school ; it is a privilege, however, which many enjoy, 
to be called to give lessons in some of the royal colleges, particularly in 
that with which the school is now connected by its locality. When the 
pupil intends to devote himself to teaching in the grammar classes of the 
colleges, or is found not to have the requisite ability for taking a high rank 
in the body of instructors, he passes at once from the first year's course to 
the third, and competes, accordingly, in the examination of adjuncts (agreges). 
The consequences of the low esteem in which the grammar studies are held 
have been much deplored by the present director of the school,* and a re- 
form in regard to them has been attempted, with partial success. 

The courses are conducted by teachers called masters of conferences, who 
seldom lecture, but question the pupils upon the lessons which have been 
appointed for them to learn, give explanations, and are present while they 
interrogate each other, as a kind of practice in the art of teaching. In some 
cases, the students themselves act as masters of conferences. 

The course of letters of the first year comprised, in 1836-7 ,f 

1. Greek language and literature, three lessons per week. 2. Latin and French 
literature, three lessons. 3. Ancient history and antiquities, three lessons. 4. A 
course of philosophy higher than that of the colleges, three lessons. 5. General 
physics, one lesson. Chemistry, one lesson, the courses being introduced chiefly 
to keep up the knowledge of these subjects. 6. German and EngUsh language, 
each one lesson. 

The conferences, or lessons on general physics, chemistry, and the modern 
languages, are by pupils who give instruction and explanations to their com- 
rades. 

At the end of the first year there are examinations, according to the result 
of which the student passes to the courses of the second year, or, in the 
case before stated, to those of the third year, or leaves the school. These 
examinations are conducted by inspectors-general of the university, named 
for the purpose by the minister. Pupils who have passed, may present 
themselves at the university as candidates for the degree of licentiate of let- 
ters. 

The second yearns course of letters does not necessarily include any scien- 
tific studies. 

The courses of language and philosophy go into the liistory of these subjects. 
They consist of — 1. Lectures on the history of Greek literature, three lessons per 
week. 2. On the history of Roman literature, two lessons. 3. On the history of 
Frencli hteraturc, one lesson. 4. English language, one lesson. 5. On the history 
of philosophy, two lessons. 6. Continuation of the historical course, two lessons. 
The recitations are accompanied by suitable written exercises. 

* Rapport sur les travaux de l'6cole normale pendant l'ann6e, 1835-6. Par M. Cousin, 
t The distribution of subjects is taken from a manuscript kindly furnished to me by the direct- 
or of studies, M. Viguier ; it does not agree precisely with the plan mai'ked out in the regulations. 



454 SECONDARY NORMAL SCHOOL AT PARIS. 

At the end of the year the pupils are examined. Those who have not 
already obtained the degree of* licentiate of letters are now required to do 
so, or to leave the school. 

The examinations for this degree consist of compositions in French and Latin 
prose, on ditferent days. Latin verses and Greelv themes. Explanations of selected 
passages from the second book of Herodotus, the speech of Pericles in Thncydides, 
the Gorgias of Pluto, the speecli of Demosthenes against Leptines, the choruses of 
(E:lipus at Colonos, the Hecuba of Euripides, the combat of Heroiiles and Amyous 
in Theocritus, the Hymns of Synesius, Cicero de O/'atore and de leg-ibus, the Ger- 
many of Tacitus, the Treatise of Seneca de beneficiis, the last two nooks of Quin- 
tilian's Rhetoric, the iifth book of Lucretius de natura rerum, the first book of 
Horace's Epistles, the second book of Horace's Odes, the Troas of Seneca. 

These books are liable to be changed, from time to time, on no' ice being 
given. The candidate is expected to answer the questions on philosophy, 
literature, history, and philology, to which the reading of the author may 
give rise. 

In llie third year of letters, the courses are special, the divisions corre- 
sponding with the courses of the royal colleges, and consisting of grammar, 
humanities, and rhetoric, history, and philosophy. Each pupil takes his 
place in one or other of these divisions, and is not required to follow the 
courses of the others. 

The lectures and recitations constituting the entire course of letters of the third 
year were, during the second half year of 1836-7—1. Latin language and grammar, 
three lessons. 2. Greek language, two lectures and one lesson, 3. Latin litera- 
ture, two lectures and one lesson. 4. Greek literature, two lectures and one lesson. 
5. Latin eloquence, two lectures. 6. Latin poetry, two lectures, 7. French litera- 
ture, one lesson. 8. History of the philosophy of the ancients, two lectures. 
9. Ancient geography, two lectures. 10. Philosophy, one lesson. The lectures 
alluded to are those attended by the pupils at the Sorbonne. 

The following were the courses of the different years in the section of 
science during the same term, the lectures being those of the faculty of 
sciences of the university. 

First year. 1. Astronomy, two lessons per week. 2. Descriptive Geometry, two 
lessons. 3. Chemistry, two lectures, one lesson, and four hours of manipulation. 
4. Botany, one lesson. 5. Philosophy, two lessons, fi. German language, one 
lesson. 7. Drawing, one lesson, during the week, and one on Sunday. 

Second year. 1. Physics, two lectures, two lessons, and one hour' of manipula- 
tion. 2. Chemistry, two lectures. 3. Botany, one lesson. 4. Vegetable physiolo- 
gy, two lectures. 5. Calculus of probabilities, two lectures. 6. 'Differential and 
integral calculus, two lectures and two lessons. 7. Drawing, one lesson during the 
weekj and one on Sunday. 

Third year. 1. Mechanics, four lectures and two lessons. 2. Chemical analysis, 
two lectures and one hour of manipulation. 8. Chemistry, one lecture. 4. Natural 
history, two lessons. 5. Geology, one lesson. 6. Botany, one lesson. 7. Draw- 
ing, one lesson. On Sunday, the pupils make botanical and geological excursions 
into the environs. 

The pupils undergo similar examinations to those of the section of letters, 
and before presenting themselves as candidates for the place of adjunct, they 
must have taken at least the degree of licentiate of sciences. They are 
however, specially relieved from the necessity of matriculating in those 
courses at the university which they attend in the school, and which other- 
\vise would be necessary in order to obtain the degree of licentiate. These 
are, for the mathematical sciences, the differential and integral calculus and 
mechanics ; for the physical sciences, physics and chemistVy ; and for the 
natural sciences, geology, botany, «Slc. The examination for the degree of 
licentiate of mathematical science may be made at the end of the second 
year, bv pupils of this section of the normal school, and that for licentiate 
of physical science at the close of the third year, ' 



SECONDARY NORMAL SCHOOL AT PARIS. 455 

The programmes of the several lessons* in both sections are prepared by 
the masters, and submitted to the council of public instruction every year 
before the beginning of the course. 

Besides these lectures and recitations, the pupils are required to attend 
sucii other lectures at the faculty of letters or of sciences of the university, 
or any other public institution, as may be designated to them. At the ter- 
mination of the third year's course, ia the month of July, they are examined 
in the school, and present themselves as competitors for the places of ad- 
juncts, according to the special studies which they have pursued. 

The courses of the school are arranged in reference to the competition for 
these places, an account of the examinations for which has already been 
given in the general description of secondary instruction in France. In this 
competition they are brought in contact with the best talent wliich has chosen 
a different road to preferment from that offered by the norma! school. Suc- 
cess in this trial is, of course, not always a fair criterion of the state of the 
school, but certainly offers, on the average, an idea of the merits of its dif- 
ferent departments, and is so used in directing their improvement. It may 
be of interest, therefore, to give the results of one of these competitions, 
namely, that for 1836. The judges of the competition for the places of ad- 
juncts in philosophy report ten candidates for the six places; of these, five 
of the successful ones were from the normal school, but the first was from 
anotlier institution. For six vacancies in the higher classes of letters there 
were thirty candidates examined, and of these, two of the successful ones, 
including "the first upon the list, were pupils of the school. For adjuncts in 
the sciences there were eight places and nineteen candidates, the school 
furnishing six of the successful competitors, and among them the first on 
the list. In history and geography there were eight candidates for five 
places; the institutions from which they came are, however, not stated. In 
grammar, there were forty-one candidates for eight places ; of the successful 
competitors the school sent five, and among them the first on the list. 

The keen nature of this competition, while it excites the pupils of the 
school to great exertion, produces a most deleterious effect upon the health 
of the more feeble. Indeed, their general appearance, when compared with 
those of other young men of the same age, is far from favorable. It is part 
of a system which is considered adapted to the national character, but winch 
is certainly by no means a necessity for men in general, since the teachers 
of the German gymnasia are prepared without its severe pressure. 

The collections subsidiary to the instruction are — 1st. A library of works 
relating to education and to the courses of study, which is open for two hours 
every day, and from which the students may receive books. This library is 
under the charge of the sub-director of studies. The students are, besides, 
furnished with the books which they use in their classes at the expense of 
the school, and which, unless injured, are returned by them after use. 2d. 
A small collection of physical apparatus. 3d. A collection of chemical 
apparatus connected with a laboratory, for practice in manipuL.tion. The 
courses of manipulation are not, however, carried out to their due extent, 
and the study-rooms are common to many individuals. The pupils are 
divided into two sections for study, each of which is in charge of one of the 
superintending masters. 

Discipline. — Though there are minute regulations for discipline, the age 
of the pupils and the character of their pursuits and expectations render the 
exercise of severity but little necessary. At the tim(f of my visit to the 
school, in 1837, the youngest pupil was seventeen years of age, and there 
were but four of between eighteen and nineteen connected with it. 

Much difference of opinion exists as to whether the frequent permissions 
to individuals to leave the premises should not be replaced by excursions 
made by the whole of the pupils, under the supervision of an officer. At 
• A series of programmes is given in full in M. Cousin's work, before referred to. 



456 SECOJiDARY NORMAL, SCHOOL AT PARIS. 

present, Sunday is a day of general leave of absence, and on Thursday after- 
noon individual permissions are freely granted by the director of studies. 

This institution occupies the same rank with those attached to some of 
the Prussian universities, and intended to prepare masters for the gymnasia. 
It has an advantage over them in the spirit produced by the greater numbers 
of its pupils, and by the closer connection with the school, which results 
from their studying and residing within its walls. It is, in turn, inferior to 
the seminaries for secondary teachers at Berlin, in the absence of arrange- 
ments for practical teaching, and in even a more important respect, namely, 
the want of that religious motive of action which forms the characteristic 
of the Prussian system. The deficiencies of this great school, in regard to 
both religious and practical education, struck me, I must confess, very forci- 
bly.* 

* In the general tenor of the foregoing; remarks, I have the sanction of M. Cousin, ia the pref- 
ace to liis-;iccount of the Normal School, already referred to. 



POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL 



FRANCE. 



The Polytechnic School of France was established by adecree of the 
National Convention, dated March 11, 1794, through the inOuence of 
Monge, Carnot, Fourcroy, and others, under the name of the Central 
School of Public Works — which name was changed to its present desig- 
nation in 1795. To prepare a suitable choir of teachers, a certain num- 
ber of pupils of the right character were trained under such professors 
as Lagrange, Laplace, Hassenfratz, and BerthoUet. 

The original object of the school, a diffusion of mathematical, physi- 
cal, and chemical science, and the graphic arts, has been constantly 
maintained under the successive changes in the government of France; 
and although the pupils are not obliged to enter any branch of the gov- 
ernment service ; in point of fact, most of the graduates become engineers, 
military, naval or civil, or are promoted to the direction of public works. 
Since 1800, the school has furnished, on an average, one hundred 
thoroughly educated graduates for the public service, annually. 

The general charge oi" the institution belongs to the war department, 
and the immediate control is vested in a military commandant, assisted 
by a vice-commandant, both of whom must have been pupils of the 
school with an able choir of subordinate officers, professors, and tutors. 
The following account of the school is abridged from President Bache's 
Report : 

The school is open to all candidates over sixteen years of age, from any part of 
France, who give satisfactory evidence of talents and acquirements. 

Each applicant registers his name at the prefecture of the department in which 
he resides, and is examined for admission in the district to which he belongs, or 
where he is under instruction. With this registry is deposited the certificate of 
the date and circumstances of birth, a certificate of vaccination or of having had 
the small-pox, and of general health, and an obligation on the part of the parent or 
guardian to pay the sum of one thousand francs (about two hundred dollars) yearly 
to the school, in case of admission. 

The subjects upon which a candidate is examined are — 1. Arithmetic, in all its 
branches. 2. Elementary geometry. 3. Algebra. 4. Plane trigonometry. 5. 
Statics treated synthetically. 6. Elements of analytical geometry. 7. The use of 
the logarithmic tables. 8. Latin, as far as it is taught in the rhetoric class of the 
colleges, and French composition. 9. Drawing, with the crayon and with instru- 
ments. If the candidate possesses, in addition, a knowledge of physics, chemistry, 
German, and of India-ink drawing, they are taken into the account. 

There are four examiners appointed annually by the minister of war, on the 
nomination of the council of instruction of the school. Tliese divide between them 
the different districts in which the examinations are to be held, and repair, at a 
stated time, between the first of August and tenth of October, to the place ap- 
pointed. The performance of the candidates is registered according to a scale of 
marks, as nearly uniform as the judgment of different individuals allows; these 
registers being compared, the candidates are admitted in the order of merit, thus 



458 



POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL OF FRANCE. 



determined, as far as the number of vacancies permits. Tlie successful candidates 
are informed of the result of their examination, and join the school early in No- 
vember. They are received by a board (jury) of examiners, who subject them to 
a second examination, intended to verify the first, and to tlie inspection of a sur- 
geon. This board consists of the two commandants, the director of studies, the 
two permanent examiners attached to the school, and the four examiners for 
admission. 

There are twenty-four gratuitous placfs for pupils whose families are in needy 
circumstances ; of these, twelve are at the disposal of the minister of war, eight of 
the minister of commerce, and four of the minister of marine. These bursaries 
may be halved. No pupil who is lower than two-thirds from the head of the list, 
in the order of merit at admission, is eligible to a bursary or half bursary. 

Besides the students thus regularly entei'ing the school, a certain number of 
youths are permitted to attend the lectures, (auditeurs libres.) The majority of 
these are foreigners. 

The highest executive authority in matters of instruction, is the director of 
studies. This office was created in 1804, previous to which time the council of 
instruction had discharged its duties. The director of studies overseers the details 
of instruction, being immediately responsible to the commandant of the school. 
He is appointed by the king, on the joint nomination of the council of instruction 
of the school and of the academy of sciences, and is a member of all boards con- 
vened in relation to its affairs. A council, termed the council of instruction 
{conseil d^ instruction,} and composed of the two commandants, the director of 
studies, the professors of the school, one master, appointed annually by the teach- 
ers from among their number, and the librarian, who acts as secretary, meets once 
a month for the discussion of business relating to instruction. When changes are 
required in the courses or in the examinations, they are discussed in this council 
and referred to a second, which may be considered as the chief legislative body, in 
regard to the subjects composing the instruction. 

This council, termed the council of']mpvo\emen\, (conseil de perfectionnement,) 
consists of the two commandants, the director of studies, the five examiners in the 
school, one examiner for admission, three members of the academy of sciences, three 
professors in the school, and a member from each of the branches of the public 
service into which the graduates enter. 

The officers directly concerned in instruction are, the professors and the re- 
peaters (repetiteurs.) The professors and masters are appointed by the minister 
of war on the joint nomination of the council of instruction and of the particular 
academy of the institute in which the subject of instruction is classed. The pro- 
fessors communicate instruction by lecture and by general interrogations of the 
pupils. The repeaters conduct the special interrogations, and give aid to the pupils 
while engaged in study. The title of " repeater" is, no doubt, derived from the 
original duty of these teachers having been to go over the lessons of the professors. 
The repeaters do the more laborious work of instruction, and since their substitu- 
tion for the pupil teachers, who were employed in the early period of the existence 
of the school, have been considered most important officers. Some of the most 
distinguished professors have risen from the rank of repeaters. 

There are two divisions of the pupils for instruction, corresponding to the two 
years' duration of the courses. No pupil is allowed to remain in one of these di- 
visions more than two years, nor in the school more than three. To proceed from 
the first division to the second, or to graduate, an examination must be passed 
upon the studies of the year then just elapsed. Until 1798, these examinations 
were conducted by the professors, but now there are examiners, who are not con- 
nected with the school. Two of these are permanent, and appointed by the min- 
ister of war on the joint nomination of the council of instruction and of the academy 
of sciences, and three are appointed annually on the recommendation of the council. 
The courses of the first year are — analysis, geometry, mechanics, descriptive 
geometry, application of analysis to geometry, physics, chemistry, French composi- 
tion, topographical drawing, drawing of the human figui-es, landscape drawing, 
and India-ink drawing. Those of the second year are — a continuation of the analy- 
sis, geometry, mechanics, physics, chemistry, and drawing of the first year, besides 
machines, geodesy and social arithmetic, architecture, and the German language. 



POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL OF FRANCE. 



459 



Analysis. 

First Year. Differential and integral calculus, to include the rectification and quadrature 
of plane curves, and curved surfaces, and llie cubature of solids. 

Second Year. Ufferential and intefjral calculus continued. Elements of tile calculus of 
variations aud of finite differences. Formulaj of interpolation, <Scc. 

Mechanics. 

First Year. Statics. — Composition and equilibrium of forces. Theory of parallel forces. 
Of the center of gravity. Allraction of a point by a homogenous sphere. Dynamics — Gen- 
eral formation ot motion. The pendulum. Projectiles. Problems in physical astronomy. 

Second Year. Statics continued. Forces applied to an invariable sy.siem. Principle of 
virtual velocities. Application to simple meclianics. Dynamics. DAlembert's principle. 
Collision. Moment of inertia, Ac. Hydrostatics. Hydrodynamics. 

Every lecture of analysis or mechanics is preceded or followed by interrogations by the pro- 
fessor. Problems are given out for solution. The repeaters inttrrrogale the pnpils three 
times per week. After the completion of the course, general interrogations take place, upon 
the whole subject, by the professors and repeaters. 

Descriptive Geometry. 

Problems relating to the right line and plane (twelve problems ) Tangent planes and nor- 
mals lo curved surfaces (four problems.) Intersections of surfaces (seven problems.} Mis- 
ceilaneoud problems (seven ) 

Applications uf Descriptive Geometry. Problems with a single plane of projection, and a 
scale of declivity. Linear perspective (.three problems.; Shadows (three problems.) Stone 
cutlins (seven problems.) Carpentry (lour probltms.) 

India-ink drawing. Elements in lour examples. 

Analytical Geometry. 

The right line and plane. Curved surfaces. 

The professor may precede or follow his lecture by interrogations. During the course the 
class is examined by the repeaters, and at the close of the studies of Analytical Geometry 
there is a general review. 

Machines, Astronomy, Geodesy, and Social Arithmetic. 

Elements of Machines. Machines for transporting burthens and for pressure. For rais- 
ing liquids. Moved by air, by water, by steam. U.--eful effect of machines. 

Astronomy and Geode.ty. Formulae of sphericaltrigonometry. Meas^urement of space and 
time Of the celestial bodies. Ol the earth. Element.* of physical geography and hydrogra- 
phy. Geodesy. Instruments. Figures of the earth. Projection of maps and charts. 

Elemenis of the calculation of probabilities Tables. Insurances. Life insurance, &c. 

Interrogations by the professor accompany the lessons. Those by the repeater must be at 
least as frequent as those by the professor. At the close of the principal courses there is a 
general review, in the way of interrogation, by the professor and repeater. 

Physics. 

First Year. 1. General properties of bodies. Falling bodies. Principle of equilibrium of 
fluids. Specific gravities. 2. Heat. Radiation, conduction, &c. Vapors. Latent heat. 
3. General constitution of the atmosphere. Hygrometry. 4. Molecular attraction. Capillary 
action. 5 Electricity Laws of attraction, repulsion, distribution, ic. Atmospheric elec- 
tricity. Modes of developing electricity. 

Second Year. 6. Magnetism. Phenomena and laws of magnetism. Instruments. Re- 
ciprocal act. on of mngnets and electrical currents. Electro. dynamics. Mutual actions of 
electrical currents. Thermo-electric phenomena. 7. Acoustics. Of the production, propo- 
gation, velocity, &c., of sound. Acoustic instruments. 8. Optics. Mathematical and physi- 
cal o|ltic^. Optical instruments. 

During the whole course the repeaters interrogate each division twice every week : they go 
through the study-rooms, and give any explanations which may be required by the pupils. 

Chemistry. 

FHrst Year. General principles. Division of the course. Examination of the principal 
simple subtances Mixtures and binary compounds. Laws 'of definite proportions, <tc. 
Hydrac ds. Oxacids and oxides. Bases. Neutral binary compounds. Salts. Principal metals. 

Second Year. Reciprocal action of acids and oxides. Action ot water upon salts. Laws 
of BerlhoUet discussed General properties of the carbonates, and special study of some of 
the more important. Borates and silicates. Glass and pottery. Nitrates. Gunpowder. 
Phosphates. <kc. Sulphates. Chlorates. Chromates and other classes of salts, with details 
as to the more important. Extraction of the metals from thejr ores, methods of refining, &c. 
Oraanic chemistry. Vegetable substances. Animal substances. 

This course is accompanied by manipulations in the laboratory of the institution, in which 
the most useful preparations of the course are mafle by the pupils themselves. They are also 
taught the principles ot analysis, both mineral and organic, practically. 

Architecture. 

Component parts of edifices. General principles. Materials. Foundations. Strength. 
Forms and propurl ions of the jiarls of buildings. Floors. Roofs, arches, &c. General prin- 
ciplesof the compositions of parts of edifices Illubtrations of the different varieties of parts, 
asportico.i, porches, vestibules, halls, &c. Composition of an edifice. Varieties of build- 
ings— as colleges, hospitals, prisons, barracks, Ac. 

The pujjils copy from the board the sketches of the professor, and draw them carefully 
when required At the close of the lectures there are four different subjects assigned, upon 
each of which there is a competition. The pupils are classified according to the result of 
these competions, and of the marks for their graphic exercises during the course. The best 



460 POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL OF FRANCE. 

designs are eihibited. Three India-ink drawings are made on architectural subjects during 
this course. 

French Composition. 
\ The course consists principally in the writing of essays and compositions by the pupils, 
which are subsequently criticised during the recitations. 

German Language. 
Elements of the language. Grammar reading. Themes and versions. Every lecture is 
followed by an examination of an hour and a-half in duration, by the professor or repeater. 
There are, besides, exercises of pronunciation and common conversation. 

Topography. 
Exercises in topographical drawing. Different modes of representing the ground by hori- 
zontal curves, the projections of lines of greatest declivity, and by shading. Convejitional 
signs. Lettering. The exercises of the second division are preceded by lessons from the pro- 
fessor of geodesy, explanatory of the theory. 

Drawing of the Human Figure and Landscape Drawing. 

In the first branch the pupils are divided into two classes, one of which copies engraving.?, 
and the otiier draws from models. On entering the school the pupils are classified according 
to the drawings which they made at the examination for admission. They are then divided 
into two sections, of as nearly equal strength as possible, and assigned, each one, to a master, 
with whom they remain during their course. One of the drawing-masters is specially 
charged with the course of drawing from casts and from nature. At the beginning of the 
second year, the highest third of the pupils of each secJion of the former first division go to 
the teacher of drawing in water colors, and remain for two months. They return to their 
sections, and are replaced by the next division, each pupil occupying a third of the second 
year in this kind ol drawing. The merits of the drawings are judged every two months. 
After the first of May the ordinary drawing lessons are replaced by those in water colors. 

Besides these regular studies, there are from twelve to fifteen lectures on anatomy and phys- 
iology, given towards the close of the second year, during hours not devoted to the regular 
branches, and which it is optional with the pupils to attend or not. Fencing, music, and 
dancing lessons, are also given. 

During tlie interrogations by the professors and repeaters, notes are taken of the 
merit of the answers of the pupils, according to a uniform scale of marks. These 
are communicated with the subjects of each lecture or recitation to the director of 
studies, and placed upon record, as assisting in determining the merit of the pupils. 
The exanjiners mark according to the same scale. The pupils are classified after 
the examinations in the several departments, and in taking the average for the 
standing in general merit, a different weight is allowed to the different courses. 
Mathematics counts most, and then the graphic exercises, descriptive geometry 
and geodesy united, and conduct count the same — then physics and chemistry. 

The examinations at the end of the two years of study are divided into four ; 
the first, on the courses of the first year, including analysis, part of analytical 
geometry, and mechanics ; the second, on chemistry ; the third, on physics ; the 
fourth, on descriptive geometry and its applications, and part of analytical geometry. 
The examination at the close of the second year is divided as follows : — First, 
analysis, analytical geometry, mechanics, effects of machines and social arithmetic. 
Second, chemistry. Third, physics. Fourth, geodesy, description of machines, 
and architecture. The examination on analysis and its applications, and mechanics, 
are conducted by the two permanent examiners. The pupils are examined singly 
and without the presence of their comrades, and each examiner occupies a separate 
room. Where the branches admit of it, the examinations are viva voce, the stu- 
dent using the blackboard when required. 

After the examinations are completed, the results are reported to a board, who, 
with all the materials before them from the examiners and from the school, decide 
whether the pupils may pass to the higher division, or are admissible into the pub- 
lic service, according to the division to which they belong. This board ("jury") 
consists of the two commandants, the director of studies, the two permanent and 
three temporary examiners. 

The arrangement of the time allotted to study, like the similar points in regard 
to instruction, is a matter of very minute regulation. The pupils study in large 
rooms, conveniently fitted up for the purpose, and where they receive by lot, at 
entrance, places which they retain, in general, during the course. The interroga- 
tions or recitations take place in rooms adapted to that purpose, separate from the 
larger lecture halls. These recitation-rooms are also open to the pupils in winter, 
during recreation hours, and after supper ; and in summer, whenever the weather 
is bad, so as to prevent them from spending the time in the open air, besides at 
certain stated periods before the examinations. The repeaters are present during 



POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL OF FRANCE. 



461 



the periods devoted to the studies of their several departments, and, except in the 
cases of the graphic exercises where it is not allowed, are expected to give assist- 
ance to the pupils who ask for it. 

The order of the day in the institution is arranged with a view to bring the lec- 
tures, recitations, and studies of particular branches together. Besides this, there 
are study-hours called free, in which the student may employ himself as he pleases, 
otherwise than in drawing of any kind (graphic exercises.) 

The discipline of the school is thoroughly military, and the means of carrying it 
out in all its strictness are provided. The regulations are very minute, and fix, in 
detail, the punishment considered equivalent to each offense, as well for those 
against morals as transgressions of the regulations themselves. The punishments 
are — 1. Private admonition by the commandant or viee-coronrmndant. 2. Public 
reprimand before the corps of pupils. 3. Confinement to the walls of the institu- 
tion, or stoppage of leave. 4. Confinement to the house. 5. Imprisonment 
within the walls. 6. [Military imprisonment. 7. Dismission. The usual pun- 
ishment for trivial ofienses is the stoppage ('' sortie,") one of which is equivalent to 
a deprivation of the general leave of absence for half a day. This may be awarded 
by an officer as low as an adjutant. It follows certain specified oflTenses, as over- 
staying a leave, when the number of stoppages is in proportion to the time of over- 
staying tlie leave, and is even assigned for a failure in recitation. Imprisonment 
within the walls can only be awarded by the commandant, vice-commandmant, or 
director of studies, and excludes the student from the recitation-room. Confine- 
ment in the military prison requires the order of the commandant, w ho reports the 
case at once to the minister of war. Dismission can not take place without the 
sanction of the minister. Cases of discipline, suppose to involve dismission or the 
loss of a bursar}', are referred to a board called the council of discipline, and com- 
posed of the two commandants, the director of studies, two professors, two captain 
inspectors, the captain instructor, and one administrator. 

For military exercises, and the general furtherance of discipline, the pupils form 
a battalion, divided into four companies, each division of the school forming two 
companies. From each company eight petty officers, called sergeants, are taken 
according to the order of the merit-roll of the division, making thirty-two in the 
whole battalion. These sergeants are distinguished by appropriate military badges. 
The sergeants have charge of the other pupils in the study-rooms, halls, recitation- 
rooms, refectory, laboratories, and lecture-rooms, and two of them in turn are 
joined with a higher officer, an adjutant, in the inspection of the food. They have 
charge in general of the details of police. The second sergeants are intrusted 
with the collection of money due by their comrades for letters and other authorized 
expenses. These officers are appointed once a year. 

The administration of the fiscal affairs of the school is committed to a board con- 
sisting of the commandant and vice-commandant, the director of studies, two pro- 
fessors, designated by the council of instruction, two inspectors of studies in turn, 
according to rank, the administrator or steward as reportor (rapporteur,) the treas- 
urer as secretary. The last two named agents are consulting members only. 
This board meets twice eveiy month. It prepares the estimates for the expenses 
of the school, which are submitted to the minister of war. The form of these and, 
indeed, of all the accounts, is laid down minutely in regulations. 

The payment made by parents for the maintenance of the pupils does not go 
into the treasury of the institution, but into the general central treasury of the coun- 
try. The school furnishes the pupil, for a stipulated sum, with his board, lodging, 
clothing, and petty expenses. For repairs of clothing and pettj- expenses, a special 
sum is set aside, of which the student receives an account. Parts of the supply of 
clothing, &c., at entrance, may be furnished by the parents, but the rest is sup- 
plied by the school at the parents' expense. 

The steward (administrateur) is the executive officer of the domestic economy of 
the school — prepares all matters of business for the consideration of the council of 
administration, and the estimates of every kind, regular and contingent ; presents 
the plans and estimates of the architect of the school for repairs or new buildings, 
and superintends their execution when authorized ; makes contracts and receives 
the articles contracted for ; has charge of the issue of all articles, of the store- 
houses, and of the servants ; superintends the infirmari' ; he nominates the sub- 
ordinate persons employed in his department, and is responsible directly to the 
council, in virtue of tlie authority of which he is supposed to act. 



462 POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL OF FRANCE. 

The board of examination decide formally upon the claims of the pupils of the 
second year to be graduated, and arrange the rolls in the order of merit. Tlie 
pupils then, in turn, choose the department of the public service which they wish 
to enter, and in case there is no vacancy in this department, are still entitled to 
priority of choice in other branches over those below them. 

On entering these several services, the graduates pass to the schools of applica- 
tion, or special schools, intended to give the technical preparation necessary ; a 
notice of those which' prepare for civil pursuits is here given. 

There are special schools of practice for the land artillery and engineers, and for 
the staff or topographical engineers. The otticers who have charge of the manu- 
facture of powder are sent to the different government establishments for practice. 
The graduates intended for tlie naval artillery go to the school of practice for the 
land artillery at Metz ; those for the naval engineers, to a special school at L'Urient. 
The hydrographical engineers enter at once upon the actual discharge of their 
duties in subordinate situations. The courses in these schools, or the apprentice- 
ship to the duties of the sei'vice, vary from two to three years, according to the 
branch. The civil services have the schools of practice for the corps of roads and 
bridges, and of mines, and for the manufacture of tobacco. 

The corps of civil engineers, entitled corps of roads and bridges (corps de ponts 
et chaussees,) have in charge all the works of this class, for the constructinn and 
repair of which the government is responsible. Their special school at Paris was 
founded as early as 1747, and embraced some of the acquisitions now made at the 
polytechnic school. Its organization, however, appears to have been exceedingly 
imperfect, the pupils being admitted without examination, and receiving part of 
their instruction out of the .school. At present, the regular pupils are admitted 
from the polytechnic school, and go through a course of three years. The branches 
taught consist of applied mechanics, civil aichitecture, constructions, mineralogy, 
geology, administrative jurisprudence, drawing, and the English, Gernian, and 
Ital.an languages. There are examinations at the close of each year. The lectures 
occupy the period from the'Juth of November to the 1st of May. During the inter- 
vening time, ffom iVlay to November, the students of the second and third years are 
sent into the field for practice, under the depirtmental engineers. The pupils re- 
ceive pay, as aspirants from the government \\ hile at the school, and may rise to the 
rank of engineer of the second class in tliree years fioni the period of leaving it. 

The corps of mines is charged with the execution of all laws relating to mines, 
miners, quarries, and furnaces, and with the promotion, by advice or personal ex- 
ertion, of the branches of the arts connected with mining. They superintend the 
working of mines, and are responsible for the safety of the vv'orkmen, the due pre- 
servation of the soil, and the economy of the work. They also have the special 
superintendence of the execution of the laws relating to the safety of the steam- 
engine. They have two schools of practice, one at Paris, called the school of 
mines, the other at St. Etienne, called the school of miners. The duties of in- 
struction in both these schools are confided to members of the corps. That at 
Paris is considered to rank among the first of the special schools of France. 

The regular pupils of the school of mines are divided into two classes, according 
to the pay received from the government. The pupils from the polytechnic school 
enter the second of these classes. They remain at the school not less than two nor 
m»re than four years. During the winter there are courses of mineralocry. geology, 
the working, refining, and assaying of metals, the working of mines, drawing, and 
the English and German languages; and at the close, the pupils are examined. 

The students of the first year are employed during the summer in chemical 
manipulation in the laboratories of the school, which are admirably provided for 
this purpose, in making geological excursions in the neighborhood of Paris, and in 
the use of surveying instruments. During the similar periods of the following 
years, the students are sent into the departments, and sometimes abroad, to make 
particular examinations in relation to their profession, and on their return are ex- 
pected to present a memoir descriptive of their investigations. 

The students of the first, or hiarhest class, are present ot the sittings of the gen- 
eral council of mines, to familiarize them with the business of the corps. After 
their final examination they are classed in the order of merit, and receive their first 
promotion accordingly. 



SCHOOL OF ARTS AND MANUFACTURES 



AT 

PARIS. 



, The school of Arts and Manufactures started with the principle, that, 
however numerous might be the different theoretical courses of instruc- 
tion which each student might require, in order to qualify him for a spe- 
cial profession or trade, still such theory should be in intimate connec- 
tion with, and be made subservient to, industrial science. Thus the 
chemist who quitted the college should not only be well versed in theory 
and a good operator in the laboratory, but he should also be a mechanic, 
a geologist, and a draughtsman — so that, in case of an emergency, he 
would not only know how to select the best materials, but to superintend 
the construction of works which he might eventually have to direct. It 
was assumed that by adopting this plan of a comprehensive scientific, 
and practical training, young men would acquire an aptness, a general 
intelligence, and a taste for seeking knowledge after quitting the college 
which would fit them for various useful careers. 

None of the existing establishments in France afforded such advan- 
tages. At the colleges, students were free to follow, with more or less 
assiduity, any particular course of lectures, or merely that portion most 
attractive to them. They abandoned their studies without responsibility, 
and their application was not enforced by any check. 

The School of Arts and Manufactures was established in order to pro- 
vide a remedy for these defects. Although a private establishment, it 
was placed first under the surveillance of the Minister of Public Instruc- 
tion, and eventually, in 1838, under the Minister of Commerce, who, in 
his budget for that year, asked for certain sums to defray the expense ot 
sending up students to it. A commission of the Chamber of Deputies 
recommended the grant for the following reasons : 

'• That this college was created in 1829, under the most eminent and 
experienced professors, for the purpose of forming engineers, directors 
of manufactories, and workshops of all descriptions. 

"This private establishment, which by its excellence and utility com- 
petes with our best public establishments, has created and put into 
practice a complete system of industrial education. 

" It is at the same time a sequel to our Polytechnic School, and an 
adjunct to our schools for special arts or trades. This college meets the 
conditions which the age requires, and it has completely succeeded. It 
has been proved both by the support given to it by our great manufac- 
tures, and by the fact that all the young men educated there immedi- 
ately find the most lucrative employment." 



464 SCHOOL OF ARTS AND MANUFACTURES AT PARIS. 

The money was granted by the Minister in 1838, and in 1842 it ap- 
pears that nineteen of the Counseils Generaux in different departments 
in France voted funds to send up to this college a certain number of 
young men from their towns ; and the Minister had, it seems, provided 
for forty, whose previous instruction and good conduct, and the positions 
of their families, has entitled them to the favor of the State. 

The STUDENTS of the establishment are of three classes — viz., those who are 
brought up by the State ; those for whom fuuds have been voted by the Councils 
General of departments ; and those received at the expense of their families. 

In order to obtain admission. Government and departmental candidates are 
examined at Paris, before a jury named by the Minister of Commerce for this 
purpose each year. The candidates must have been registered and recommended 
by the department whence they come ; and they must prove that they are between 
the ages of eighteen and twenty-one. They undergo two examinations — one oral,' 
the other written ; and they must solve with ease certain problems in elementary 
mathematics and geometry. They must write and describe their problems and 
theories well ; draw by rule and compass ; sketch and color. Without these 
qualifications it is impossible to be admitted as a Government student, and the 
juries are instructed to select those who shew most literary attainments, and who 
" appear to have that deception of intelligence which promises an aptitude for in- 
dustrial science, rather than mathematical acquirements." A great preference is 
given to those who have obtained the necessary qualification in a high degree, 
and whose means are limited, and the administration is not to aid thase whose 
families are in a position to defray the expenses of their education. All students 
may participate in an " Encouragement Fund" for the first year, but afterwards 
only those who sliew the greatest amount of merit 5 and an augmentation may be 
accorded to those who are remarkable for still higher qualities. Private stu- 
dents are admitted at any age above sixteen. They, too, submit to both oral and 
written examinations. They must execute certain problems, and write clearly 
and correctly the theories as set forth in the programme. Foreigners as well as 
French students are admitted, provided they can write and read the language. 
In Paris, these examinations are made by a board named yearly by the Council of 
Studies, in the departments by public professors of mathematics, and in foreign 
countries by the university professoi-s ; and all applicants must produce proper tes- 
timonials as to their morality. 

The authority of the school is vested in a director and a Council of Studies, 
consisting of nine professors. The director lives in the college, and is charged 
with its administration and correspondence, but he can not appoint professoi-s ; 
these are selected for their practical as well as theoretical experience. The Coun- 
cil admit or reject candidates after reading the statement of their examinations, 
and they report on the progress of each student — as to his aptitude and capabili- 
ties, and whether he is eligible to be transferred to a superior division, or whether 
his friends shall be requested to remove him. The students bind themselves by a 
solemn declaration to take no part in any conspiracy to oppose the execution of 
the decisions of their superiors, and they promise to enter into no coalition for im- 
posing on the junor or senior branches of the college. No students are lodged 
within the college, and they are not permitted to wear any description of 
uniform. 

The COURSE OF instruction is limited to three years, during which period it is 
obligatory. It includes lectures, daily examinations, drawing and graphic exer- 
cises, chemical manipulations, working in stone and wood, physics and mechanics, 
the construction of buildings and other works, and general annual examinations. 
The students are, in addition, expected to make notes and reports, and to visit the 
workshops and manufactories. Tliey are boarded and lodged at respectable 
houses in the immediate vicinity, at their own expense. Each year there are 
general examinations in every branch of science and art. In the middle of the 
second year the studies are subdivided — one course is general, the other has spe- 
cial relation to the ultimate destination of the scholar. 

The specialities are four in number: — 1. Mechanicians. 2. Constructors, as 
architects, engineers. 3. Mining and metallurgy. 4. Chemistry, applied in all 



SCHOOL OF ARTS AND MANUFACTURES AT PARIS. 465 

its branches, including agriculture. After that period, the whole energies of the 
student are rlevoted to those branches of science on which the profession he is 
about to adopt depends. 

With respect to diplomas and certificates, the students of the third year are 
admitted to competition for diplomas, a programme of examination being made 
GUI for each speciality. The competitors are allowed thirty-five days within the 
college to make out their designs and compose their memoir, and then they are 
examined by five professors in public and before the students of two years. After 
the examination, the professors in council grant <liplomas to those who have ex- 
celled and who have passed with the greatest honors, and " certificates of ca- 
pacity" to those who have given less general proof of the highest talent. At each 
examination those who do not advance sufiieiently, or are idle, are recommended 
to retire. All the examinations are kept for reference in the archives of the 
college. 

The FEES FOR EACH STUDENT, including several extras, are altogether 870 francs 
($174) per annum. That the institution is flourishing, is proved by its being 
mainly self-supporting ; and that the ci)untry benefits by it, the long array of emi- 
nent graduates who might be named together with a statement of their present 
employments, would most satisfactorily illustrate. 

The following is the programme of instruction somewhat more in detail : 

FIRST YEAR. 

Descriptive Geometry. Theory and application to perspective, drawing, and shading ; 
Btonecutliiig — details ; carpentry— details. 

Analytical Geometry and Mechanics generally. Theory of motion and equilibrium of 
forces , velocity, acciltratlon, force, mass; general principles of motion, gravity, power, ef- 
fect ; statics of solid bodies. 

< !unxl ruction of Machines. 

Trdnsf.irmation and Modification of Motion. 

Physics genernlly Laws of gravity, balances, pendulum, and its application ; hydrosta- 
tics, hydrodynamics, heat, masnetiim. electricity, electrodynamics and electro-magnetism, 
molecular aciioii. acoustics, li^ht. optics. 

For the tirsi year the students are made to manipulate, in determining the density of solids, 
liquids, and gasses, the construction and use of barometers, thermometers, and hygrometers ; 
determinaiion of refractive powers, photometers; power of rotation in liquids, saccha- 
rometers. 

Chemistry generally Mi wrals, and the study of all objects not metallic ; the atmosphere, 
gasses. Metallic: general methods for extraction of metallic oxides; general properties of 
sulphurets, chlorides, &c. ; general properties of the salts ; metals useful either alone or in 
their comlination for the arts. 

Organic chemistry Methods of analysis ; principal organic products ; their uses in the 
arts; acids, and their applications. 

One day in the week in the laboratory, to practice the experiments they have seen In the 
lecinreroom 

Medicine and Natural History applied to Industry. 

Hygeian Scic/ice and Physiology, as far as Pulilic Health is concerned : 

First Part Food, clothing ; influence of heat and cold ; dampness, and a dry atmosphere ; 
sun and wind.-:: the health in different professions; sanitary regulations and legislation. 

Second Part.— Natural History. The animal creation in all that relates to uidustry, the 
arts and agrirnllure; power, produce, and nutriment The vegetable creation ; substances 
employi^d in the arts ; wood, textiles, cereals, wines, tanning, dyes. 

Draining and Design in its various Brunches During the vacation, plane and elevations 
of buildings and works are txeculed, which must be presented at the commencement of the 
term. 

SECOND YEAR. 

The same as the first year, besides modeling in plaster for stone-cutting, &c 

Industrial Physics. Properties and construction of furnaces of all kinds for different de- 
scriptions of fuel, transmission of heat, sublimation, distillation, evaporisation. heating air and 
liquids, lefrigeration. lightning, ventilation, and sanitary arrangements of towns ; construc- 
tions of all kinds in model bricks and plaster of Paris 

During the recess the students visit works and manufactories, and are obliged to present 
detailed reports on tliem. 

The students of the third year complete five different projects, with drawings, calculatiou 
and estimates on which there are conferences, one on each speciality every month. 

Second and Third Year. Applied mechanics in great detail, applied hydrodynamics, con- 
struciion and st-iling np of machines, analytical cliemistry in different branches for different 
prnffssioiis, indu.str al chemistry both mineral and organic, agricultural chemistry. 

Public Works. Roads, bridges in stone, wood, iron, and suspension ; natural inland navi- 
gation, artificial inland navigation. 

Architecture. 

Geology and Mineralogy. 

Mining. Working, and Ventilation Metallurgy and fabrication in iron, steel, zinc, and 
copper ; furnaces and founderies for all metals. 

Technology. Manufacture of cordage ; stone and wood sawing: textile manufactures in 

80 



466 SCHOOL OF ARTS AND MANUFACTURES AT PARIS. 

cotton, wool, flax, silk ; cotton spinning; expression of oils ; grinding, felting, ceramic works, 
and pottery. 

Special Courses_fur the Third Year. Steannengines of all descriptions; railways and dif^ 
fereiit systems for locomotion; ihe students visiting the mogt iniportaiit works with their 
professors. 

The students are examined daily upon the subjects of their lectures, by the pro^ 
fessors and repeaters (Repetiteurs.) The utility of this latter class of teachers is 
well established in France, and they are found in every institution in whicli lec- 
turing is practiced to a great extent as a means of instruction ; they prevent the 
burthen of teaching from tailing upon professors, whose duty it is to be engaged in 
advancing, as well as in propagating science, and who would be prevented from 
following one or other of these honorable and useful careers, by having the duty 
of teaching superadded to that of lecturing. So well is the necessity of relieving 
the professor understood, that in all courses requiring preparation, special persons 
are appointed, called preparers, who take off this burthen also from the professor. 
The result is, that many men of high eminence are thus enabled to diffuse their 
knowledge among students by lecturing, and are willing to do so, tliough they 
have other and niore profitable employments, to whicli they v^'ould e.\elusively 
confine themselves, if this were connected with teaching by interrogation and the 
task of preparing experimental illustrations. The pupil is thus greatly the gainer, 
and has at the same time the special examination upon the lecturers which is so 
necessary to complete the instruction, and to which a repeater is entirely compe- 
tent. Young men of talent seek the situations of repeaters as the best niethod of 
showing their particular qualifications, and the most certain road to a professor- 
ship. For each recitation the pupil receives a mark, and the roll of the class with, 
these marks being preserved, its indications are combined with the results of the 
examination, to decide upon the fitness of a pupil when lie comes forward for a 
diploma. 

The graphic exercises consist in the drawing of ornamental work, in India ink 
drawing, in drawing with the steel pen and instruments, and in sketching the 
diagrams of the lectures to a scale. Great importance is attached to this part of 
the course, and much time spent in it. The rooms for these exercises are con- 
veniently arranged, and the pupils are superintended during them by a professor 
or a repeater, and visited occasionally by the director of studies or his deputies. 
The drawing-tables are so arranged that the pupils stand while at work, which at 
their age is very desirable. 

The arrangements for chemical manipulation by the students are very complete ; 
they have access not only to the laboratories of the two professors, but to others 
which are devoted to special branches. During the first year every student is 
employed in laboratory duty once a week, and has also the opportunity of per- 
forming some of the principal physical experitnents. They are superintended, 
while thus occupied, by repeaters. During the first half year of the second course 
the students are called, in turn, to general duty in the laboratory ; and during the 
second half of the same year, and the whole of the third, the two sections who 
follow the courses of chemistry applied to the arts and metallurgy, are employed 
in manipulations connected with them. There is an officer for their superintend- 
ence, called the director (chef) of the chemical exercises, who is subordinate to 
the professor of chemical analysis. The opportunities thus affJjrded of' acquiring 
a general practice under the guidance of the distinguished professors of this school 
are invaluable, and form one of the most important features of the establisliment. 

The materials for constructing models of some of the more useful works, and 
apparatus relating to the arts, are furnished to the pupils, and used under the di- 
rection of their instructors. 

The annual number of students entering varies from 130 to 160. They work 
eight hours and a half in the college, and four at their residences. Four inspec- 
tors are constantly occupied in sui'veying, independently of those superintending 
(he graphic department. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 



FRANCE. 



The great industrial interest of agriculture is wisely recognized and 
cared for by the government of France in the following manner : 

1. There is not simply a bureau with a clerk, but a department with 
a secretary or minister, to collect and disseminate information as to the 
condition and improvement of agriculture, and the agricultural popula- 
tion, and to administer all laws which may be passed on the subject. 
An annual report, statistical and suggestive, is made by the minister. 

2. Agricultural inspectors are employed ; some to visit foreign coun- 
tries, gather information, and import plants and seeds, and improved 
stock, to be disposed of at public sales ; and others to visit particular 
districts of the country, and communicate information and advice, as 
they may see that they are r^eeded- 

3. Encouragement is given to agricultural societies and shows. In 
1850, there were over one million of members enrolled in the various 
central, departmental and local societies, for the promotion of horticul- 
ture and agriculture. Premiums are offered for improvement in every 
branch of agricultural industry. 

4. In the Conservatory of Arts and Trades. provi.-?ion is made for a 
collection of models and drawings of agricultural buildings and imple- 
ments, and for courses of gratuitous lectures on the principles of chem- 
istry and mechanics as applied to agriculture. 

5. The government has organized an extensive system of agricultural 
and veterinary instruction, and makes liberal appropriation for its sup- 
port. 

The earliest effort in Europe to provide for special instruction in agri- 
culture, was made by Abbe Rosier in France, who submitted to Tur- 
got, minister of Finance, in 1775, a " Plan for a National School of 
Agriculture in the Park of Chambord," and again to the National Asr 
sembly in 1789, After his death, the plan was submitted to Bonaparte, 
but without success. In the mean time, Fellenberg opened an institu-- 
lion in Switzerland. The first experiment in France was made by M, 
de Domsbasle at Roville, in 1822, which, for want of sufficient capital, 
was abandoned in 1842. Its success was such as to lead to the estab- 
lishment of the Royal Agronomic Institution at Grignon in 1827, the 
Institute of Coetbo in 1830, of the school at Grand Juan in 1833. and 
the model farm of Saulsaie in 1842. In 1847, there were twenty-five 
agricultural schools in operation, to several of which orphan asylums 
and penal colonies were attached. At the close of that year, the gov- 
ernment introduced a measure for the better organization of agricuU 



468 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN FRANCE. 

tural instruction, which was voted by the National Assembly on the 3d 
of October, 1848, and the sum of 2,500,000 francs was appropriated to 
carry its provisions into execution. 

Agricultural Education. 
The law of 1848 provides for three degrees of professional instruction 
in agriculture at the expense of the State. 1. A farm school in each 
(86) department, and ultimately, for each (363) arrondisement. 2. A 
higher seminary, called a District or Regional School, embracing two 
or more departments; and 3. A National Agronomic Institute, a sort of 
normal school of agriculture. 

i\IoDEL Farm School. 

The farm school is a rural enterprise, conducted with ability and 
profit, in which the pupils perform all the labor, and receive a practical 
course of instruction in agriculture. The objects aimed at are : first, to 
furnish a good example of tillage to the flirmers of the district; and 
second^ to form agriculturists capable of cultivating intelligently, either 
upon their own property or that of others, as farmers, managers, over- 
seers of cattle, &c. 

The school is open to pupils who are afe least sixteen years of age, 
have a good constitution, and have received an education in the primary 
schools. Each school must have at least twenty-four pupils, before it 
can receive aid from the government. The aim is to have pupils enough 
on each farm to carry on all its operations in the field, nurseries, and 
gardens, without any other help, except that of the teachers. 

The officers or teachers selected and paid by the government, are a 
director with a salary of 2,400 francs; a head ^vorkman with a salary 
of 1000 li-ancs; a nursery gardener, with a salary of 1000 francs; a 
veterinary surgeon, with a salary of 500 francs ; besides these, in some 
of the schools, there are special assistants, such as shepherds, silk- 
growers, &c., &c. 

The practical course extends through three years. The first is de- 
voted to simple manual labor; th^ second to the charge of animals ; and 
the third to the oversight of various operations on the farm. The hours 
appropriated to study are devoted, 1st, to copying and writing out the 
notes taken of the instructions of the different leaders: 2d, to reading a 
manual of elementary agriculture ; and 3d, to lessons given by the over- 
seer of accounts, on arithmetic, book-keeping, and surveying. Relig- 
ious instruction is given by the clergy in the neighborhood. 

The director works the farm at his own risk, and must so conduct it, 
as not only to give as good examples of tillage, but as profitable return 
of crops, as other farms in its neighborhood, otherwise the patronage of 
the government is withdrawn. 

Pupils are boarded and instructed without charge, and are also 
allowed a small sum toward clothing. Prizes are also awarded for good 
conduct and proficiency. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN FRANCE. 459 

Seventy-one Model Farm Schools were in operation in 1851, with 
over 1,500 students in attendance on a course of practical instruction 
extending through three years. 

District, or Regional Schools of Agriculture. 
France is divided into a number of agricultural districts, in each of 
Avhich there is to be a District School of Theoretical and Practical Ag- 
riculture. They have three objects in view : 

1. To form enlightened agriculturists, by teaching them the princi- 
ples of agriculture. 

2. To offer an example, or model, of practical agriculture of a high 
order, and constantly advancing. 

3. To make experiments for improving the cultivation of the soil. 
The instruction in these schools is of a much higher order than in the 

farm schools, and is adapted not to prepare laborers on the farm, so 
much as men to direct agricultural affairs. The farm connected with 
the school is expected to present an enlighted system of culture, and to 
adapt that culture to the wants and peculiarities of the district in which 
it is situated. The director, also, is no longer a farmer, or proprietor, 
laboring at his own risk, but an agent employed by the government, 
and accountable to them, and subject to their direction. 

The instruction is both theoretical and practical, embracing the fol- 
lowing six professorships: 

One professor of rural economy and legislation. 

One of agriculture. 

One of zootechny, or the economy of animals. 

One of sylviculture, (cultivation of forest trees,) and of botany. 

One of chemistry, physics, and geology, applied to agriculture. 

One of rural engineering, (irrigations, rural constructions, survey- 
ing, &c.) 

The course on rural economy and legislation describes the relation 
between rural productions and the public revenue, as well as the differ- 
ent branches of industry. It shows what circumstances are favorable 
or unfavorable to such or such a system of cultivation, or to such or such 
a speculation in animals, or vegetables, according to the situation of the 
lands, the facility of communication, and demand for the products by the 
people of the surrounding country. The course embraces also rural 
legislation. 

The course on agriculture embraces the study of the soil, of manures, 
of instruments of tillage, of different cultivated plants, an estimate of 
the different modes of culture, and the theory of the distribution or rota- 
tion of crops. 

Zootechny treats of the production and amelioration of animals. The 
professor gives at first some ideas of anatomy and physiology generally, 
and then treats, in a practical way, of the raising of domestic animals, 
of their support, of their amelioration, of their hygiene, and their pro- 
duction. 



470 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN FRANCE. 

The professor of sylviculture and botany gives first, a summary sketch 
of vegetable physiology and botany applied to agriculture. He teaches 
the subject of sylviculture, (cultivation of woods,) and of forest economy, 
with special reference to the training, working, and preservation of the 
forests of individuals and the communes. 

The professor of chemistry, physics, geology, &c., has a wide field, 
as his titles show. His chief object is to take those views of the sciences 
named which bear directly upon agriculture. 

The professorship of rural engineering embraces geometry, mechan- 
ics, and linear drawing, as applied to rural architecture, to the construc- 
tion of agricultural instruments, and particularly to irrigations. 

To second the lessons of the professors, an equal number of tutors are 
appointed. Their duties are to explain in private, to the pupils, what- 
ever is obscure or difficult in the oral instruction. They also see that 
notes are taken of the lectures, &c. 

Each school has its library, its philosophical and chemical cabinet, 
adapted especially to agriculture, its agronomic museum of geology, 
Zoology, botany, and agricultural technology. 

The pupils have an opportunity of witnessing on the farms connected 
with these schools, all the important agricultural operations, also speci- 
mens of the best breeds of animals, and the mode of taking care of them, 
and using them : and they engage personally in all the important opera- 
tions connected with husbandry, so as to know how to conduct them in 
after-life. 

The number of scholars admitted is fixed by the government, and 
varies at the different schools. The price of board is 750 francs, ($138.) 

The State furnishes several scholarships to each school. Half of 
them is given to the most deserving of the pupils from the farm schools, 
placed at the regional schools. The other half is divided among the 
scholars who are the most distinguished, after six months' trial, for their 
labor and conduct. Scholarships from the national agronomic institute, 
are also given to those most successful in study and conduct. 

Towards the close of the third year, examinations are held, and to 
those who sustain them, diplomas are given, and the way is laid open 
for their admittance to the national institute. 

To these schools a farm is always attached, for the purposes already 
indicated ; also, a manufactory of agricultural instruments, an establish- 
ment for silk, a place for preparing liquid manures, distillery, oil mill, 
dairy, sawmill, &c. 

The head men on the farm are essentially the same as those already 
described as connected with the farm schools. 

National Agrono.miC Institute. 
To give unity and efficiency to the system of agricultural instruction, 
the law provides for the establishment of a National Agronomic Insti- 
tute on a portion of the magnificent garden of Versailles. Suitable 
buildings, and a library, laboratories, and appropriate collections of spe- 



AGRICULTDRAL EDUCATION IN FRANCE. 4*71 

cimens, models and drawings, of implements, animals, seeds, plants, &c. 
are to be provided by the government. The plan embraces 

1. A complete faculty of agronomic science. 

2. A superior normal school of agriculture. 

3. A higher institute for agriculturists. 

To meet the wants of this latter class especially, a large farm is con- 
nected with the school. Here will be performed, at the expense of the 
State, all the experiments necessary to the progress of agronomic sci- 
ence, and to verify practically all the innovations and improvements 
proposed by others, before they are recommended to the public. 

The theoretical and practical parts of this institute are really distinct, 
but they are placed under the general government of one director. 

The professorships are nine, as follows : 

One chair of rural economy and legislation. 

One of agriculture. 

One of zootechny, or the economy of animals. 

One of sylviculture. 

One of rural engineering, embracing leveling, irrigation, construction 
of roads, rural architecture, and mechanics applied to agricultural instru- 
ments. 

The above professorships belong to practical agriculture. The others 
belong to the theory of the subject. 

One of terrestrial physics and meteorology. 

One of chemistry applied to agriculture. 

One of botany, and vegetable physiology. 

One of applied zoology. 

Here, as in the lower schools, a number of tutors is appointed equal 
to the number of professors. 

In addition to the director, professors, and tutors, the following officers 
will be appointed : 

A prefect of studies. 

A curator of the collections. 

A librarian. 

An overseer of studies. 

To these will be added a corps of head men to oversee and manage 
the affairs of the farm. These will, in part, be called from the farm 
schools. For example, the institute will need twenty-one herdsmen, 
twenty-one grooms, twenty-one shepherds, and fifteen gardeners. 

The French minister adds, '' The end of the institute at Versailles, is 
not merely to afford agricultural instruction, but to open the way for 
studious men, who wish to direct their labors toward the application of 
science to rural industry. This is the first attempt of the kind that has 
been made. Industry has enriched the learned men who have explored 
the domain of the physical sciences and of chemistry for this object. 
But if agriculture has given reputation to any. it has not procured for 
any one a position which would enable him to make that the center of 
his studies. The institute at Versailles is intended to change this state 



472 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN FRANCE. 

of things by offering as a prize of lauJabie ambition, to those who 
direct their researciies to agriculture, a certain number of chairs, before 
wiiich an immense field opens." 

Veterinary Education. 
In addition to the above system of agricultural education, the govern- 
ment of France maintains three institutions (ai Lyons, Allbrt, and Tou- 
louse,) at an expense of over $75,000 a year, to qualify persons by the 
study of comparative anatomy and physiology, and by opportunities of 
witnessing hospital practice, and investigating the symptoms and phe- 
nomena of disease in domestic animals, to practice veterinary surgery 
and medicine. In countries where a large number of horses are re- 
quired for cavalry service, and in all countries where live stock consti- 
tutes so large a portion of the motive power and capital of every agri- 
culturist, there should be one or more institution of this kind. The first 
in the world was established at Lyons in 1762 ; the second, at Alfort in 
1766; the third, at Berlin in 1792; and the fourth, at London in 1793. 

Veteri.xary School at Alfort. 

The Veterinary school at Alfort was instituted in 1766. It is beauti- 
fully situated on the river Seine, about six miles from Paris, and em- 
braces every facility, of building, anatomical specimens and prepara- 
tions, books, and professors, ibr a complete course of instruction in 
veterinary medicine and surgery. The Ibllowing sketch of the school 
is taken from Mr. Colman's Report: 

A student at his entrance must be well versed in the common 
branches of education; and a full course of instruction requires a resi- 
dence of four yeans. The number of pupils is limited to three hundred. 
Of these, forty are entirely supported by the goverrmient. These are 
educated for the army; and are required not only to become versed in 
the science and practice of veterinary medicine and surgery, but like- 
wise in the common business of a blacksmith's shop, as far as it is con- 
nected with farriery. Students can be admitted only by the nomination 
or with the consent of one of the great officers of government, the min- 
ister of commerce and agriculture. The expense of Imard and lodging 
is about fifteen pounds or eighty dollars a year; the instruction is 
wholly gratuitous, the professors being supported by the government. 

The establishment presents several hospitals or apartments for sick 
horses, cows, and dogs. There are means for controlling and regula- 
ting, as far as possible, the temperature of the rooms, and for producing 
a complete and healthy ventilation. There are stables where the 
patients may be kept entirely alone, When the case requires it; and 
there are preparations for giving them, as high as their bodies, a warm 
bath which, in cases of diseased limbs or joints, may be of great service. 
There is a large cjilege with dormitories and dining-rooms for the 
students; houses for the professors within the inclosure; rooms for 
operations upon animals, and for anatomical dissections; a room with a 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN FRANCE. 4^3 

complete laboratory for a course of chemical lectures ; a public lecture 
room or theater; and an extensive smitliery. witli several forges fitted 
up in the best possible manner. There are likewise, several stands, 
contrived with some ingenuity, for confining the feet of horses, that 
students may make with security their first attempts at shoeing, or in 
Avhioh the limb, after it has been separated from its lawful owner, may 
be placed for the purpose of examination and experiment. 

An extensive suite of apartments presents an admirable, and, indeed, 
an extraordinary museum both of natural and artificial anatomical pre- 
parations, exhibiting the natural and healthy state of tiie animal consti- 
tution; and, likewise, remarkable examples of diseased parts. The 
perfect examples of the anatomy of the horse, the cow, the sheep, the 
hog, and the dog; in which the muscular integuments, the nerves, the 
blood-vessels, and, indeed, all the parts, are sef-arated and preserved, 
and exhibited, by the extraordinary skill of an eminent veterinary sur- 
geon and artist now deceased, who occupied the anatomical chair of the 
institution, exhibited wonderful ingenuity in their dissection and pre- 
servation, and present an interesting and useful study, not to the med- 
ical students only, but to the most ordinary as well as the most profound 
pliilosophical observer. I have seen no exhibition Tof the kind of so 
remarkable a character. 

The numerous examples of diseased affections, preserved, as far as 
possible, in their natural slate, strongly attract observation, and make 
a powerful appeal to our humanity in showing how much these poor 
animals, who minister so eissentially to our service and pleasures, must 
suti'er without being able to acquaint us with their sufferings; and how 
often they are probably compelled to do duty, and driven to the hardest 
services by the wliip or the spur, in circumstances in which a human 
being would not be able to stand up. A great number of calculi or 
stones, taken from the bladders of horses after death, are exhibited, of a 
large size, and, in some instances, of a very rough exterior, which must 
liave excest^ively irritated and pained the sensitive parts with which 
they came in contact. It is scarcely possible to overrate the suffering 
which the poor animal must have endured under such an affliction. 

The department for sick dogs, containing boxes for those which re- 
quire confiiiement. and chains for such as require to be kept in the open 
air. and a cooking apparatus and kitchen for the preparation of their 
food, was spacious, well-arranged, and contained a large number of 
patients. Any sick animals may be sent to the establishment, and their 
board is to be paid at a fixed rate of charges; twelve sous or cents, or 
sixpence per day for a dog ; and fifty sous or cents, or twenty-five pence, 
(t)r a horse, including medicine, advice, and attendance. In cases of 
e{)idemics or murrain prevailing in any of the districts of France, the 
best attendance and advice are sent from these schools to assi.-^t in the 
cure, and especially to watch the symptoms and progress of the malady. 
In countries where large standing armies are maintained, and where 
of course there are large hntlies of cavalry and artillery to be attended 



474 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN FRANCE. 

upon, as well as waggon-horses for carrying the supplies, the importance 
of veterinary surgery is vastly increased ; but in countries where no 
standing armies exist, the number of horses kept for use or pleasure, 
and of other domestic animals, bears a much larger proportion to the 
number of human beings than we should be likely to infer without in- 
quiry; and renders the profession highly important. 

A large and select library belongs to the establishment, and a garden 
for the cultivation of medicinal plants, and likewise of the grasses em- 
ployed in agriculture. A farm is likewise attached to the place, on 
which instruction is given in practical agriculture, and numbers of vari- 
ous kinds of animals are kept for the purpose of breeding the best, and 
illustrating the effects of crossing. Some selected animals of domestic 
and of the best foreign breeds, horeee, bulls, cows, and sheep, are kept 
for this special object. 

Agricultural Reform Schools. 
In addition to the special schools of agriculture and the associated 
arts and sciences above described, there is a class of institutions not 
only in France, but in Germany, which are instrumental in diffusing a 
large amount of practical instruction in farm and garden industry, while 
they are accomplishing a still higher purpose in cultivating the long 
neglected or abused souls of their pupils — we refer to the Reform Farm 
Schools, of which a particular account will be given further on. 



AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL 

AT 

GRIGNON IN FRANCE. 



The best agricultural school in France is situated at Grignon, about 
twenty miles from Paris. It consists of an estate of about 1200 acres 
belonging to the French Government, which is rented for a term of forty 
years to a society of gentlemen interested in agriculture, who have the 
management of ihe institution, and who subscribed 300,000 francs, or 
about 60.000 dollars for conducting it. The government is represented 
in the board of management. The course of instruction embraces both 
the science and the practice of agriculture, and is designed for a cla>!.s 
of students, who depend upon their own exertions for a livelihood, and 
especially for those persons who manage the estates of large proprie- 
tors, who in England or Scotland are called bailiffs, or stewards, and i;i 
France, agricultural engineers. The following is abridged from 
Colman's " European Agriculture and Rural Economy." 

The term of residence at Grignon is fixed at two years ; but the pupil remains 
three months after liis studies are completed, in order to digest and draw up the 
entire management of an estate, and describe its details in every department. 

The students are divided into classes denominated internals and externals, or 
resident and non-resident. The former reside entirely in the house, where they 
are lodged and boarded, and pay about 8U0 franes, or 32 pounds, or 160 dollars, 
per year. The externals, or non-residents, provide for themselves, or lodge at 
the houses of the neighboring farmers, and pay a Very small amount for their 
instruction. This arrangement is particularly designed to benefit poor scholars. 
Both classes are equal!}' subject to the general discipline and rules of the institu- 
tion ; and are alike engaged in the same works and studies. 

There are lectures every day in the week. At the commencement of each 
lecture, the professor e.xamines the pupils on the subject of the preceding lec- 
ture ; and they are required often to take notes, aud present a written report ot 
the lecture. Besides the professors, there are two monitors, who have been 
educated at the school, who labor with the pupils in the fields. Tliey are ex- 
pected, and it is their duty, to question the pupils on the subjects which have 
been treated in the lectures ; to show their application ; to illustrate what may 
have been obscure ; and, in short, to leave nothing unexplained which is liable 
to misunderstanding or error. Thers are two public examinations annually, in 
which the scholars are subjected to a rigorous questioning in what they have 
been taught. If, at the end of two years, their conduct has been approved, and 
their examination is met successfully, they receive a diploma from the 
institution. 

They are not only employed in the general work oi* the farm, but particular 
portions of land are assigned to individuals, which they manage as they please, 
and cultivate with their own hands ; they pay the rent and expenses of m.anure 
and team, and receive the product or its value from the institution. Certjiin of 
them are appointed in turn to take care of the different departments of the farm 
for a length of time — such as the hog establishment, the sheep establishment, the 
cattle, the horses, the implements, &c. &c. They have likewise adopted a 
practice, which seems much to be conmieuded — that of employing workmen, 



4*76 AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL AT GRIGNON IN FRANCE. 

shepherds, cow-herds, &e., from foreign countries; as, for example, from 
Belgium and Switzerland, that they may in this way become acquainted with the 
best practices in those countries. 

The time is thus divided and arranged among them : — they rise at four o'clock 
in summer, and at half-past four in winter. They go immediately into the stables 
to assist in the feeding, cleaning, and harnessing of the teams, and the 
general care of the live stock, according to their respective assignments. At half- 
past five they take a light breakfast ; at six o'clock they go into the halls of study, 
and here they remain until eleven o'clock ; at half-past si.x they attend a lecture, 
or course of instruction, which occupies them until eight o'clock ; at half-past 
eight they are occupied in reading or in making notes of the lectures which they 
have heard, and the monitors before spoken of are present to render them any 
assistance required ; at half-past nine o'clock there is another lecture or course 
of instruction for both sections, which occupies them until eleven, when they take 
their second or principal breakfast. From noon until five o'clock, the pupils are 
occupied in labor or practical operations. The professors, from time to time, take 
a section, and employ them in land-surveying, in drawing plans, and in level i ngs ; 
others are occupied in mineralogical or in botanical excursions, or in inspecting 
the management of forest lands ; others are occupied by their teacher in the 
practical management of farming implements, in the management of teams in the 
field, in sowing, and other general operations of husbandry, in a field devoted to 
these purposes; and a section, to the number of twelve, are every day employed 
in the direct labors of the farm, in ploughing, digging, harrowing, &c. &c. 
They work in company with the best laboreis, that they may observe and learn 
their modes of executing their work. They are required to be attentive to every 
operation that is performed ; and to present a full report of each day's work to 
the director-general. 

At half-past five in winter, and at six in summer, they take their dinner. At 
seven o'clock in the evening they go again into the halls of study. From seven 
to half-past eight o'clock there is another course of instruction, or a repetition of 
what they have had before. Until nine o'clock they are occupied in their 
journals, or in making notes of their lectures. At nine o'clock the sleeping 
rooms are lighted, and they retire for the night. 

There are several distinct professorships. The Professor of Practical Agricul- 
ture gives two courses ; the one written, the other oral ; and, like the lecture 
of a clinical pi'ofessor at the bed-side, it is given in the fields. This professor un- 
derstands not only how a thing should be done, but how to do it ; and he can 
put his hand to every form of agricultural labor, such as ploughing, harrowing, 
sowing, managing the teams, feeding the animals, handling every instrument 
of agriculture, buying, selling, &q. In the words of his commission, his object is 
at the same time to form the eye and the hand ; to teach his pupil how to learn ; 
to command, to direct, and to execute. To this end it was necessary to form a 
complete agricultural organization for practice, independent of the exercises 
attached to the departments of the other professors. 
The farm is composed of 

Arable land, about . . .- . 

Land in wood and plantations . 

Irrigated meadows ..... 

Gardens, including vegetable, botanical, 
fruit garden, orchards, mulberry planta- 
tions, osiers, and nurseries . 

Ponds and water-courses 

Roads and lands in pasture 

Occupied by buildings .... 6 

The animals on the farm include 

Animals of draught or labor of different 

kinds 18 

Oxen for fatting ..... 20 

Cows of different ages and races, and 

different crosses . . . . . 100 

Sheep, embracing the different kinds . 1100 

Swine establishment . . . . 100 



670 


acres. 


365 


(1 


35 


(1 


28 


« 


15 


(( 


50 


« 



AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL AT GRIGNON IN FRANCE. 477 

There are likewise on the establishment workshops or manufactories, if so they 
may be called, — 

For the making of agricultural instruments ; 

A threshing-house and machine for grain ; 

A dairy room for the manufacture of different kinds of cheese and of butter; 

A magnanerie, or establishment for silk-vvonns ; 

A stercorary for the manufacture of compost manures. 

To all these various departments the attention of the students is closely called, 
and they are required to take some part in the labors connected with them. 

Besides the farm belonging to the establishment, there is a field of one hundred 
acres devoted exclusively to the pupils, and principally to the culture of plants 
not grown on the farm. Here they make experiments in different preparations 
of the soil, and with different manures. 

Every week two scholars, one of the second and one of the first year, are 
appointed to attend particularly to the general condition of the farm. Their 
business is to examine constantly the whole establishment ; the works that are 
going on in every department ; to look after the woods and the plantations ; the 
gardens ; the horses ; the fatting cattle ; the dairy ; the sheep-fold ; the swine ; 
and the hospital ; and to attend to the correspondence, and the visitors. This 
service lasts a fortnight, and there is a change every week, taking care always 
that there shall be one scholar of the first, and one of the second year associated. 
They attend to all the labors on the farm, and to all the communications between 
the principal director and inspectors, and the laborers. In the veterinary or 
hospital department of the establishment, they assist the surgeon in all his visits 
and operations ; take notes of his prescriptions ; make up and attend to the 
administration of his medicines ; and observe particularly the sanitary condition 
of the stables and buildings, where the live stock, sick or well, are kept. 

On Saturday evening, each scholar, to whom this duty has been assigned, 
makes to his fellow-pupils a full verbal report of what has been done. This 
report is transcribed into a journal designed for that purpose ; and thus a 
continued history of the entire management of the farm is kept up. The whole 
school is divided into sections or classes of twelve each : six of two and six of one 
year's standing ; and these sections are constantly under the direction of the 
Profess<:)r of Practical Agriculture. 

As the establisjliment at Grignon may be considered a model agricultural 
establishment, it may be useful to go more into detail in regard to the course of 
instruction pursued here. 

Once a week there is an exercise, which embraces every thing relating to the 
management of the teams and the implements. 

First, for example, in the different modes of executing any work, and using the 
utensils employed. The harness, the collar, the traces, and how attached, the 
shaft-horse or the cattle attached to the load, and the adjustment of the load 
to their backs ; the yoke, the single yoke, the double yoke ; the pack-saddle ; the 
harnessing of a saddle-horse ; the team for ploughing ; the team for harrowing ; 
the team for drawing loads ; the team for wagons, and for carriages with all 
their appurtenances ; every one of these matters is to be practically understood, 
as well as the whole management of the team in action. 

In ploughing, the turning the furrow, its inclination, its breadth and depths ; 
the laying out of fields ; the management of large and small fields ; how to make 
the first furrow, and finish the last furrow ; to lay the land flat, to break it up in 
clods ; to plough it at a certain angle, to lay the land in curved furrows : these 
are all considered, and make part of the instruction given. The preparation, 
equipment, and use of every agricultural implement — such as ploughs, harrows, 
rollers, scarifiers, cultivators, sowing machines, trenching machines ; the practice 
of sowing, the different modes of sowing, whether broadcast, by dibble, or in 
drills; the application of manure both as to time, mode, quantity, and pi-eparation, 
and the composting of manures, are matters of inquiry and practice. 

The cutting of grasses ; the making of hay, and the construction of stacks ; the 
harvesting of grain, by the scythe or by the sickle ; appendages to the scythe, 
called commonly the cradle ; and the grinding of scythes ; the making of sheaves, 
and of shocks, or stacks ; and the loading and the stowing away of gi"ajn, are 
matters to be understood. 



478 AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL AT GRIGNON IN FRANCE. 

A practical attention is required to every form of service on the farm ; in the 
cow-house ; the horse-stables ; the fatting-stalls ; the sheep-fold ; the styes ; the 
poultry -yard ; the threshing-floor ; the stercorary ; and the store-houses for 
the produce of the farm of every description. The duties in this case embrace 
not merely the observation of how these things are done, but the actual doing 
of them until an expertness is aequii'ed. 

Leaving the practical department we come now to the course of studies to be 
pursued. 

For admission into the institution some previous education is demanded, and the 
candidate is subjected to an examination before the principal and one of the 
professors. 

First, he is required to present an essay upon some subject assigned to him, 
that his knowledge of the French language and grammar may be ascertained. 

It is necessary, next, tliat he should be well grounded in the four great rules 
of arithmetic ; in fractions, vulgar and decimal ; in the extraction of the roots ; in 
the rules of proportion and progression ; and in the system of measures adopted in 
France. 

In geometry, he must be well acquainted with the general principles of straight 
lines and circles, and their various combinations ; and with the general measure- 
ment of plane surfaces. 

In natural philosophy, he must understand the general properties of bodies ; and 
be acquainted with the uses of the barometer and thermometer. 

Candidates for admission must bring with them certificates of good character 
and manners, and must be at least eighteen years old. They are rigidly held to 
an attendance upon all the courses of instruction at the institution ; and have leave 
of absence only on the application of their parents or guardians. 

The studies of the first year are begun with a course of mathematics. Geome- 
try and trigonometry are made a particular subject of attention ; embracing the 
study of straight lines, and circular or curved lines on the same plan ; the ad- 
measurement of surfaces ; the use of the compass ; the recording of measure- 
ments ; the delineation of measurements ; the surveying of open fields, of woods, 
of marshes, of ponds or lakes ; comparison of ancient land measures with those in 
present use ; the use of the square, the chain, and the compass; the elevation 
of plans ; the construction of scales, and the ordinary divisions of landed 
properties. 

The study of various plans in any form ; solid measure ; conic sections, their 
principal properties, and their practical application ; the theory and practice of 
leveling ; the method of projections and their application ; cubic measure of 
different solids, of hewn stones, of rough stones ; the measurement of loose or 
broken stones, of sand, of lands excavated, of ground filled in, of stacks, and 
of heaps of manure ; the cubic measure of trees standing, and of felled trees, 
of beams, and every kind of carpenter's work, of firewood, of walls, arches, and 
ditches or dikes ; the ascertaining of the capacity of carriages, wagons, carts, 
wheel-barrows, pails, troughs, barrels and casks, basins or ponds, and different 
vessels in use, and of granaries and barns, and the determination of the weights 
of bodies. To all this is added a full course of trigonometry. They are accustomed 
likewise to the familiar use of the scale, of the square, of the compass, and of the 
compasses for delineation, and are often occupied in superficial, and in profile 
drawing. 

The next course of instruction embraces embankments, the force of earths and 
liquids, or their pressure, at rest or in motion. 

The materials employed in masonry ; their uses and application in building — 
embracing stones, bricks, lime, sand, mortars, cements, plaster ; and all the 
various modes of building. 

The laying of walls for foundations ; the erection of walls ; the supports 
requisite ; and the construction of passages, inclosures, and arohes ; the different 
kinds of woods, their absolute and relative strength ; their duration, and the modes 
• of preserving them ; every kind of carpenter's work ; the construction of floors, 
staircases, scaffoldings, and exterior supports ; the constructions of roofs, in 
timber, with thatch, rushes, shingles, tiles, slates, zinc, or bitumen ; the paving 
of roads, the formation of barn -floors, with d.-vy or composition of bituminous sub- 
Stances which form a hard and enduring suil'ace, are subjects of inquiry. 



AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL AT GRIGNON IN FRANCE. 479 

Next comes instruction in the blacksmith's shop, in the use of the forge, and 
the other implements of the trade ; and in the various applications of iron and 
steel, of copper, lead, and zinc. 

They are instructed, likewise, in the manufacture and use of leather and cord- 
age ; and in the various details of painting and glazing. The prices or cost like- 
wise of all these different processes, are, as far as practicable, ascertained ; and the 
modes of estimating such work are explained. 

The next course embraces the elements of natural philosophy ; and this includes 
chemistry, geology, and mineralogy. 

First, the general properties of bodies, their divisibility, elasticity, and porosity 
or absorbent powers ; and the special influence of this last circumstance upon the 
character of an arable soil. 

The following are all subjects of study; bodies in the mass; the weight of 
bodies ; means of determining the density of bodies and their specific gravity ; the 
physical properties of the air ; of atmospheric pressure ; and of the construction 
and use of the barometer. 

The study of hydrostatics ; the pressure of liquids in their reservoirs, and against 
dikes and embankments ; hydraulics; capillary attraction ; the use of siphons and 
pumps. 

The study of heat in all its various phenomena, Its effects upon solid and liquid 
bodies, and the changes which it makes in their condition ; the phenomena of 
fusion, ebulition, and evaporation ; of vapors ; of the hygrometer or measurer 
of moisture, and the utility of the instrument ; the conducting powers of bodies ; 
of metals in particular ; of free or radiating heat ; application of heat to furnaces 
or kilns ; laws of cold applied to bodies ; power of emitting and of absorbing cold ; 
measure of heat ; means of determining the mean temperature of any place ; in- 
fluence of heat and cold upon vegetation ; means of preserving certain vegetables 
from frost ; construction and use of the thermometer. 

Meteorology. Explication of the phenomena of dew ; of white frosts ; of clouds; 
of rain ; of snow ; their various influences upon harvest, and the whole subject of 
climate. 

Study of light. Progress of light in space ; laws of its reflection ; laws of its 
refraction ; action of light upon vegetation. The subject of vision. The polariza- 
tion of light ; the explication of the rainbow, and other phenomena of light ; the 
prism. 

Study of electricity. Conductors of electricity ; distribution of the electric fluid 
in nature ; power of the electric rods or points ; electricity developed by the con- 
tact of bodies ; of galvanic piles ; their construction and uses. Atmospheric 
electricity ; its origin ; the formation of thunder clouds ; action of electricity upon 
vegetation ; of lightning ; of thunder ; of hail. 

Chemistry. Simple bodies ; compound bodies ; difference between combination 
and mixture ; atomical attraction ; cohesion ; affinity ; what is intended by 
chemical agents. Explanation of the chemical nomenclature, and of chemical 
terms. 

The study of simple bodies. Of oxygen ; its properties ; its action upon vegeta- 
tion, and upon animal life. Nitrogen, sulphur, chlorine, carbon, hydrogen ; their 
action upon vegetable and animal substances ; their uses in veterinary medicine, 
and their influence upon vegetation. 

The study of compound substances. Chemistry as applied to air and water ; 
their importance in agriculture ; their influence upon the action and life of plants 
and animals ; the acids, — the sulphuric, the nitric, the carbonic, the chloric ; the 
alkalies,— lime, soda, potassium, ammonia ; their application in various forms. The 
salts in chemistry, and their various applications and uses ; their importance as 
constituent parts of the soil, or as improvements. 

The subject of marls and of earths, and of various substances deemed favorable 
to vegetation. Under the direction of the Professor of Chemistry, the students 
are taught to make analyses of different soils and marls. 

To this is added a course of Mineralogy and Geology. This embraces the 
general properties of minerals ; the physical, chemical, and mechanical character 
of mineral substances the most common. 

The study of the distinctive properties and situation of those mineral substances 
which are most extended over the globe, and which are the most in use ; such, 



480 AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL AT GRIGNON IN FRANCE. 

especially, as the carbonate of lime ; comprehending stones for building, for the 
making of roads and walls, lime-stones, marbles, sulphate of lime, or plaster of 
Paris ; and all the variety of mineral substances ordinarily found, and of use in 
agriculture or the arts. 

A course of Geology follows this, embracing all the leading features of the 
science, with a special reference to all substances or conditions of the soil con- 
nected with agricultural improvement. 

In this case, the professor makes frequent excursions with the pupils, that they 
may become familiarly acquainted with the subjects treated of in the lectures, and 
see them in their proper localities ; so that the great truths of geological science 
may be illustrated by direct and personal observation. 

Next follows a course of instruction in horticulture, or gardening. 

Of the soil ; the surface and the subsoil, and practical considerations relative 
to their culture and products. 

Of the climate ; the temperature, the aspect and local condition of the land 
in reference to the products cultivated ; the amelioration of the soil, and the 
substances to be used for that object, with the modes of their application. 

The various horticultural operations, and implements employed ; and manner in 
which the}- are to be executed. The employment of water in irrigation; modes 
of inclosing by ditches or walls ; walls for the training of trees ; trellises and palings ; 
and of protections against the wind. 

The different modes of multiprcation ; sowing, engrafting by cuttings and by 
layers, and practical illustrations of these different processes. The culture of seed- 
bearing or grain-producing plants ; the choice of them ; their planting and 
management ; the harvesting and preservation of the crojjs. 

Under this head comes the kitchen-garden, and the choice of the best esculent 
vegetables for consumption ; the nursery, and the complete management of trees 
from their first planting ; the fruit-garden, considered in all its details ; and the 
flowci'-garden. 

The general results of gardening ; the employment of hand, or spade-labor ; 
the care, preservation, and consumption of the products, and their sale. The 
gardens at Grignon are upon a scale sufficient to supply all practical demonstra- 
tions. 

The next division embraces the botanical garden. Here the whole science of 
botany is treated in its principles, and their practical application. The study of 
vegetable organization, with a full account of the prevailing systems and nomen- 
clature of botany, and the classification of plants. Vegetable physiology, in all its 
branches, and vegetable anatomy ; comparison of plants in their native and culti- 
vated states ; influence of cultivation in developing and improving plants ; the 
propogation of plants in their natural condition, or by artifieial means ; the subject 
of rotation, or change of crops. 

The practical application of these botanical instructions ; and especially in the 
examination of plants or vegetables which may be useful in an economical view. 

The garden of the establishment embraces what is called a school of trees ; 
a school of plants for economical and commercial purposes ; and a school of plants 
for conmion use. These are all carefully classed and distinguished by their proper 
names. The pupils are accustomed to be led into the gardens by the professor, 
that his instructions may be fully exemplified and confirmed. 

The next branch of science taught at the school is veterinary surgerj' and 
medicine. This embraces a course of anatomy and animal phisiology. It com- 
prehends a full description of all the animal organs ; and demonstrations are given 
from subjects, destroyed or obtained for that purpose. The functions of the 
different organs are likewise described ; the organs of digestion, respiration, cir- 
culation, and the organs connected with the continuance of the species. 

Every part of the animal, external and internal, is shown, its name given, its 
uses explained ; its situation in relation to the other organs; the good points, the 
faults or defects in an animal ; the peculiarities of different races of animals, with 
the modes of discriminating among them. 

The choice of animals intended for different services, — as in horses for example, 
whether for the saddle, the race, the chase, the carriage, the road, the wagon, or 
the plough. Next, the treatment of the diseases of animals ; the medicines in 
use ; their preparation, and the mode of applying or employing them. • 



AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL AT GRIGNON IN FRANCE. 481 

The next subject of instruction embraces a complete system of keeping farm 
accounts and journals, with the various books and forms necessary to every 
department. 

From this the pupil proceeds to what is called rural legislation, embracing an 
account of all the laws which affect agricultural property or concerns. 

The civil rights and duties of a French citizen, and the constitution of France. 

Property, movable or immovable, or, as denominated with us, personal and 
real ; of the divisions of property ; of its use and its obligations. 

Of commons ; of laws relating to forests ; of the rights of fishing in rivers ; and 
of hunting. 

The laws relating to rural police ; to public health ; to public security ; to con- 
tageous or epidemic diseases. 

The rights of passage of men or animals over the land of another ; if any, and 
what. 

Of crimes. Theft in the fields ; breaking or destruction of the instruments of 
agriculture ; throwing open inclosures ; destruction or removal of bounds. Lay- 
ing waste the crops by walking over them ; inundation of fields by the stoppage 
of streams, or the erection of mills. Injury or breaking of public roads and 
bridges. Poisoning, killing, or wounding animals. 

The duties of country magistrates ; guards or justices of the peace. Of courts 
of law. * 

Of contracts, general and specific. Contracts of sale and prohibitory conditions. 
Of leases of different sorts. Of hiring labor ; of the obligations of masters and 
servants. Of corporations, and the laws applicable to agricultural associations. 

Of deeds, mortgages, bills of e-xchange, commissions, and powers of agency and 
attorney ; insurance against fire, hail, and other hazards. Of the proof of obliga- 
tions ; written proof ; oral testimony ; presumptive evidence ; of oaths. Of legal 
proceedings ; of the seizure of property real or personal, and of bail. 

The instruction proceeds under various courses, and I have so far given but a 
limited account of its comprehensiveness, and the variety of subjects which it 
embraces. 

The study of the diflferent kinds of soil, and of manures, with all their applica- 
tions, and the improvements aimed at, take in a wide field. Under the head of 
soils there are the argillaceous, the calcareous, the siliceous, turf-lands, heath-lands, 
volcanic soils, the various sub-soils, loam, and humus. 

Under the head of manures, come the excrements of animals, all fcecal matter, 
poudrette, urine ; the excrements of fowls ; guano ; noir animalisee ; the refuse 
of sugar refineries ; the relics of animals ; oil-cakes ; the refuse of maltings ; 
tanners'-bark ; bones, hair, and horn ; aquatic plants ; green-dressings. 

The application likewise of sand, clay, marl, lime, plaster, wood-ashes, turf- 
ashes, soot, salt ; the waste of various manufactures ; mud and street dirt. 

The plants cultivated for bread ; wheat, rye, barley, oats, buck-wheat, millet, 
rice, and the modes of cultivating them. 

For forage, — potatoes, beets, turnips, ruta-bagas, carrots, artichokes, parsnips, 
beans, cabbage. 

Lucerne, lupins, sainfoin, common clover, trifolium incarnatum, vetches, peas, 
lentils, and plants for natural meadows and for pasturage. 

To these are added, cobra, rape, poppy, mustard white and black, hemp, flax, 
cotton, madder, saffron, woad, hops, tobacco, chicory, teazles. 

The weeds prejudicial to agriculture, and the insects which attack the plant 
while growing, or in the granary or barn. 

The production of milk ; and, as already said, the making of butter and cheese. 

The production of wool ; tests of its fineness ; classing of wools ; shearing of 
gheep ; weight of the fleece ; washing of wool before br after shearing ; and every 
particular in reference to the subject. 

The fatting of beef, mutton, and pork. Choice of animals for this purpose ; 
nutritive properties of different kinds of food ; in what form to be given ; grains 
entire or ground ; roots cooked or raw, green or dry ; the value of the pulp of 
beet-root after the sugar is expressed ; refuse of the starch factories ; of the dis- 
tillery ; of the brewery ; fatting by pasture or in stalls ; comparison of the live 
weight with that of the animal when slaughtered. 

Care and management of the various kinds of domestic poultry, 

31 



482 AGRICULTURAL SOIIOOI, AT GRIGNON IN FRANCE. 

Care and management of bees, with the constiHietion of hives. 

Care of silk-worms, and their entire management. 

All these studies are pursued in the first year of the course ; and the time is so 
arranged as to afford the diligent pupil an opportunity of meeting his duties, though 
the period is obviously too limited for the course prescribed. 

The second year enjoins the continuance and enlargement of these important 
studies ; the higher branches of mathematics and natural philosophy ; an extended 
knowledge of chemistry ; and a thorough acquaintance with mechanics, when the 
scholars with their professor visit some of the principal machine-shops and factories 
in Paris, or its environs, in order to become practically acquainted with them. 

The students are further instructed in the construction of farm-buildings of 
every description ; in irrigation, in all its forms ; in the drainage of lands; in the 
construction of roads ; in every thing relating to farm implements ; and in the 
construction of mills and presses. 

As I have said, organic chemistry is largely pursued with the various manufac- 
tures to vvhicii it is applicable ; and animal physiology and comparative anatomy 
are very fully taught. 

These studies are followed by a course of what is called agricultural technology. 
This embraces the manufacture, if so it may be called, of lime, of cement, of 
bricks ; the preparations of plaster ; the making of coal by various processes ; the 
flaking of starch ; the making and purificatit)n of vegetable oils ; the making 
of wines, of vinegar, of beer, of alcohol, of sugar from the beet-root, including all 
the improvements which have been introduced into this branch of manufacture ; 
and the pupils, under the direction of the professor, are taken to see the various 
manufactories of these articles, so far as they are accessible in the vicinity. 

The whole subject of forests, of nurseries, of fruit trees, ornamental trees, trees 
for fuel, trees for mechanical purposes, are brougiit under the student's notice. 
This is a great subject in France, where wood has an extraordinary value ; where 
inmiense extents of ground are devoted solely to the cultivation of trees; and 
where consequently it is most desirable to understand the proper kinds of 
wood to be selected for the purpose in view ; the proper mode of forwarding the 
growth of the trees ; and of removing them without prejudice to their restoration. 
Under this head comes the culture of 

Trees for fuel. 

Trees for timber. 

Trees for house and ship building. 

Trees for fruit, including all the varieties adapted to a particular climate. 

Trees for their oily matter ; such as olives. 

Trees for their bark ; to be used in tanning, and other purposes. 

Trees for their resinous ])roperties ; such as pines. 

Osiers and willows for making baskets. 

Mulberry-trees for the support of silk-worms. 

Next to this comes the culture of vines, and the establishment and care of a 
vineyard — a subject of great importance in France. 

I have already spoken of the veterinary course of instruction. This embraces 
the whole subject of the breeding and rearing of animals ; their training, shoeing, 
and harnessing, and entire management. 

Under the head of farm accounts, the establishment itself at Grignon is made 
an example ; the accounts of which are kept most accurately by some of the 
students, and open to the inspection of all. 

A journal of every thing which is done upon the farm is made up every night ; 
and these accounts are fairly transferred into a large-book. 

To this is added, a particular account of the labors performed, and the occupa- 
tion of each workman on the farm. 

Next, a cash-book, embracing payment and sales, which are adjusted every 
fortnight. 

Next, an account with the house ; charging every article supplied or con- 
sumed. 

Next, a specific account of each principal department of the farm ; such as the 
dairy, with all its expenses and returns ; the pork-establishment ; the granary, 
&c. ; which are all balanced every month, so that tlie exact condition of the de^ 
partment may be known. 



AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL AT GRIGNON IN FRANCE. 483 

As the students are advanced, more general and enlarged views of the various 
subjects of inquiry are given ; such as, 

The taking of a farm, and the cultivation or management to be adopted. 

Tlie influence of climate and soil. 

The ci'ops to be grown ; and the rotation of crops. 

Agricultural improvements generally. 

The devoting of land to pasturage ; to dairy husbandry ; to the raising of 
animals; to the fatting of cattle; to the growth olj wool; to the production of 
grain ; to the raising of plants for different manufacturing purposes ; or to such a 
mixed husbandry as may be suggested by the particular locality. 

The use of capital in agriculture ; the mode of letting farms ; cash rents ; rents 
in kind ; rents in service ; laws regulating the rights and obligations of real 
estate ; the conveyance of real estate ; with the various forms of culture in large 
or in small possessions, or on farms of a medium size. 

The above is an imperfect and abridged statement of the subject matters of in- 
struction and study at this institution, which may be considered as a model 
establishment ; and a thorough education in the various branches referred to. 
must be, to any young man, an important and invaluable acquisition. 

The question comes up. Will such an education make men better farmers? It 
must be their own fault if it does not. There may be some branches of the 
prescribed course, which may not appear to have a direct practical bearing ; but 
there is not one without its use ; if not directly, yet indirectly subservient to 
agricultural improvement ; and if not immediately applicable to practice, yet 
intimately connected with the agricultural profession, adapted to increase its 
power, utility, and dignity, to elevate and adorn it. 

President Hitchcock, of Amherst College, in a Report to the Legisla- 
ture of Massachusetts on Agricultural Schools, in 1851. speaks of the 
above institution in commendatory terms, and of Mr. Coleman's descrip 
lion as sufficiently accurate of the system now pursued there. 

The following abstract of the suhjects of study and lectures at the Ag- 
ricultural school at Grand Jouan is taken from President Hitchcock's 
Report. 



AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL AT GRAND JOUAN. 485 



Agricultural School at Grand Jouan.« 

The Agricultural school at Grand Jouan, in Brittany, was established 
in 1S33, by M. Neviere, who had been trained in this department of edu- 
cation in the Roville Agricultural school. In 1848 it was remodeled by 
the government and placed under the administration ot" the minister of 
agriculture. 

Subjects of Study and Lectures. 

Mathematical Sciences: — xVrifhmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Mechanics, Sur- 
vej-ing, Leveling, Stereometry, (measuring solid bodies,) Linear Drawing. 

Physical and Natural Sciences : — Physics, Meteorology, Mineral Chemistry, 
Mineralogy, (xeology, Botany. 

Technological Sciences : — 'Organic Chemistry, or Agricultural Technology, 
Agriculture, xVrboriculture, Sylviculture, Veterinary Art, Agricultural Zoology, 
Equitation. 

Noological Sciences : — Rural Architecture, Forest Economy, Rural or Farm 
Accounts, Rural Economy, Rural Law. 

Abstract of the course of Lectures on General Agriculture. 

Agricultural Formation, (Terrain,) — L Soil .•—Constituent Elements, Classi- 
fication of the Formation : Argillaceous, Siliceous, and peaty soils : Physical pro- 
perties : Causes which modify these properties : Influence of soil on vegetation. 

2. Sub Soil .—Sub soil active : Sub soil inert ; Influence of sub soil on the soil 
and on the life of plants. 

Agricultural Geography :-^Aatronomic situation of France: Mountains: 
Valleys. Plains. Rivers. 

Agricultural Physics : — Atmospheric Air : Caloric: Light: Darkness. 

Agricultural Meteorology .' — Winds : Fogs : Dew : Rain ; White Frost : 
Frost with Ice : Snow : Hail. 

Climatology .-—Influence of Climate : Climate of France : Regions. 

Fertilization .-—Considerations preliminary : Fecundity and Fertility. 

L Improvement: — Clay: Rocks: Sand: Slates: Lava: Plomhage : Irriga- 
tions : Ditching : Ploughing : IMovement of the sub soil : Colmafage. 

2. Stimulants : — Stimulants of Mineral Origin : Lime : Marl : Calcareous 
earth: Broken shells : Sea sand: the Whiting : Shellfish: Plaster: Fire Ashes : 
Sulphate ol' Iron : Salts of Potash : of Soda : of Ammonia. 

Stimulants of Vegetable Origin : — Soot : Ashes : Leached Ashes. 

3. Manures : — Animal ^Manures : Excrements : Urine ; Pigeons' Dung : 
Guano : E.\crement of Animals : Muscular Flesh : Blood : Fish : Fat : Oil : 
Woolen cloth: Horn: Horsehair: Human hair: Feathers. 

Vegeto-Animal Manures : — Litter: Horse dung: of Sheep: of horned Cattle : 
of Swine: of Rabbits. 

Animnl Manures Mineralized : — Animal charcoal : Bone. 

Vegetable Manures : — Green crops ploughed in. Manure and Aquatic plants : 
Turf: poor Vegetables : Oil Cake : Tan : Mesh : pulpy matters : Leaves : 
Stubble. 

Liquid Manures : — Urine of the Domestic Animals : Flemish Manures : U^rine 
Water from Fecularies. 

Compound Manures : — Manure of Jauffi-et and Lane ! Compost : Slime of 
Ponds: River Mud : Marine Mud. 

Breaking up the Soil : — \. Work Animals : Cattle: Horses: Cows: Mules: 
Asses : Race : Age : Mode of tackling : Length of working ! Treatment : Neces- 
sary proportion. 

2. Instruments : — Plough with or without fore wheels : Harrow : Scarifica- 
tors : Rollers : Instruments for second dressing : Weeders : Extirpators : Nec- 
essary proportion. 

3. Tillage: — Theory and Practice: Soil: Temperature :* Flat Tillage: Flat 
Tillage in rows : Flat Tillage in ridges : Tillage by digging and by grubbing. 



486 AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL AT GRAND JOUAN. 

4. Methods of moving the earth : — Harrowing: Rolling: Second Ploughing : 
Butt ages. • 

5. Clearing Land : — Heaths : Woods : Peaty lands : Clearing by the hand : 
by the 1 lough : Hoeing: Destination of the ground. 

i?;a7'/a'/(g" .-—Arable Land: Morasses: Ponds: Nature and destination of the 
soil. 

Irrigation : — Theory and Practice : by Infiltiation ; Renewal of the Water : 
Planches Dombees. 

Quantity of water by the acre, and according to the nature of the soil. Value 
of the bottoms irrigated and not irrigated. Mode of working these almost irri- 
gated. Fertility and value of the products. 

Fences : — NA'alls : iJitehes : Hedges, living or dead. 

Sowing: — Theory and practice: Sowing in lines : at random: selection, re- 
newal, cleansing, and preparation of the seeds: Burying them by the harrow: 
by the plough. 

Method of Treatment : — Weeding : Cleaning of thistles : stripping off the 
leaves : {EffuiUuge ;) Bringing into the light. 

Harvesting. General Considerations. 

1 . Harvesting of Fodder : — Instruments and Machines : Mowing : Hay mak- 
ing: Grindstones. 

2. Harvesting of Grain : — Instruments and Machines : Mowing : Reaping : 
Thre-h iig : Luge. 

'.i. Harvesting of Roots : — Pulling up by the hand : by the plough : Uncover- 
ing : Cleaning. 

Selection of the methods of preparing the Soils : — According to atmospheric 
circniristances : Nature of the Soil : its condition : its destination. 

Distribution of Labor by Rotation : — Normal conditions : Exceptional con- 
ditions. 

Rural Architecture. 

Materials: — Siliceous, calcareous and argillaceous rocks: Fat, meagre, and 
hydranl c Lime : Sands: Mortar: Cements: Puzzolana : Plaster: Wood: Iron: 
Paving Ijrick : Rooting Slate : Tiles : Lead : Zinc : Leather : Ropes. 

Works : — Foundations : Terracing : Properties of Earths. 

Masonry: — Foundation Walls : High Walls : for support: for inclosure: Plas- 
tering : Pise. 

Carpentry: — Assemblages: Combles : Pans de bois : Partitions: Staircases. 

Joiners' Work : — Floors : Gates : Windows : Slnitters. 

Iron Work : — Large Iron : Ironing the Buildings. 

Roofing :—Y\\iis,: Slate: Tliatch : Zinc: Bitumen. 

Painting andi Glazing : — Oil Painting: Distemper Paintings: Badidgeon, 
(coloi-ing) Window glass. 

Paving and Bricking. 

Estimate of the Works : — Masonry : Carpentry. 

Specification : — Form of the works. 

Edifices: — Stable: Cow house: Sheep fold : Hogpen: Hen house: Pigeon 
house : Silk wnrin nurser3^ 

Animal products : — Dairy : Cheese house. 

Vegetable products : — Barns : Granaries : Wine cellars : Cellars : Corn pits : 
Ovens. 

Agricultural Manufactures : — Fecvlary : Distillery: Sugar manufactory. 

Reservoirs : — Watering places : Wash house : Wells : Cisterns : Ditches for 
urine : Ponds. 

Dwelling house : — Form and Proportion. 

Irrigations: — Dams: Taking out the Water: Sluices: Canals: Weirs: 
Slopes. 

Drainage: — Damming up : Trenching: Cespool : Machines for drainage. 

Routs: — Soil: Slope: Outline: Leveling: Materials: Support: Bridges: 
Est'iirate of Excavation and Embankment. 

Group of Edifices composing a Farming Establishment : — Relation to th© 
fertility of the soil and the culture and extent of the farm. 



REFORII SCHOOLS, OR AGRICULTURAL COLONIES 

FOR 

YOUNG PAUPERS, VAGRANTS, AND CRIMINALS. 



The frequent wars in which tiie several States of Europe have been 
engaged, by carrying desolation into the home, the field, and the work- 
shop, have multiplied the number of orphans and penniless children, 
beyond the ordinary causes of such visitations, and at the same time by 
weakening the bonds of law and virtue, have increased the-temptations 
to a vicious life, and thus swelled the ranks of juvenile criminality. The 
extreme severity, and almost uninterrupted succession of belligerent 
operations, growing out of the revolutionary movement of France, left 
at its close, in every continental State, a larger number than ever before, 
of poor, neglected, and vicious children to care for, which arrested the 
attention of government and benevolent individuals, and led to many 
interesting experiments as to the best means of relief and reformation. 

To Switzerland belongs the credit of having first applied the princi- 
ples of domestic and agricultural training to the reformation of young 
criminals, and to the still higher purpose of preventing pauperisn) and 
crime, by incorporating these principles into the early education of 
orphan, pauper, and neglected children. The Orphan House of Pes- 
talozzi, at Neuhof. opened in 1775. in which he lived with his pupils as 
a friend, pastor, and teacher, and on which he expended all his limited 
means; the Rural School for indigent children, established by Fellen- 
berg in 1805. as an essential part of his great enterprise at Hofwyl. to 
demonstrate what could be' done to elevate the people by a gooii edu- 
cation; the Agricultural Normal Scliool of Yehrli. at Krutzlingen, to 
train a class of practical agriculturists to be skillful teachers; and the 
Reform School of Kuralli at Bachtelen, near Berne, for vicious and 
offending boys, — have all established the practicability of accustoming 
young persons, while engaged in their studies, to habits of useful 
manual labor, and the wisdom of subjecting all children, and especially 
the orphan and outcast, to tlie kindly restraints, and humanizing intlu- 
ences of doa)estic lite. These principles of home, liirm, and shop train- 
ing have been slowly recognized and introduced among the charitable, 
preventive, and reibrmatory agencies of other countries. 

Small rural colonies, arranged in tiunilies. are fast supplanting the great 
hospitals and a.--ylums where hundreds of orphans, it may be. are well 
feil, cliilhed ami lo.lged under salaried governors, secretaries, and keep- 
ers but with little or noihing of that fireside education that ciiliivation 
of the feelings those Ijabifs of mutual helpand courtesy, that plantation 
of delightful remembrances of innocent sports and rambles in the field, 
or that acquisition of ready tact in all household and rural industry, which 



488 REFORM SCHOOLS, OR AGRICULTURAL COLONIES. 

are the distinguishing features of a good New England practical 
home culture. 

Pri.sons, of high stone walls and barred windows, where hundreds of 
young inmates are congregated, with nothing useful for head or hands 
to do ; or else working in large squads, at some undiversified employment, 
under the watchful eye of armed men, without the cheering word or 
sympathy of woman, acting and feeling as a mother, sister, or compan- 
ion, or the wise counsel and example of men, acting like fathers, bro- 
thers, or friends — such places of detention and punishments are giving 
way to farm, reform, and industrial schools, where young criminals, or 
those who would soon become such in a majority of cases, the neglected 
and wretched outcasts of tainted homes, the otlspring of vicious and 
intemperate parents, or the fatherless or motherless boys who com- 
menced their downward career by committing petty thefts to keep li(e 
together, or under the influence of bad companionship, and of tempta- 
tion too strong for their neglected moral culture to resist, — where such 
children are subjected to kind domestic training, to watchful guardian- 
ship, and are treated with a long suffering forbearance, while they are 
acquiring the habit of useful occupation in the workshop or farm, and 
are getting rid of their wild impulses and irregular habits, in the round 
of duties and employments of a well regulated household. 

These rural and industrial schools, especially on the continent of 
Europe, constitute an interesting chiss of educational institutions. They 
are of two kinds. 1. Asylums and houses tor pauper, orphan, deserted, 
and morally endangered children, who are destitute of that education 
supplied by the common relationship of the family. 2. Correctional 
and reformatory schools for children and young persons convicted of 
crime, or acquitted only as having acted without knowledge, but de- 
tained under a certain age for the purpose of being instructed and 
trained to some usefuT occupation. In all of them, farm and garden 
labor form the basis of all industrial instruction ; trade and handicraft 
are recognized and provided for, but are deemed of secondary impor- 
tance, except in a limited number of cases. Before giving a particular 
description of a few of the most interesting and successful institutions of 
each kind, we will give a brief statement of the principal features of the 
charitable and reformatory system now in operation in these countries. 

In each of the cantons of Switzerland, in 1852, there were, at least, 
one rural or farm school conducted on the basis of a well regulated 
family. The superintendence is ordinarily committed to a married 
teacher, who is called the father of the family; and his wife, who assists 
in the domestic and industrial instruction of the girls, bears the title of 
mother. The school is open both to girls and boys, an arrangement 
which, under vigilant supervision and separate dormitories, is attended 
with but few inconveniences, and facilitates an economy of manao-e- 
ment, and a judicious distribution of labor, both in employment and in- 
struction, and the diffusion of a true domestic spirit throughout the 
whole establishment. The number of inmates average from twenty to 



REFORM SCHOOLS, OR AGRICULTURAL COLONIES. 



489 



forty, and when the entire family exceed twenty, it is subdivided into 
lesser ones of twelve or more, who are placed under an assistant 
" father." The school instruction occupies three hours in summer, and 
four in winter; the remainder of the day being devoted to work in the 
field or garden, or at certain seasons of the year, and for a class of 
pupils, in some in-door trade or handicraft. Those children who show 
an aptness to teach, and a peculiar fitness to conduct or assist in estab- 
lishments of this class, are sent to a rural normal school, like that at 
Krutzlingen. The subdivision into groups of families is an essential 
feature of the reformatory discipline in the institutions designed exclu- 
sively for young criminals, and morally endangered children. This 
organization in families, with a trial class, or section of six or eight of 
the best behaved pupils, who are allowed still larger liberty and are 
intrusted with special duties, into which the new comers are admitted 
until they can be properly classified, facilitates supervision, fosters a 
kindly emulation, and permits the application to each child of that sort 
of care and management best adapted to its character and disposition. 
The annual cost in the orphan school is about $35 per child, and in the 
penal colonies about $50 per inmate. 

In Germany we find the best example of reform schools in the king- 
dom of Wirtemberg, and at Horn, near the city of Hamburg. In Wir- 
temberg the large number of children who were driven by the loss of 
fathers in the wars which ravaged all Europe from 1796 to 1816, and 
the scarcity of food, to beg or steal for a living, arrested the attention 
of government; and led to the organization of benevolent societies, and 
to the establishment of asylums for their relief under the active patron- 
age of Q,ueen Catherine in 1819. 

In the reform schools of moral industry in Wirtemberg, the average 
number of inmates in each is fifty -six. of whom thirty-three are boys and 
twenty-three girls. If the domestic character and feeling is to be main- 
tained, it is evident that one "father" and one -mother" can not direct 
and supervise so large a number. But it must be added, that the age 
for leaving is commonly fourteen years, though in some the girls are 
kept a year longer. The aim of the education given in these reforma- 
tory schools is to correct vicious habits, and to form honest men. good 
Christians, and useful members of society. Together with constant 
rehgious instruction every opportunity is taken of inculcating habits of 
order, propriety, and activity, and of inspiring the children with senti- 
ments of obedience, humility, truthfulness and honor. Under a vigilant 
and continuous supervision, account is taken of their good or bad dispo- 
sitions, of their progress and faults. In some schools the less hopeful 
are confided to children distinguished by their good conduct, who serve 
them as guides to bring them back to the right path, and to form them 
to the discipline of the school. Many, even of tender years, have con- 
tracted bad habits, which it is necessary to root out at any sacrifice. In 
such a case the head of a family takes a child particularly suspected, 
and elicits an entire confession, which is usually followed by a promise 



490 REFORM SCHOOLS. OR AOIUCULTCRAL COLONIES. 

of amendment ; from that time his attention is awakened, and no means 
are spared to etfect a lasting reformation. Decency is to the mind what 
propriety is to the body, and every thing that might bring injury to the 
former is avoided, and a scrupulous watch kept over the latter. The 
girls and boys only meet at meals, in school and at religious exercises ; 
at other times, during work, in play time, and in the dormitories, they 
are entirely separate. Each child has its own bed. In each sleeping 
apartment there is a male or female overseer who never leaves, and 
exercises an especial control over those children whom any peculiar cir- 
cumstance points out to their attention. Through these precautions the 
union of boys and girls leaves no room for abuse, and all the heads of 
establishments agree that a too entire separation of the sexes is more 
prejudicial than useful. The intellectual instruction comprises religious 
instruction, the history of the bible, reading, writing, the German lan- 
guage, written and mental arithmetic, the history of Wirtemberg. geo- 
graphy, and music. Four or five hours daily are commonly given to 
lessons, according to the seasons and the demands of the field labor. 
The instruction is given by the head of the family, who is chosen from 
the certificated teachers. Each school has its little library. Every six 
or twelve months the children are subjected to an examination. In 
industrial education agriculture generally forms the basis, and the boys 
under the overlooker of the farm, perform all the requisite Avork. and also 
the heavier part of the housework. In most of the schools there are 
also workshops of tailors, shoemakers, joiners, weavers, bookbinders, &c. 

The girls are principally employed in household work, sewing, and 
knitting; but they also take part in the out-door work of the kitchen- 
garden, the cow-sheds, and the poultry-yard, and assist in the hay and 
corn harvest. In the choice of these operations it is especially designed 
to retain them in the humble sphere in which they were born, by care- 
fully avoiding whatever might tend to turn them against the employ- 
ments upon which they must ultimately depend for subsistence — such 
as service, whether domestic or on the farm. Each reformatory school 
has a separate savings' bank, in which are kept the petty sums allowed 
to the children in the character of wages, or any presents they may 
receive, and each child has its little book of account. On leaving, the 
boj''s are commonly apprenticed to artizans. and the girls go to service. 
Care is taken to place them with employers of approved integrity, and 
in Ciiristiun families. 

The reform school of the Rauhen-Haus. near Hamburg, has attached 
to it the largest and perhaps the best normal school for institutions of 
this kind in Europe. It was founded in 1833. by a few charitable per- 
sons, with the view of assembling and correcting the vicious and 
morally endangered children of the city. It was at first located in a 
modest thatch-covered house, whence its name is derived ; hut it has 
now ii;creased to about a dozen buildings each having its special appli- 
catioM which are variously dispersed in the niiilst of surrounding gar- 
dens, and of which several have been erected by the children them- 



REFORM SCHOOLS. OR AGRICULTURAL COLONIES. 49 1 

pelves. The establishment consists of three divisions: 1. The reform- 
atory school, containing about 100 children, of whom two-thirds are 
boys and one-third girls. 2. The institute of "brothers," which is com- 
posed of those assigned to the direction and superintendence of the dif- 
ferent "(Umi'.ies." and which serves also as a preparator}- or normal 
school; it comprised 34 brothers in 1847. 3. The printing and agency 
department. containing a bookseller's shop and workshop for bookbind- 
ing and stereotyping. The organization of the Rauhen-Haus has been 
based on that of the natural family. The children are classed in groups 
of 12 each, forming a family, under a superintendent or father. All 
these are attached to their common center or father, the director, who 
presides over the whole. The chapel, the school, and the workshops 
alone are common to the whole, and serve as a bond of association 
among the different families. 

The institute of "Brothers" attached to the reform school of the 
Rauhen-Haus, forms the basis of the whole organization. It was soon 
perceived that the work of improvement among vicious and dehnquent 
children could not be confined to* merely mercenary hands, and that it 
was a condition of success to employ persons influenced by motives of a 
higher nature. The brethren of the Rauhen-Haus may be compared, 
in some respects, to the '■ Freres de Charite" and '' Freres de la Doc- 
trine Chretienne " in Roman Catholic countries. To qualify for admis- 
sion to the institute, proof must be furnished of their conduct having 
been always honorable and without reproach, of the constant practice 
of Christian duties, of being animated with the spirit of a true religious 
calling, of freedom from physical infirmity, of good health and a sound 
constitution, of knowledge of agriculture or of some trade available in 
the establishment, or of aptitude for acquiring one, of the possession of 
a certain amount of learning or intelligence, and of the will necessary 
to profit by the special instruction provided in the institution. Consent 
of parents is also required. The age of admission for brothers is usually 
from 20 to 30 years of age. and notwithstanding the strictness of the 
conditions candidates have never been deficient. The institute, like the 
school of reform, is supported by private subscriptions and donations. 
In their relations with the school of reform, the brothers have charcre 
of every thing connected with the direction of the families and super- 
vision of the children, who can not be out of their sight by day or nio-ht. 
They take their meals with them, sleep in their dormitory, direct them 
in their work, accompany them to chapel, and take part in their recrea- 
tions and games. They are at first attached to the families as assist- 
ants, and after a certain time of probation take the direction in their 
turn; they visit the parents of the children, to report their conduct 
and progress; they exercise over their pupils, after their departure 
an active patronage, give instruction in the elementary classes, and 
keep up the writing and correspondence of the institution. The trans- 
fer of the assistants from family to family every month, places each 
brother successively in contact with all the children, extends his indi- 



492 REFORM SCHOOLS. OR AGRICULTURAL COLONIES. 

vidual experience, and places the experience acquired in each group at 
the service of all the families. The brothers have also a course of 
special instruction under the director and two assistants. This occupies 
20 hours per week, arranged in a manner to coincide with the working 
hours of the children, and comprehends religion, sacred and profane his- 
tory, the German language, geography, pedagogy, singing, and instru- 
mental music; there is also a special course of EngHsh. The pupils 
are classed in two courses. The duration of each course is two years, 
so that the education of each brother occupies an average period of four 
years. At the expiration of this time they ought to be prepared for 
being placed, as they usually are, in one or other of the following posi- 
tions : as chiefs and fathers of families in the reformatory schools, organ- 
ized upon the plan of the Rauhen-Haus ; as overseers and assistants, 
or teachers in similar establishments; as teachers in rural schools; £is 
directors, stewards, overseers, or guardians in prisons of various organ- 
ization ; as directors or fathers of a family in hospitals and charitable 
establishments ; as overseers of infirmaries in the hospitals ; as agents 
of provident and benevolent societies; or as foreign or home missiona- 
ries. The applications for brothers lo fill these and kindred employ- 
ments increase yearly, so that the director is compelled to extend the 
normal institute designed for their preparation. 

The reformatory schools of France, established since 1840, are not 
only penal but preventive in their design and discipline. They receive, 
1. Young persons of both sexes under twenty years of age. who have 
been condemned tor some crime ; 2. Young persons, who have been 
acquitted of criminal charges because they acted without discernment; 
3. Orphans and young persons, who are abandoned by their parents, or 
whom parental example is educating for mendacity and crime; 4. 
Children, who are without employment, and in a bad way, or on the 
slippery verge of open vice and crime. 

The 66th and 67th articles of the penal code of France, sweeps society 
of all the above classes of young persons, by authorizing the courts and 
magistrates to send them to a house of correction. Unfortunately this 
class of penal institutions had no independent existence prior to 1837, 
and the young criminals or suspected persons were mingled with those 
of greater age, and deeper depravity in the common prisons. The first 
step in the right direction was to remove them to a separate quarter 
of the prison, and then to apprentice out such as showed signs of re- 
formation and amendment. These steps were found altogether in- 
effectual in reforming the morals, or inducing better habits in any con- 
siderable number of this class of persons; and two gentlemen, M. 
Demetz and the Viscount de Bretigneres de Courteilles, both of them 
highly educated, and occupying positions of power and influence, the 
former at Paris and the latter as member of a departmental council, 
became deeply interested in devising some plan for supplying a happy 
home and the influence of domestic relations and occupations, for the 
destitute, the vagrant, and criminal children of their native country. 



REFORM SCHOOLS, OR AGRICULTURAL COLONIES. 493 

Both had visited the reform school at Horn, near Hamburgh, and M. 
Demetz had become particularly interested in the houses of refuge at 
Philadelphia and New York for juvenile delinquents. He was asso- 
ciated with M. Blout in 1837, in a second governmental commission to 
investigate particularly the moral influence of the prison discipline and 
prison architecture adopted in this country. Their report is a proper 
sequel to that of Beaumont and De Tocqueville in 1830. M. Demetz 
directed his efforts especially to effecting a complete and wide separa- 
tion, and distinct treatment of vagrant and even convicted youths from 
adult criminals. •' Society is answerable for its neglect of these young 
persons. They are abandoned to misery, and, therefore, to mischief 
Society owes it to herself and to them, rather to prevent, than to punish 
their crimes. Let these juvenile delinquents be instructed in the doc- 
trines and motives of the Christian religion. Teach their young hearts 
the exceeding sinfulness of sin. Show them the woe which awaits the 
wicked, and the infinite blessedness which will finally encircle the just. 
Dispel the ignorance, which darkens their intelligence. Bring them up 
in habits of industry, order, and economy. Try to overcome those 
vicious propensities, which will soon expand into full-grown crimes. Of 
the men who end their lives on the gibbet, experience shows that most 
have been depraved in childhood. No friend has checked the growth 
of their licentious passions. They have been precocious in badness, 
and unreproved." 

On this noble mission M. Demetz and Viscount de Courteilles en- 
tered, to make a demonstration to the government and benevolent men 
of France, of a practicable scheme of rescuing unfortunate, vagabond, 
and depraved boys from desiruciion, and give them the power of ob- 
taining an honest living. Their plan involved extensive grounds and 
buildings, which should not present the aspect of prison-yards and 
walls, but the facilities of education and occupation, and the exercise 
of the charities of a paternal home. It was to be an agricultural and 
educational colony. For this purpose they selected an estate a few 
miles from Tours, within marketable reach of several large towns, 
healthy and fertile, not highly improved, but capable of profitable culti- 
vation, and devoid of old and large buildings erected for other purposes. 

The buildings were erected gradually, as the number of inmates 
increased, although the plan of the whole establishment was projected 
at the outset. It consisted in a series of houses, each of a peculiar 
construction, and each adapted to a family of forty persons. Each 
family has its yard, fruit trees, and kitchen-garden. The whole is not 
inclosed by brick walls, or high palisades, but by low, green hedges, 
over which any person could climb, and through which a boy, so dis- 
posed, could easily creep without drawing attention. The real confine- 
ment to the spot is found in the encircling and attractive charities of 
the domestic life, and occupations of the institution. 

As soon as the estate had been secured, and the household plan of 
arrangement, instruction, and discipline determined on, the projectors 



49^ REFORM SCHOOLS, OR AGRICULTURAL COLONIES. 

endeavored to find, or train, intelligent and devoted teachers and assist- 
ants, who should understand thoroughly the details of the moral and 
industrial education which alone presents any prospect of reforming a 
juvenile criminal, and who, possessing that personal piety, which has its 
motives in the principles of Christianity, can live, according to a rule of 
monastic strictness, and yet exercise the habits and afi'ections of a free 
domestic life, — while subjecting themselves to the shnplicity and rough- 
ness of country employment, can exhibit the courtesies which are gen- 
erally associated with city manners, and while voluntarily adopting the dis- 
cipline of a camp or prison, be neither jailors nor drill sergeants. The 
raising up of such a class of foremen and teachers, for this and similar 
institutions, is one of the most valuable services rendered by the pro- 
jectors of the agricultural colony of Mettray. The department of the 
colony for training these teachers is called the preparatory school of 
foremen. 

The colonists are brought to the institution, not in prison Avagons, 
with guards and in chains, but by the directors themselves, who em- 
ploy the favorable opportunities of the jotirney to cultivate an intimate 
acquaintance with the past history and disposition of the youths. They 
are encouraged to converse freely with each other, and the new con- 
ductors, and every exhibition of truthfulness or falsehood, of vivacity or 
dullness, o'f sobriety or intemperance, of aptitude or aversion to partic- 
ular employments, is made the data for their right classification as to 
associates and occupation. 

On their arrival they are placed in the family best adapted to the 
characteristics of each — their deficiencies in manners and character, 
and the facilities for cultivating better habits of life. They are made 
cleanly in person and dress — they are informed as to the rules of the 
establishment — the chaplain addresses them solemnly on the new life to 
which they are called, the advantages they will enjoy, and the practical 
results which that life is calculated to subserve. They are gradually 
taught the rights of private property and the love of the domestic 
hearth, and become familiarized with the sentiments and the duties 
which that sacred idea implies — and to which most of the inmates of the 
institution were strangers on their arrival. While they are taught the 
occupations of the farm and garden, those who have an aptitude for 
handicraft are taught such trades as are wanted by country people, so 
that they can find occupation as wheelwright, harness-maker, shoemaker, 
blacksmith, in a village, away from the great cities — those seats of cor- 
ruption, want, and vice. 

Much attention is paid to cultivating the taste and the habit, of inno- 
cent and rational amusement — as the great safeguard of the young. 
The principle of all the amusements is to attach them to their own 
homes, and to make them in some way useful, either as teaching and 
enabling them to do good to others, or as developing and exercising 
their own bodily and mental powers. They are taught, therefore, to 
use the fire-engine, to swim, to save persons from drowning and to use 



REFORM SCHOOLS, OR AGRICULTURAL COLONIES. 495 

the remedies to recover them, to cHmb a mast, to handle the sails and 
rigging of a ship, &c., and in wet weather they are allowed the use of a 
lending library, and to play at chess, and more simple games. On spe- 
cial occasions there are concerts and social sports. 

The spirit of mutual help and self-government is cultivated. The 
occupants of each family are allowed to choose by election two of the 
colonists, (called freres aines, or elder brothers.) whose authority lasts a 
month, and the directors judge of the condition and disposition of the 
house by the parties thus selected. These, with the Sisters of Charity, 
whom one of the visitors to the institution designates as ''angels whom 
Heaven has given to the earth, and whom the earth gives to Heaven " 
form the domestic staff of each family. 

The colonists are also allowed to act as a jury, fining the punish- 
ments on their companions and themselves, subject to the reversal or 
mitigation of the directors. The effect, on the whole, has been salutary. 
In one of the houses a boy was forced by his companion to return a 
book he had received as a reward, because he subsequently miscon- 
ducted himself In another they demanded the expulsion of a colonist, 
who had degraded the family to which he belonged. When a portion 
of the poorer districts of Lyons was visited by the disasters of a flood, 
the boys voluntary gave one of their meals to the sufferers, and one 
of them who refused was compelled by the rest to eat his portion alone 
at the end of the table. On one occasion, a visitor desired the boys 
of a family to point out the three best; all eyes were turned immedi- 
ately toward the three most worthy. " Tell me now, who is the worst?" 
Every eye was lowered, and a single boy advanced from the rest and 
said in a whisper, •' Mister, it is me." 

The chief reward is to be enrolled in the table of honor, which any 
one who has remained three months without punishment is entitled to. 
More than half of the boys are, on an average, at any one time, inscribed 
on this table, and some even for four and six times, who therefore have 
fallen under no punishment for eighteen months. 

Of the 1,184 children received at Mettray from its foundation to the 
1st of January, 1850, 717 were completely ignorant; 270 had com- 
menced reading; 143 knew how to read; 54 only knew how to write. 
The greater number who have left, have been taught to read, write, and 
cypher. Of 528 who were placed out in various situations, only 46 are 
known to have relapsed into crime; of these, 33 were children from 
towns, 19 being from Paris. 

To meet the great difficulty of obtaining proper moral agency for the 
management of the young by adding the motives of religion, an order 
of the agricultural brothers of St. Vincent de Paul has been instituted 
by M. Bazin, who, so early as 1828, founded the agricultural colony of 
Mesnil-St.-Firmin, in the depai'tuient of Oise, for rearing orphan children 
in agricultural labor. This religious corporation, composed entirely of 
laymen, has for its object to supply directors or assistants to agricultural 



496 REPORM SCHOOLS, OR AGRICULTURAL COLONIES. 

colonies of pauper children, and especially of foundlings. Above all, as 
being laborers, the agricultural brothers have no uniform but that of 
labor; and if they are distinguished from other agriculturists, it is by 
their self-denial, their devotion to the common cause, and by that hope 
of a divine reward which doubles their powers. The "brothers" are 
placed in every respect on the same footing with the boys under their 
charge. They take their meals with them, and have only the same 
accommodation for rest. 

There is an institution at Paris of the same general character, called 
the society of St. Nicholas, founded on a small scale in 1827, but which, 
since 1846, has contained above 900 children, of very mixed origin, 
variously collected by charitable societies and generous patrons, and 
many of them only by the number assigned to each. The payments 
are 20 francs per month for orphans, and 25 francs for other children; 
and for this small sum the establishment provides maintenance, instruc- 
tion, and apprenticeship to a trade. Seventy persons in charge live in 
the establishment, who, with twenty-five master-workmen, living out 
of the house, make an average of one employee to every seven or eight 
children, a proportion wliich insures a vigilant surveillance day and 
night. The teachers, called "freres,''^ are all laymen; but they extend 
their care not merely to the instruction, but also to the education of the 
children, and to make them honest, industrious, and able workmen. The 
remarkable peculiarity of this school is the organization of its industry 
in workshops, which are hired, together with the apprenticed services 
of the children, by master-workmen of approved character in various 
trades, such as watch-makers, jewelers, engravers, and all the multifari- 
ous occupations, half arts, half trades, which supply the numerous arti- 
cles of refinement specially produced at Paris; besides the ordinary 
trades of baker, shoemaker, tailor, and so forth. The children do not go 
to these workshops except on the express requirement of their parents, 
and those employed give, on the average, eight hours and a half daily 
to work, and two to instruction in classes. The apprenticeship is for 
two, three, or four years, according to the profession; and, after its 
close, the young people may remain in the establishment, pursuing their 
work, and depositing what they earn, beyond the cost of their suste- 
nance, in the savings-bank. The employers find materials, tools, and 
skill, and take the profits of the trade, undertaking to treat the children 
well, as kind and faithful masters. 

In Belgium, the government has undertaken the work of rescuing the 
destitute and delinquent children from their evil ways, and converting 
them into moral and productive laborers and valuable citizens. Be- 
fore embarking in the enterprise, M. Ducpetiaux, inspector general of 
prisons and institutions of public charity in the kingdom, was commis- 
sioned to visit the different states of Europe, and gather their experience 
in this class of institutions for guidance in the organization of a great 
reformatory school at Ruysselede. There is a practical question yet 



REFORM SCHOOLS, OR AGRICULTURAL COLONIES. 497 

undecided, at least to the satisfaction of all those who are engaged in 
this work, whether preference should be given to large, or small agri- 
cultural colonies. The Belgian view is, that suffirient effect can be 
produced only by an establisiiment large enough to permit every form 
of experiment in the organization of a series of various works, graduated 
according to the capabilities and future objects of the colonists. Such 
is the design of the reformatory schools at Ruysselede ; and when this 
institution is. in full operation, it will remain to be decided, whether it 
is requisite to erect otiier similar establishments on the same scale, 
or to form branch establishments in communication with the parent 
institution. 

In England there are three kinds of preventive and reformatory in- 
stitutions. 1. Union or district schools for pauper children, connected 
with the union workhouse. 2. Ragged or industrial schools, for neg- 
lected and vagrant children in large cities. 3. Reform schools for 
juvenile criminals. 

On the 9th and 10th of December, 1851, a '• Conference on Preventive 
and Reformatory Schools;" was held at Birmingham, at which several 
of the most active promoters of this class of schools attended and com- 
pared the results of their observations and experience, with a view 
of deciding on the proper course of action to be adopted by the legisla- 
ture and individuals, to reach and reform the '"perishing and dangerous 
classes" of children and juvenile offenders in England. The following 
seem to be the results arrived at, as set forth in the report of the 
proceedings: 

The children whose condition requires the notice of the conference, are : 

1. Those who have not yet subjected themselves to the grasp of the law, but 
who, by reason of the vice, neglect, or extreme poverty of their parents, are inad- 
missible to the existing school establishments, and consequently must grow up 
without any education ; almost inevitably forming part of the "perishing and dan- 
gerous classes," and ultimately becoming criminal. 

2. Those who are already subjecting themselves to police interference, by 
vagrancy, mendicancy, or petty infi'ingenient of the law. 

3. Those who have been convicted of felony, or such misdemeanor as involves 
dishonesty. 

The provisions to be made for these three classes, are : 

For the fiist, free day schools. 

For the second, industrial feeding schools, with compulsory attendance. 

For the third, penal reformatory schools. 

The legislative enactments needed to bring such schools into operation, are : 

For the free day schools, such extension of the present governmental grants, 
from the committee of council on education, as may secure their maintenance in 
an effective condition, they being by their nature at present excluded from aid, 
yet requiring it in a far higher degi'ee than those on whom it is conferred. 

For the industrial feeding schools, authority to magistrates to enforce attend- 
ance at such schools, on children of the second class, and to require payment to 
the supporters of the school for each child from the parish in which the child 
resides, with a power to the parish officer to obtain the outlay from the parent, 
except in cases of inability. 

For the penal reformatory schools, authority to magistrates and judges to com- 
mit juvenile offenders to such schools instead of to prison, with power of detention 
to the governor during the appointed period, the charge of mamtenance being 
enforced as above. 

32 



498 REFORM SCHOOLS, OR AGRICULTURAL COLONIES. 

We make some extracts from the remarks of the different speakers^ 
for the sake of the facts and suggestions which they contain. 

The Chairman, M. D. Hill, Esq., Recorder of Birmingham, thus com- 
ments on the propositions before the conference: 

The perishing and dangerous classes of society consist of a numerous and in- 
creasing body of young persons, who are being trained in a way they should not 
go ; by some they are called the Arabs of the streets ; by others the outcasts 
of society ; by others again, human vermin. However designated, the terms 
employed make it manifest that they are sometimes objects of fear, sometimes 
of aversion, often of pity ; that they are not of society, but somehow for its mis- 
fortunes interwoven with it. It is this class which forms the head -spring of that 
ever-flowing river of crime, which spreads its corrupt and corrupting waters 
through the land. It can not be dried up. It has never yet been puriHed. Nor, 
indeed, have any well-directed efforts, at all commensurate with the magnitude 
of the evil, ever been instituted. It therefore, becomes of the very deepest im- 
portance, not only with regard to the temporal and eternal happiness of that par- 
ticular class, but for the safety of all, old and young, high and low, rich and poor, 
that the state of neglect and mistaken treatment in which these miserable beings 
are found, should cease to exist. * * * The classes in question are divided 
into two great and important branches : those who are living in ignorance, vice, 
or neglect, but who have not come under the animadversion of the law, and have 
not yet received any sentence from its ministers. These form the unconvicted 
branch. The other branch is composed of those who, for whatever offense, and 
before whatever tribunal, have come under the grasp of the law. 

By respectable classes of society, I take not into consideration, when I employ 
the term, whether the individual is rich or poor. I call that man a respectable 
father, whatever may be his station, who is imbued with a right sense of respon- 
sibility to God and his children ; who cares incessantly for their welfare ; and 
who, while before all things he values a religious and moral training, yet also 
desires instruction for them in such branches of knowledge as will enable them to 
fight their way through the competition which besets every path in life. But the 
class we have in view is deeply below this. The poor but respectable man who 
discharges his duty to the best of his ability, is far above the negligent parent, 
and infinitely above the perverting pai'ent, who wilfully abuses his charge. The 
difference between the highest in the realm and the lowest is measurable ; but 
the difference between the respectable father and the man who cori-upts his child 
ie immeasurable, and consequently infinite. Now, the fact is, that these two 
classes can not be brought into connection in schools. It is a curious circum- 
stance that the objection does not come so much from the higher class as from 
the lower. The children of that lower class will not place tlieinselves in a posi- 
tion to be looked down upon, as they call it. Their love of education and train- 
ing is not strong enough to overcome this objection ; and you can not persuade 
them to enter the national schools. But if you could it would still be far from 
expedient to exert such an influence, because these poor creatures possess great 
powers for mischief. Thrown upon their own resources they have learnt self- 
reliance ; they despise all restraint, both for themselves and others ; and they 
would become the most dangerous leaders into evil courses, and the most fatal 
seducers of the better trained children, who, brought up under the eye of their 
parents, have not at their early age the power of self-government to resist the 
seduction. But there is an advantage to the better class in making distinct schools 
for this lower branch. Take these children away from the streets ; let them no 
longer infest the path of the good man's child, and you destroy the danger which, 
I can tell those who are unacquainted with their humbler neighbors, weighs 
heavily on the minds of parents in the respectable class, keeps them in fear and 
trembling, lest their children should be corrupted by evil companions. Again, 
there is another advantage arising from these separate schools. We find that 
•whenever a means is given to a lower class by which it is raised in the social 
scale, a stimulus is applied indirectly, but with great force, to the classes above it. 

Now, let me go to the second branch, which is composed of two classes. The 
first consists of those who have been convicted of some petty offense, that does 
not necessarily imply the loss of honesty. With this class we shall interfere to 



REFORM SCHOOLS, OR AGRICULTURAL COLONIES. 



499 



some extent ; but we shall not dethrone the parent altogether. For this it is 
proposed that schools shall be established called fe<;ding schools. And here steps 
in the principle of coercion, which it behooves you and the public, and through 
you and the public, the legislature, maturely to consider. Where, either through 
neglect or perversion, the parental tutelage has been abused, or through misfortune 
it has failed — as where the father has done his best, but the child's nature resists 
his authority — we hold it to be the duty of society to step in and prevent the child 
falling into ruin. But we do not go beyond what is absolutely necessary. Wa 
furnish the child with food so that he may be able to attend the school ; and we 
compel his attendance by some punishment if he does not come ; not so much to 
operate upon the child as upon the parent, who not unfrequently keeps the child 
from school to employ him for his own purposes, sometimes to beg, and sometimes 
to steal. I forbear to state what kind of education is to be given in these schools, 
beyond saying that literary and scientitic knowledge will be secondary if not ter- 
tiary. Our object is not to make learned thieves, but plain, honest men. We 
will sedulously keep in view that labor is, by the ordination of Providence, the 
great reformer ; and thus is the primal curse wrought into a blessing beyond 
price. 

I pass then to the second division of the second branch, which may be termed 
a third class. There the child has been convicted of an act of dishonesty. And 
I dwell on that oftense, not more because of its gravity, morally considered, than 
because it leads to the conclusion that the child has entered on crime as a calling. 
So long as offenses are clear of dishonesty, as in cases of assault, and so forth, so 
long no criminal can make them the means of livelihood ; but an offender onoe 
embarked in the practice of dishonesty will never be reclaimed, except by a long 
course of reformatory discipline. His daily wants compel him to repeat his 
offenses until not only his conscience has become indifferent to guilt, but his 
moral sense is gradually inverted. He prides himself on his zeal and dexterity, 
and if, as in the case of younger criminals, he assists in the maintenance of his 
parents and the family of which he is a member, he soon persuades himself that 
his pursuits are not merely blameless but laudable. Now, then, in my mind — 
and I here, as elsewhere, speak the sentiments of those I represent— the parent 
has abandoned his authority, and abdication must be followed by revolution. The 
child must be taken under the protection of the public ; he must be sent to the 
reformatory schools ; not, however, for two or three months only ; he must be 
treated as if he had^ — what he most assuredly has — a dreadful disease upon him ; 
and he must be kept under treatment until cured. The parental authority is 
gone ; the boy leaves the home to which he owes nothing but his existence, which 
has become a curse ; and v^'ill be retained in the school according to the sentence 
of the judge or the magistrates by whom he was sent. Now, it would not be 
wise for us to attempt such a violent change, as to call on the authorities so to 
frame the sentence in its form as to authorize the conductors of the school to 
detain the child until he is cured ; but when it is felt by the public that the boy 
is subjected to a treatment which confers an inestimable benefit on him, both as 
to this life and that to come, then the term of sentence may be, without any 
shock to public feeling, extended to such a period as will give reasonable expecta- 
tion that it will be long enough to effect a thorough reformation. And now is the 
time to enter on the great question : Is it possible to reform these offenders ? I 
know it is the belief of raany-^entertained in private, but not openly avowed — 
that to aim at reforming thieves is to attempt impossibilities. I know a shrewd 
gentleman, who said he would walk a hundred miles to see a reformed thief. I 
think I could cure him of scepticism, and furnish him, at the same time, with 
many wholesome excursions. I will not go far into the question myself ; I will 
leave it mainly to gentlemen present, who have personal knowledge on the sub-- 
ject — who come here to-day as witnesses, and are ready to depose to most import 
taut facts. But I must not altogether pass by this vital part of our case. We 
have an asylum in this county, at Stretton-on-Dunsmore, which was establislied 
in 1818, by the benevolent magistrates of Warwickshire. It has, therefore, been 
in existence a sufficient time to enable us to speak with the confidence arising 
from long experience. At ^rst, while the experiment was new, and the managers 
found nothing around them from which to derive instruction, the number re- 
formed was only 48 per cent. But you must recollect that Stretton-on-Duns- 



500 



REFORM SCHOOLS, OR AGRICULTURAL COLONIES. 



more is not a prison, nor a prison disguised. There are no physical means 
of keeping a convict at the place; and, until lately, there were no legal means 
to bring him back if he chose to depait ; and even now the legal means are not 
so easily worked as could be desired, as some of us well know. We find, there- 
fore, that the failures are generally composed of those boys who can not be in- 
duced to stay until they have felt and become convinced that advantage will 
accrue to them from remaining ; oonsequently the boys deserting are in general 
the new comers. The real benevolence of his treatment becomes manifest to the 
lad if he remain long enough (and no long period is required,) to distinguish 
between kindness and indulgence. He also makes another discovery equally 
essential to his contentment with his position. lie finds that the proiessions 
of good-will towards him, and the strong desire to confer lasting benefits upon 
him, which he hears from those under whose care he is placed, are sincere. For 
the first time in his life, perhaps, he finds that he may safely put confidence in 
those around him, and then, but not till then, does he slowly, but surely, open his 
heart to wholesome feelings of reverence and aftection. And thus alone can the 
soil be prepared for the good seed. He remains, then, among a race of beings 
in whose existence he had previously no more belief than we have in that of 
fairies and good genii — he remains, and is reformed. I have said, itiat at first 
the reforms at Stretton were 48 per cent., or in other words, that where 48 were 
reformed, 52 turned out ill. That proportion has, however, been gradually 
raised, and the last time I made inquiries on the subject, the reforms had reached 
65 per cent. I am afraid, however, that the financial position of the institution 
reflects discredit on the county of Warwick, and especially on the town of Bir- 
mingham, which, I grieve to say, has added more to the inmates and less to the 
funds of the asylum than any other district. There is another institution of 
which I have some knowledge. In the year 1848 I made my way to Mettiay, 
near Tours, in France. I was received with the utmost kindness, and admitted 
into the fullest confidence by M. Demetz, the illustrious founder of the institu- 
tion — a judge who descended from the bench because he could not endure the 
pain of consigning children to a prison when he knew that their future would 
be made worse than their past. I examined or rather cross-examined, each de- 
partment of the institution, with all that unamiable incredulity which thirty years' 
practice at the bar may be supposed to have generated ; I began with a sort of 
prejudice — a determined suspicion — fighting my way backward, step by step, 
until, as proofs advanced, the conclusion was forced upon me that my position 
was untenable. I found that at Mettray, where they possess and exercise the 
power of compulsory retention, and where, for desertion, a boy is sent back to the 
prison from which he had been withdrawn — the amount of reformation reached to 
what I at first thought the incredible proportion (but which I fully verified) of 85 
per cent. 

Well, if these two statements obtain your confidence in their accuracy, there 
ifi an end of the question ; but you shall hear the witnesses to whom I have ap- 
pealed, who, under different circumstances, and in other places, have been per- 
sonal cognizant of facts, the relation of which will induce you, perhaps all the 
more readily, to put faith in those which I have laid before you. If then we take 
the question of the possibility of reformation as settled, at least for the present, let 
me touch for an instant on the subject of cost; for, although in public few will 
idententify themselves with an objection founded on expense alone, yet in private 
the word cost is pretty frequently heard. Let us see what is our position. We 
have doubtless the power of postponing our duty to the body of children to which 
I have referred ; and it must be confessed that we exercise this noxious privilege 
pretty freely. We have the power of letting them grow up in ignorance, vice, 
and crime — of neglecting the plant when young and tender — and of toiling to 
make it straight when old and stiff. But in this, as in all other debts, we pay 
most usurious interest for our procrastination. Let us now see what the expense 
is of reforming a boy at Stretton-on-Dunsmore. In order fairly to ascertain that 
expense, you must not only take the cost of the reclaimed, but of those also who 
are failures. Just as the carpenter, when he buys his timber, pays an equal 
price for that portion which he cuts away into useless chips as for that which 
remains in his finished work ; so that the cost of his roof or his floor is not to be 
calculated simply by the quantity of wood therein found, but by the whole quan- 



REFORM SCHOOLS, OR AGRICULTURAL COLONIES. 



501 



tity required in its fabrication. The cost of reforming a boy, then, under these 
circumstances, is from £12 to £16 a year. Or, having regard to the whole 
average time demanded for a cure, about £31. Now, bi't'ore i contrast tliis cost 
with that of dealing with a criminal in later life, let me call attention to Mettray. 
The accounts of that admirable establishment are kept on a very perfect system, 
and with great minuteness — in such perfection that some of our merchants' might 
study book-keeping with advantage in the counting-house of Mettray. Well, the 
gross cost of a boy at Mettray is £20 a year ; int then you must know that at 
Mettray not only the cost of those not reformed is added, but the cost of a most 
valuable department of the institution, namely, that of a house of refuge, where 
those who have gone out into the world, if employment fail them, or if they shall 
be placed in circumstances in which they require the care of a friendly hand, 
may ever find a welcome and a home. Taking, therefore, the reformed, the un- 
reformed, and the guests, the gross cost is £20 per annum ; but by the produc- 
tive labor of the boys the cost is reduced to £12, the average labor of each boy 
amounting to £8 a year. The total cost of each reformation at Mettray is, as I 
have before stated, £42 ; greatly above that of Stretton, no doubt ; but then it is 
to be considered that the reformations at JMettray are 20 per cent, more numer- 
ous than at Stretton, and a little reflection will convince every one who hears me 
that the additional 20 per cent, implies the existence of a more powerful, and 
consequently more expensive, reformatory apparatus at Mettray than at Stretton. 
The secret lies in the employment of a far greater number of teachers and super- 
intendents at Mettray in proportion to the number of the lads ; but I can answer 
for it that the enlightened and benevolent conductors of Stretton would, if their 
funds permitted, gladly pay the additional cost to obtain the additional success. 
We will now contrast the cost of a vigilant reformatory administration, taking 
hold of its subject in his earliest years, with that of our established system, or 
want of system, by whichever tei'm it maj' be most appropriately designated. 
Here the lad is left to rove abroad with very short intervals of restraint, living 
either on misplaced and most pernicious charity, (so called,) or by depredation; 
but will any one, having the slightest tincture of knowledge respecting such lads, 
for a moment atfirm that although the cost of their subsistence and evil training 
finds its way into no account, and therefore does not appear in our statistical 
tables, it is, in truth, of so small an amount as £12 or £16 a year? I know 
there is a prevalent fallacy that a cost which does not come out of rates or taxes, 
or some public fund, is no cost at all. Why, when the thief comes into my 
house — as he did some time ago — and afterwards being found in the garden, was 
angrily thrust forth into the highway by the gardener, who did not know that the 
intruder had £lO's worth of silver plate in his pocket to console him for the in- 
dignity ; why, when that £10 was gone, was I the less a sufferer because it nei- 
ther went in rates nor in taxes? Again, if a thief is under the control of the 
law, you put him on very spare diet — his beer is gone — his tobacco — all are gone. 
He is ruthlessly bereft of all his luxuries; and no creature on earth revels so 
wastefuUy in coarse luxury as your thief Such is the burden which the thief at 
large casts on the community ; and though we have no means of calculating its 
exact weight, we can not fail to see that, as between the thief in freedom and the 
thief in custody, the prison must be under prodigal management indeed if he is 
not less costly to the public when his rations are doled out by the gaoler than 
when he is roaming at liberty and helping himself Nevertheless, his treatment 
under the hands of the law is, according to our present system,, a very costly im- 
post. Of his tendencies in childhood or early youth, which lead by a sure con- 
sequence to crime, we take little note. He wanders about the streets without 
control, he forms habits of idleness, he learns to gamble, he' is precocious in de- 
bauchery, and we let him alone. At length his acts become cognizable by law ; 
but unless he is singularly unfortunate, his career of impunity is not yet run. In 
the course of time, however, it comes to an end, and he appeai-s before the mag- 
istrate for what is called his first offense, meaning thereby his fh-st detection. A 
short imprisopment ensues, just long enough to dissipate any unfounded horror 
which he may have entertained of a jail, to blazon his name on the criminal roll, 
to make him acquainted with the body of which he is now a full member, and to 
turn his mind to the advantage of exercising his profession in such a manner as 
to edpape as much as possible the taasualties inoidenl to his way of life. On every 



502 REFORM SCHOOLS, OR AGRICULTURAL COLONIES. 

committal he is told to take warning, and he does take it, though not precisely in 
the sense in which it is given. He receives it as a warning, not against crime, 
but against detection, and acts accordingly. Nevertheless, in spite of all his care, 
he falls from time to time under the animadversion of the law. Now, I am put- 
ting aside all higher considerations, and pinning myself down to pounds, shillings, 
and pence. Fix your attention, I beseech you, on the necessary cost of this pro- 
cess. Ordinary individuals reqiiire only the care of a physician when the body 
is ailing, and of a clergyman lis? their spiritual maladies ; but your malefactor 
demands the constant care of a suite of attendants belonging to neither of these 
professions. He is apprehended by one or more of the police, who, having sacri- 
ficed much time and labor to obtain a satisfactory introduction to him, attend him 
to his new home with the most watchful care. His apartment in this home, or, 
as it is more commonly termed, his cell in the prison, is by far the most expensive 
dwelling which he ever entered, except in the pursuit of plunder, and the num- 
ber and salaries of those who minister to his wants form an item of cost to which 
his private life has no parallel. When the proper hour arrives, he is handed 
into his carriage, and set down at the stipendiary magistrates's. * * * And 
not only is the time of the magistrate employed in his affairs, but the aid of law- 
yers is called in — ^a class of men who have never been open to the reproach of 
undervaluing their services. Now, to all the expenses of a prosecution, which 
are paid for out of the public funds, such as the salaries of judges and recorders, 
counsel and attorneys, and the various officers of the court, and gratuities to wit- 
nesses, you must add the value of the time occupied by grand juries and petty 
juries in their public duties, avoiding, as you must do, if you desire to arrive at 
just results, the error to which 1 have before adverted, of assuming that when an 
expense is borne by individuals, and is not drawn from the public funds, it may 
be left altogether out of estimation. At length, after the drama of apprehension, 
trial, conviction, warning, and short imprisonment has been repeated, until it has 
lost all its interest either to actor or audience, the criminal arrives at the vltimum 
supplicium — transportation, a most expensive process, as I will proceed to show. 
A petition was presented to parliament by the magistrates of Liverpool, in the 
session of 1846. This petition set forth the cases of fourteen young offenders, 
impartially chosen, by which it appeared that the.se fourteen persons had been 
frequently committed to prison, none less than eight, one as many as twenty-three 
times. The cost of each of these fourteen youths, in apprehensions, trials, and 
imprisonments, was, on the average, £63, 8s. Not one of them was reformed, 
ten of them were transported, the cost of which, and their support in penal colo- 
nies, must be added. The cost of transportation in each case would be £28. 
That of control and residence in the colony, £54, at the least. So that each of 
the ten, who were transported, have cost the country, in those expenses which 
are chargeable on the public fund applicable to that purpose, a sum amounting to 
£145, 8s. ! Such is the cost of a hardened offender, more than three times that 
of a reformed thief at Mettray, and almost five times as much as at Stretton-on- 
Dunsmore. And so great is even the pecuniary advantage of conversion over 
perversion. Surely here is matter for deep and humiliating reflection ! 

Rev. W. C. Osborn, Chaplain of Bath Jail: 

When I became chaplain of the Bath jail in July, 1843, I determined to keep 
a most accurate account of all the children who might come under my care. 
During the first year there were about ninety-eight children sent to jail, of which 
number no less than fifty-five were first committals. During the following years 
I kept a strict account of these children, and the result has been of the most dis- 
heartening character. I can show you in detail the number of committals of each 
of those childi'en during the six subsequent years, or even up to this time ; and 
you will be surprised to be informed that within six years these children appeared 
in our jail no less than 216 times. I ventured to lay before a committee of the 
House of Commons a statement of the expense of these children. I will not 
trouble you with the details ; but I may tell you that the result of the calculation 
was this, that having been in our jail for an aggregate period of twenty-seven 
and a-half years, having been committed 216 times, we find that in the six years 
subsequent to their first committals their cost to the public by imprisonment, pros- 
ecutions, plunder and destruction of property, by their maintenance in unions, 



REFORM SCHOOLS, OR AGRICULTURAL COLONIES. 



503 



(making a fair allowance for their supposed occasional and temporary periods of 
honest industry) can not be estimated at a sum much less than £6,063. They 
have consequently been living most expensively upon the country. In fact, they 
have cost us a sum of money that would have kept them at a board ino'-school 
for the whole of the time. Aye ; and having lost all this money, in what position 
are they at the expiration of the six years ? Fifteen of them have been trans- 
ported, live have died, five of them are living we know not how or where ; but 
there are about thirty of them in a condition which must, sooner or later, issue in 
their being sent to one of our penal colonies. The children committed for the 
first time in the year ending July, 1844, (pursuing the same mode of calculation,) 
have in five years cost about £4,000 ; and those committed for the first time in 
1845, have already cost about £2,000. Now, in the returns laid before Parlia- 
ment, on the motion of Mr. Monckton Milnes, j\I. P., it appears that there were 
in 1848 and 1849, throughout the country, no less than 7,000 first committals 
of persons under seventeen years of age. But I will take them at 5,000, and 
assuming that Jiath presents a fair average of cost, the amount lost to the country, 
or expended on those children alone, who are committed for the first time, is 
half a million per annum. That is a startling assertion certainly ; but it is fully 
borne out by the statement as to the cost of juvenile crime, made by Mr. Serjeant 
Adams, Mr. Rushton, and other witnesses examined by the select committees of 
the two Houses of Parliament. In the position in which I am placed, I have 
opportunities of knowing the condition of these children ; and although the sys- 
tem adopted at Bath is, I believe, as good as, if not better than, that adopted 
elsewhere, yet I must say, that our treatment of these poor destitute creatures 
has been, and is, most cruel, unjust, and unchristian. Just look for a moment at 
these children — many so young that they can scarcely reach the top of the bar 
with their heads — many so little that when in chapel they have to stand on the 
seats that they may be seen — children who are so unconscious of the degradation 
of being in jail, that they will make the zebra-dress they wear supply them with 
amusement ; and the mode of punishing them is such as to harden, not to reform 
and instruct them. I can not help feeling that our conduct towards them is most 
unjustifiable, and I trust that God will not visit us with his anger for oui" treat- 
ment of these poor, ignorant, sinning, yet unconsciously guilty creatures. We 
have given them justice — justice without mercy — ^justice without scales — for 
there has been no measurement of the cruelty of our treatment of them. It has 
been calculated that there are 700 orphans committed to the prisons of our coun- 
try every year ; that there are 2,000 committed of those who are deprived of one 
of their parents ; so that there are nearly 3,000 children every year, who are 
left without their natural guardians to guide them in the paths of duty, and instill 
into them the practice of virtue, incarcerated in our prisons. Look at the manner 
in which many of them become criminal. A man, hardened in crime, gathers 
these children round him, and makes them his agents ; he sends them to beg, to 
pick pockets, and teaches them how to do it ; such instances are known to me. 
He takes them to the very shops they are to rob, points out the shoes they are to 
steal, the gown-pieces they are to filch ; and being less e.xpert than the adult, 
they are discovered, and thrown into prison. Thus, while the older villain 
escapes, the child begins his criminal life, which we know too frequently ends in 
being sent out of the country as a transported felon. I might give you many 
cases of this kind ; but I forbear. I would, however, refer for a moment to 
whipping in prison. It has been determined lately to introduce whipping as an 
element of punishment. I do not think it is attended with any good effects. It 
is no uncommon thing to hear these children say, " Oh, sir, whipping will do me 
no good ; I know all about that ; I have had enough of it before." They have 
been cuffed and knocked about their whole life long by drunken and brutal fathers 
and mothers, so to them it is no new thing ; and I point to the state of our jails 
to show that this system of whipping in our prisons is not calculated to reform 
but to harden. If we look at some of the crimes — they are called crimes — of 
which these poor children are guilty, what do we see ? They run away from the 
union workhouse — their home, they have no other — and what is the penalty ? 
They are sent to jail. Are the children of the middle classes sent to jail when 
they run away from home or boarding-school ? A few mouths ago some orphan 
children ran away from a union workhouse, and went to see the races ; they were 



504 CONFERENCE RESPECTING REFORM SCnOOLS. 

caught, brought back, and sent to prison for taking away the union clothes, which 
they hal on them. At the same time the son of a governor of a union lious3 ran 
away from home for the same purpose. And when he returned was he impri- 
soned ? No I and we do not wish that he should; but vvhy, then, should we 
punish by imprisonment in a felon's jail the fatherless ch.ld, while his dest tute 
condition pleads for mercy and forgiveness at our hands? Their other offenses 
are acts of vagrancy and petty thefts ; sleeping in out-houses or under hay-ricks, 
having no better places to lay themselves at night, when driven from their homes, 
or while wandering over the country. As to their robberies, they are, at least at 
first, of the most trifling kind, to which they are urged by hunger, temptation, 
and e.xample. I would, before I conclude, refer for a moment to the condition 
of these children on being discharged from jail. I need not tell many of the gen- 
tlemen present that they are in a most deplorable state. They are often without 
friends, without a home, without one single soul to care for or to think of them. 
I have said without friends ; but I say it with this exception, that their only 
friends are criminals, men who, standing at the prison door, and who have been 
within those doors, welcome them back to their old haunts of guilt, to pursue 
their evil courses afresh — to associate with them in lodging houses and similar 
places — to become learned in every thing that is evil, and in every thing that is 
destructive to society. No wonder that we have so much to complain of in the 
destruction of property, and in the expense of police, when we allow these chil- 
dren to go so long uncared for. No one will give them honest employment. A 
person who was once a prisoner in Bath jail, but who is now a respectable trades- 
man, wrote to me a few days ago to send him an errand boy. This man was 
himself a reformed criminal ; but what did he say ? " Don't send me a lad who 
has been in jail." Does not that speak to every one of us most strongly ? — does 
it not show how lamentable is the condition of the unfortunate child — unfortunate 
enough to have ever entered the prison walls, — which circumstance even pre- 
vents a reformed criminal giving him employment ? 

Rev. Sydney Turner, Resident-chaplain of the Philanthropic Society's 
Farm School at Red Hill, near Reigate, Surrey, pointed out the hin- 
drances to the effectual check of juvenile deHnquency, in the want of 
proper industrial, correctional, and reformatory schools, and to the want 
of authority in magistrates to compel attendance at such schools. 

To illustrate these hindrances, let me refer to the reformatory school with 
which I am connected, and with which I am best acquainted — the Ph lanthropic 
Farm School. The philanthropic society, by which this institution has been esUib- 
lished, was formed upwards of sixty years ago, being the first association, as far 
as my inquiries go, for the reformation of criminal and vagrant children in Eng- 
land. Since its formation, in 1788, the society has had about 3,000 children under 
its care, out of which number something hke two-thirds appear to have been 
reclaimed from criminal habits, and permanently improved and benefitted. The 
society used to carry on its operations in London. In 1848-9, however, we fol- 
lowed the example of Mettray, and removed our school to Red Hill, in the neigh- 
borhood of Reigate. Now, I may fairly claim for our Red Hill farm school that 
it has proved three important truths. First, that the reformation of young 
ofF.'nlers is a very possible thing, if you seek it by the right means, viz. : by k.nJ- 
n.'ss, relig ous influence, and industrial occupation. Religious influence and 
teach ng will not alone eftect it; you must add the practical illustrations of 
patience^ gentleness^ and kindness; and even these together wdl not be 
thoroughly eft'-ctive without the help of regular and healthful labor. It has 
proved, I say, that these agencies are at once indispensable, and tolerably certain 
to succeed. It has proved also, that with regard to the sort of labor you employ 
there is none so useful, as a means of moral discipline, as country labor — no re- 
formif.on, in short, so ef{»ct.ve as a free, open, f.\k.m school. The society's 
sell >oI in London did Lttie as compared w.th what has been don,:- since it was tians- 
ferre I to Red Hill, wall and gates dispensed w.th, an 1 the boys subjected to the 
wholesome in.luence of open ai'r, free diseipl.ne, eountiy associations, and i-ounti-y 
hib ts. The phiiaulhrop c school has prjv.d another th.ng, that the boys lU- 



CONFERENCE RESPECTING REFORM SCHOOLS. 595 

strueted in it are at no loss to find employment in the colonies. Nearly eighty 
young s.ttlers have gone out I'roiii the I'aim school, thiity-seven last yeai', and 
thiity-t-.ght th.s year. Tbesie lads^^iave b..'en welcomed k.ndly, and have- iumui 
rea:ly emp.oyintnt, and their conduct has been such that we have kttcis from 
gentleman m the colonies, not to protLSt against the send.ng such lads out, but 
requesting us to send them some more. Eut in sp.te of all this, what is the feel- 
ing that continually depresses me and my fellow laborers in the woik ? We feel 
that we are carrying on an isolated work — that what we do is so little, compared 
with whrtt is to be done, that our powers and resources are cramped ; that we 
have no adequate means of detention and restraint, and that we have not suf- 
ficient pteu))iary means to carry out our cffijrts on such a scale as to make them 
economical and largely useful. * » * But it may be asked, " What sort 
of detention do you want ?" I might answer, that we want some such system 
of juvende correction as they have in France, in Belgium, in Switzerland, Hol- 
land, and I may now add, in Piedmont also. Let us take it as a principle, that a 
boy under a certain age shall not be treated on the same footing as an adult ; that 
h.s age, the neglect or vice of his parents, and the depraving Circumstauees of his 
chddhood, shall be taken into account. That he shall be considered as a subject 
for reformatory training, rather than mere punishment. That he shall, therefore, 
at some early stage of li:s career, while yet open to better intluences, be placed in 
a position to have the better f-^elings of his heart developed, and to become a vol- 
untary agent — I say, become a voluntary agent, because while untaught, and 
while ruled by his criminal habits and assoc.ates. he is not a free agent; he is a 
slave, and we must free him. Let him then be sent to a correctional school — a 
school provided, let me add, by the govei'ninent; for I know of no other way in 
wh.ch the object can be obtained. But the difficulty arises that such treatment 
of the young criminal would be, or would at least seem to be, more or less an 
encouragement to crime. Theoretically it may appear so, but practically this 
might bj obviated. First, by separating the child from the parents by the power 
of dt-teution, and sending it to a correctional school at a considerable distance. 
Secondly, by requiring the parents to contr bute a certain am(-uut in aid of the 
support of the child while deUi.ned in the school. Let this principle be reeog- 
n zed as an essential that we can not do without, and its practical execut.on 
enforced in every ])osSible case; it will be most efiectual answer to the objection 
to wh.ch 1 have refeired. A thrd condition should be, that the discipline of the 
school should be really and efteetually corrective, so as to aftbrd no temptation to 
the boy to qual.fy himself for it. 

Rev. John Clay, Chaplain of the County House of Correction at Pres- 
ton, submitted some remarks on the question of compelling parents I0 
pay for or contribute to the cost of training to habits of morality and 
industry the children whom they have allowed to become discreditable 
and dangerous to society. 

Our juvenile criminals being drawn from a population (North Lancashire) 
among whom the means of employment are abundant, it will be no matter of sur- 
prise, though it will be of sorrow, that, in the great majority of instances, the 
young creatuns who have been allowed to run into crime had parents who were 
well able to secure for them a su, table training to indut-trious and moral habits. 
For some nxniths I have kept, a particular account of the earnings of the families 
to which our juvenile offenders belong. Tak.ng the last 50 committals as suf- 
ficient to lead us to a general conclusion on the subject, I may state that of these 
young victims of parental neglect, 

6 b.longed to famdi s — most of wh'ch were Irish, passing 
through the neighborhood, or recently settled m it — 
earn.ng a precarious and uncertain hvel.hood. 
5 belonged to families earning from Ids. to 2i s. weekly. 
IS "' " " '■ •• 2;ts. to 405. 

10 " " " '' " 41. s. to ()!is. " 

1 " . " " " upwards of £.3 

ifow, with scarcely an exception, these children had been completely neglected 



506 CONFERENCE RESPECTING REFORM SCHOOLS. 

by their pnrents. Some of them — objects of the jealousy and cruelty of a step- 
father or stjp-mothcr — had had their homes made insupportable to them, or had 
been actually driven from them. A few examples may serve to give an idea 
of the elements of juvenile criminality in one part of the country. A boy of 
eleven says : " I came from Ireland with my parents two years ago ; three older 
brothers get Us. altogether in a factory; four of us go about begging. My 
vareiits do no work at all." Another boy, aged fifteen, also Irish, says : " My 
mother wont live with my father, he drinks so ; I live with my father in lodgings; he 
lets nie do as I Lku." The earnings of this father, mother, and boy, are 26». 
Two boys, brothers, aged, respectively, sixteen and eleven, were committed for 
the third time for '• tu'eaking and entering a warehouse." On the occasion of a 
previous committal of these children, I learned that their father had been in the 
hab.t of readmg to them the demoralizing penny trash containing the lives of 
Turpin and Sheppard, and that these robbers had been held up to the deluded 
children as benefactors of the poor ! When the young culprits returned home 
after the expiration of their imprisonment, they found a step-mother awaiting 
them. The father, who, on the trial of his children, had been severely and 
justly reprimanded by the court for his neglect of them — and who seems to have 
intended to take more care of them when they returned home — only exchanged 
his indifference to their moral welfare for brutal harshness. The younger child 
said to me, on his Itist committal : " My father licked me with a rope 'till the 
blood ran down my back, and my step-mother was watching !" So much more 
ready are such parents to strike than to teach ! Here is a fathei' — and there are 
thousands like him — who first corrupts his child's moral instincts, and then 
cruelly chastises him for the consequences of his own lessons I I must not omit 
to mention that this man's earnings were upwards of £3 weekly I Many more 
illustrations of the unchristian training to which mult.tudes of children are ex- 
posed might be given, but I will pass on to the conclusion which I believe my- 
self warranted in drawing from the flicts I have submitted — that parents ought 
to be compelled, by law, to defray part, or the whole, of the expense incurred in 
giving that religious and industrial education which they themselves have culpa- 
bly neglected to give. It may be that, in many cases, the parents are unable to 
contribute any thing towards this expense ; but this inability will often be found 
to arise from wilful idleness, drunkenness, or other vice ; and when such causes 
of poverty are proved, I see no just principle which would be opposed to making 
parents of this character liable to penalty for their misconduct towards their 
children, and, as a consequence, theirs towards the community. I have, indeed, 
a strong conviction that if — in justifiable cases — the sins of the ignorant and 
erring child were visited upon the neglectful or vicious parent, such a proceeding 
would produce benefit, by reminding or warning fathers and mothers of the 
necessity of paying more attention to the duties incumbent on them. Whatever 
may be ultimately devised for fixing upon parents a more decided responsibility 
for their children's conduct, it is clear — proved by an overpowering mass of dis- 
tressing evidence — that measures must be taken to rescue the perishing and dan- 
gerous classes of children from their present condition — for their own sakes — and 
for the sake of the general safety. Such measures will doubtless involve consid- 
erable expense. I know well that I now speak in the presence of those who 
require these measures to be taken from the best and highest motives — who are 
actuated by the most enlightened views and by the largest charity — who remem- 
ber that the work they have undertaken is in humble and faithful obedience to 
One who ''is 7int willing that one of these little ones should perish ;" but I 
know, also, that the success of the work will depend, in a very great degree, 
upon obtaining the assent of persons who may desire to see economical advan- 
tages in the courses proposed. Well, what would it cost, on the one hand, to 
give Mo or three years' moral and industrial training to a neglected child, who 
would otherwise enter upon a course of life destructive to himself and dangerous 
to society? Upon the Red Hill plan, which, under the zealous and untiring care 
of Mr. Turner, has been crowned with such happy results, it would cost — say for 
three years — £75. Upon the Aberdeen plan, which seems to me admirably 
adapted to the circumstances of a large town, and respecting which we shall hear 
more fully from one of its great founders — the cost for three years would not 
exceed £15 or £20. But, on the other hand, what would it cost the community 



CONFERENCE RESPECTING REFORM SCHOOLS. 507 

to permit such a child to pursue its course through a sea of crime, until it is 
landed in one of our pfnnl colonies? I will endeavor to show this cost; and, in 
order to avoid any liabil.ty to exaggerate, I take my data, as far as practicable, 
from official documents. By the last report (1.5th,j of Captain Williams, inspector 
of prisons ftir the home district, it appears that the entire number of persons sen- 
tenced to transportation in 1849 was about 3,100. In the inspector's elaborate 
and valuable tables the ages of the transport convicts are not given, and I there- 
fore look to the very instruetiv.e criminal statistics published by Captain Willis, 
the chief constable of Manchester, and to the details which are given in the Liv- 
erpool calendars ; and assuming that the ages of transpoits, generally, are repre- 
sented in those returns, it would appear that of the 3,100 1 have mentioned, 43 
per cent, are under twenty -one years old — 1,333; 45 per cent, are between 
twenty-one and thirty years of age — 1,395: and 12 per cent., or 372, are above 
thirty years of age. Now, it is not taking too much ff>r gi'anted to say that crim- 
inals, sentenced to transportation before they reach thirty-one years of age, have 
commenced their criminal career at a time of life when they should have been 
learning a better way. But society has " ignored^^ their very existence. Let us 
see what society pays for it* indifference. Offenders, generally, are not sen- 
tenced to transportation until they have appeared at the bar four or five times. I 
will, therefore, suppose the expense of between three and four prosecutions, at 
assizes or sessions, to be £50. The average imprisonment of each offender before 
transportation may be taken at three years, and the expense of it at £65 ; three 
yeais' probation in separate confinement, at Parkhurst, or public woi ks, £50 ; 
removal to the colonies, &c., &c., £35 ; total, £200. So that when 3,000 sen- 
tences of transportation are passed in a year, we may consider them tantamount 
to. a notification to the public that a last installment of a sum exceeding half a 
million sterling is about to be called for I To be as precise as the nature of this 
inquiry will allow, the 2,728 convicts under thirty-one years of age, to whom I 
have already alluded as having run the career of juvenile criminality, represent a 
cost waste of £545,600 ! But let it be remembered that the felonry of this king- 
dom — and whether juvenile or adult, it belongs to this question to consider the 
fact — is not maintained, while at large, for nothing. Having investigated to a 
considerable extent, the rates of income derived by thieves from their practices, 
and having obtained estimates of the same thing from intelligent and experienced 
convicts themselves, I believe myself to be within the real truth, when I assume 
such income to be more than £100 a-year for each thief! Well, then, allowing 
only two years' full practice to one of the dangerous class previous to his sentence 
of transportation, I do not know how the conclusion can be escaped that, in one 
way or another, the public — the easy, indifferent, callous public — has been, and is 
mulcted to the amount of more than a million. sterling, by, and on account of its 
criminals annually transported ! But its criminals who are not transported ! 
still living on their dishonest gains, or in our costly prisons I We must not 
forget them in our calculations of the cost of crime, though it will be sufficient for 
my present purpose merely to refer to them, and to say that I am convinced that 
their cost to the community in and out of prison amounts annually to some mil- 
lions ! This assertion may be somewhat startling ; I will only state one fact in 
support of it. Some years ago a conmiittee of inquiry into the annual depreda- 
tions of the Liverpool thieves, stated the amount of those depredations at seven 
hundred thousand pounds ! Need more be said on the economical part of this 
momentous question ? Need I ask you to balance between the charge of training 
the young outcasts of the country to godly and industrious habits, and the waste 
of money, time, and souLs, consequent upon our neglect of an undeniable Chris- 
tian duty? •* * * To show the good effect of prison discipline on juveniles, 
I can offer the direct testimony of gentlemen filling the posts of superintendents 
to our county police, to show the same thing. My last report, which contains full 
details of these police returns, is that for 1848 — according to which, it appears 
that of sixty-three young offenders, under twenty-one years old, who had re- 
turned to their homes after discharge from prison — eleven could not be found, 
ten were no better, three were improved, and thirty-nine were more or less 
reformed. I almost fear that I draw upon your credulity in making this state- 
niLnt; but believe me that the law of " kindness,'' so eloquently enloleed by the 
learned recorder of Ipswich, can do, by the Divine blessing, much good even in a 



508 



CONFERENCE RESPECTING REFORM SCHOOLS. 



prison. It was not that these children stood most in need of reading and writing, 
of learning their eatcehism, of committ ng to memory chaptei's fiom the Holy 
Scriptures — tiiey stooi most in need of what had never yet approached them — 
of soMuth.iig to t.mch, soften, ami humanize their hearts and desires. I believed 
that, in al.nost every instance, these misled creatures had never in their lives 
heard words or tones of kindness or affect. on ; that they never had dared to sup- 
pose that tyiy one cared for them, or desired, for their own sakes, that they 
should learn to speak and do things that are right. I endeavored to show them 
their mistake — that there were people who felt for them, who pitied them, who 
loved them ; who earnestly desired to promote their happiness both heie and 
hereafter. These endeavors were not unsuccessful ; and I found that as the 
heart sotteued and opened, so the mind expanded ; and the readaig and scrip- 
tural teaching, which, otherwise, would have been mechanical and irksome, were 
received with eager thankfulness, as something conducive to the great object of 
repentance and amendment. 

Rev. T. Carter. Chaplain of the Liverpool Jail, spoke in reference to 
the inadequacy of the existing system of prison discipline to secure the 
reformation of juvenile criminals, and the present cost to society for the 
conviction and punishment of this class. 

Liverpool has one of the largest jails in the kingdom. The commitments 
during last year were upwards of 9,300. Of that number, upwards of 1,100 
were juvenile offenders, under sixteen years of age; and of these the proportion 
of recommitments amounted to more than 70 per cent. This one fact must give 
you some idea of the inefficiency — the utter uselessness — of such institutions as 
the Liverpool jail for the reformation of criminals. Indeed — and I say it ad- 
visedly — if it had been the object in Liverpool to devise a scheme for the promo- 
tion rather than the prevention of juvenile crime, no contrivance could have been 
h.t upon better calculated to accomplish that object than the Liverpool jail. And 
yet that jail has been held up as one of the best regulated in the kingdom, under 
the old system ; and that I believe with justice ; and if these are the results of 
one of the best regulated, I leave you to judge what must be the case with others, 
not so well conducted. Now, I must invite your attention to the manner in 
which these juveniles are treated. The course followed with them is to send 
them from the police court to the jail in the prison van, wherein they are mixed 
with offenders of all classes and ages. On arriving there, they are first taken 
into the reception room, which, I may statti, on the female side has six compart- 
ments or cells opening out from it — three on each side ; and sometimes there are 
as many as five persons crammed into these cells, which, when designed and 
built under the direction of Howard, were intended to hold only one. In these 
Cells, girls are mixed with adults, and remain often from tour o'clock in the after- 
noon unt.l two next day, when they go befoi'c the surgeon, in order to satisfy him 
that they have no disease which shall disqualify them fiom mixing with other 
jjersons. When they have passed that muster, as I may term it, the juvenile 
offenders are sent into what is called the school class. In this class, there have 
been as many as sixty girls under sixteen years of age ; and yet there are but 
twelve rooms or cells for them to sleep in, and here they are doomed to remain 
from half past seven in the afternoon until seven o'clock in the morning in winter, 
so that the inmates pass the whole of that interval in a situation where they can 
not poss.bly be under the control or supervision of the officers, and are left to un- 
restricted conversation, which you can readily imagine to be of such a character 
as not to tend to their edification. Now, it so happens, that with the best inten- 
tions on the part of the matron and the female warders, who have tlie charge of 
them, it is quite impossible to prevent the mixing of the unsophisticated with 
experienced thieves. There are many instances in which the same cell has con- 
tained five girls, one of whom has been under sentence of transportation — two 
others in jail, and convicted of felony several times before — while the remaining 
two were novices in guilt, and young in the cai-eer of vice. Now, what must be 
the result of such a state of association ? It is right that the criminal should be 
i-eformed because I hold that the object of improvement is not merely the pun- 



CONFERENCE RESPECTING REFORM SCHOOLS. gQg 

ishment, but the reformation of the offender. And yet the very first step we 
take in Liverpool, with a view to that object, is to mix up children of seven or 
eight years of age — for we have one now waiting for trial who is not eight years 
olj — vvith persons who have been for a long period hardened in a career of vice. 
When I tell you that I have one of my own children of the same age, I need not 
assure you that I never look on one of those poor little saplings without feelings 
of the deepest commiseration. These children are or have been, as dear to their 
parents, as mine are to me, and I feel that when they are taken into jail for the 
purpose of punishing their crimes and reforming them, you have no right — I have 
no right — the country has no right — to put these unfortunate little ones in such a 
position as must inevitably issue in their utter depravation. Such, then, is the result 
on the female side of the prison ; on the male side matters are no better. * * * 
What, I would ask, can it be but ruinous and disastrous, as our jail returns ex- 
hibit ? I have already mentioned the proportion of recommitments ; and I can 
Illustrate, from my own inquiries, the after careers of some of these offenders. I 
take a page, then, at random from the school register of four years ago, and I find 
that of the thirty whose names are upon that page — not selected cases, but taken 
in the order in which they came to jail — eighteen have been transported ; two 
are now in jail, having been frequently recommitted in the mean time ; one out 
of the thirty is in employment ; one has emigrated ; two have died, one imme- 
diately after being discharged, the other shot in the streets during a public dis- 
turbance ; leaving six, out of the thirty, whose history I have not been able to 
trace, but who, in all probability, have quitted the town and neighborhood of Liv- 
erpool, to visit Birmingham or Manchester, or some other large town. I find, 
also, that the average number of times in jail of these thirty is eight and a half; 
the average time spent by them in jail is fifteen months ; the cost to the borough 
of Liverpool^ on the average, is £32, 15s. ; while the further cost of transporta- 
tion of those eighteen averages £48 ; the gross average expense of each of these 
thirty criminals being £62, 7s. 

The cost of every young criminal to Liverpool is illustrated in a memorial of 
the magistrates to Parliament, asking for a reformatory school, in the following 
statement : — That the costs of apprehension, maintenance, prosecution, and pun- 
ishment, was of 

No. 1 £129 5 61 No. 8 £72 1 4i 

No. 9 52 9 7j 

No. 10 64 18 9| 

No. 11 28 10 41 

No. 12 39 8 101 

No. 13 26 10 10- 

No. 14 47 7 71 

And thus these offenders cost the public £888 9 1 

It thus appears that the avei-age cost of these fourteen prisoners was about £63, 
8s. ; while I have shown that the average cost of thirty boys, who were not 
selected, bear in mind, as the worst cases ; not taken at random, but in the order 
of their commitments, was £62, 7s. ; showing almost coincident results. And 
here I must inform you that I have not taken into account the co.st of maintenance 
in the colonies, and the loss of property by the community. If I did it would add 
immensely to the calculations I have laid before you. And yet I may say, that 
in Liverpool jail, which was referred to by the late excellent inspector of prisons, 
Mr. Hill, as one of the cheapest in expenditure in the kingdom, the average cost 
per head of the prisoners is only £12, whereas in many other jails it is £15, and 
in some nearly double. But great as is the expense of juvenile crime, the charge 
entailed upon us must not be estimated solely by the expense incurred on account 
of the offenders whilst they remain in that category. After they reach the age 
of seventeen or eighteen, they pass out of the class of juvenile offenders, and 
become adults, their habits of crime becoming more fully developed, and the ex- 
pense, of course, being greatly increased. I find that, taking forty-two individ- 
uals — male adults — at this moment in Liverpool jail, who were first received 
there as juvenile thieves, the aggregate commitments amount to 401, or 9i times 
each on the average. The average career in crime was five years and four 



No. 2 


71 2 10^ 


No. 3 


74 1 10| 


No. 4 


71 13 1 


No. 5 


47 9 3 


No. 6 


64 6 6^ 


No. 7 


99 2 51 



510 CONFERENCE RESPECTING REFORM SCHOOLS. 

months. These are all known thieves, and their cases are looked on (humanly 
speaking) as entirely hopeless. Under present circumstances the course pursued 
can only have a corrupting and vitiating eft'eet upon those who have not yet 
arrived at years of maturity. Of the forty-two instances to which I have referred, 
there are six under sentence of transportation. One first commenced his career 
of crime at the age of nine years, and has been nineteen times in jail ; and when 
I mention that, I need not bring forward any further proofs of the uselessness 
of all attempts at reformation, so long as there is not a radical change in the 
present vicious arrangements. There is another of twenty years of age, who, 
since being sentenced to transportation, has made a violent and determined 
attempt on the life of one of the officers of the prison. 1 will show the same 
results with the females. Out of twenty-six females, all of whom commenced as 
juveniles, I find that twenty-five have been in jail, on the average, seven times 
each ; the other I do not think it fair or proper to bring forward as an average 
example, because she has been fifty-seven times in jail. The average time each 
is known to spend in jail is five years. Now, I think 1 have established my posi- 
tion that the Liverpool jail, although singled out for special condemnation by the 
inspector of prisons, is the most eflictual institution that can be devised for trans- 
mitting and propagating crime. Such is the evil, and such its extent. What can 
we look to as its remedy ? 

Rev. Francis Bishop, Minister of the Liverpool Domestic Mission 
Society, submitted some remarks, which pointed out the preliminary- 
training school for the young criminals of Liverpool. 

In four of the best streets, occupied by the honest and industrious working 
classes in Liverpool, there are 411 children between the ages of five and fourteen. 
Of that number 206 go to a day school ; 29 to evening ragged schools; and 176 
go to no school at all. Now, if we look at those streets which supply the inmates 
of the prisons — the worst class of streets — we find most disheartening results. 
An inquiry instituted about a year ago gave the following statement, which is 
equally applicable to the present state of matters. In Eriek street, there were 
436 children, between five and fourteen years of age, and of these only 51 went 
to school — some of them only to an evening school — leaving 385 who went to no 
school whatever. In Crosby street, which was referred to by the reverend gen- 
tleman who last addressed you, there were 484 children, between the ages of 
five and fourteen, only 47 of whom went to school, leaving 437 who received no 
education at all. In another of this class of streets, which is very populous, an 
inquiry w;is made yesterday morning. The street to wliich I refer is called New 
Bird street, and it was intended to have ascertained the condition of the whole 
of the inhabitants as regards education ; but it was found that the time was too 
short, and accordingly only the fii'st three courts were taken — not selected — but 
taken in order. Well; it was found that there were 119 children between the 
ages of five and fourteen; and only 3 out of that number went to school. In- 
cluding the front houses adjoining these courts, we found that there were 163 
children between the ages I have mentioned ; and of that number 16 went to a 
day school ; 4 to an evening ragged school ; and no less than 143 to no school at 
all. Now, these are very startling facts, and I mention them merely to afford you 
a fair specimen of the educational condition of the streets of Liverpool in which 
the classes whose welfare we are met to promote, reside ; and although I believe 
that the juvenile population of Liverpool is somewhat worse than that of great 
towns generally, yt I am afraid that the condition of Birmingham, Manchester, 
and London, is not greatly superior in this respect. * « * My opinion is that 
we shall never be able to reach this class of juvenile offenders so as to operate 
effectually in diminishing their numbers, until we make the parents feel, and that 
through the pocket. They must be made to understand, by being required to 
contribute to the maintenance of their children, when they come within the grasp 
of the law, that they can not throw off with impunity the sacred obligations 
which the Ahnighty has imposed on every parent. I will say no more than 
that compulsory attendance nmst also be enforced on the vagrant class — that 
class who are on the high road to crime — by some such mode as that adopted in 
Aberdeen. 



CONFERENCE RESPECTING REFORM SCHOOLS. gjj 

Mr. William Locke, Honorary Secretary to the London Ragged 

School Union, remarked: 

It is now about eight years since a few friends in London joined me in the 
establishment of the ragged school union ; but since then we have managed to 
increase the number of schools, in London alone, from sixteen to one hundred 
and two. We have now about fifteen thou.sand children, who are being taught 
in these schools ; above one hundred and sixty paid teachers ; and above one 
thousand three hundred teachers who give voluntary assistance. Now, although 
I have no wish to shrink from the work, yet I have come here to declare that we 
are not equal — depending as we do upon voluntary contributions alone — to the 
great task we have undertaken. It is true that in some of our schools we have 
the ragged now clothed, the dirty become clean, and the riotous made orderly, 
so that many who visit us can not see the difference between these and any other 
schools. These desirable results are brought about by collateral cases, such as 
the clothing clubs, the industrial classes, the mothers' associations, and kindred 
institutions, which come in with powerful assistance to improve the habits, ap- 
pearance, and nature of the children. But still with all that aid, we are unable 
to cope with the great evil, or to put a check upon juvenile crime; and we feel 
that still there is a very large class we make little improvement upon. This class 
consists of vagrants, mendicants, and petty thieves, who require to be fed before 
they will be taught, and for whom more industrial, refuge, or feeding schools are 
required than our funds can sustain. There is, in London, a very large number 
of children coming under that category. Lord Ashley, in the House of Com- 
mons, some years ago, said there were 30,000 of them ; but my opinion, at the 
time, was that the number was much larger. I believe that there can not be less 
than 200,000 of them in the entire country, and from this class, I am quite sure, 
come nearly all the juvenile criminals in our prisons. They are the very seed 
plot of crime. Now, how are we to meet this mass of vice and wretchedness? 
Many of them are starving in the streets ; many of them are indeed " perishing 
for lack of knowledge as well as feed." In three points of view this great class 
have been considered, viz. : — as expensive — as dangerous — and as perishing ; but 
there is another point arising from these ; they are greatly to be pitied. With 
regard to the expense, no one can doubt but that it is excessive, not only as 
respects the property they steal, but in their apprehension, their trial, their main- 
tenance in prison, and their transpoi'tation. We have information from some of 
these boys, who live by thieving, of the great sums of money they expend in the 
course of the year, that would astonish you all, filched from the pockets, or houses 
and shops, of the industrious classes. They are dangerous, with regard to society, 
in disturbing the peace and morality of the neighborhood where they dwell ; but, 
in another sense, tiiey are dangerous, viz. : in their evil example thus shown to 
the better class of children, and in innoeulating others with their vicious habits. 
But they are also perishing, and the objects of our deep commiseration. They 
are without education or instruction of any kind ; they are ignorant of all good ; 
they are criminal, in many cases, from dire necessity, and " more sinned against 
than sinning." They are not, therefore, to be visited with the same kind of pun- 
ishment we inflict upon adult criminals. Nay, I hold it to be now an acknowl- 
edged principle, that we should not treat as criminals those children who had no 
sense of right and wrong — and I very much doubt if we have any just right to 
punish children for breaking laws with which we have never made them ac- 
quainted, or for violating duties which we have never taught them to respect. 
Look for a moment at their pitiful and forlorn condition ; in one night Lord 
Shaftesbury found no less than thirty-five of these poor children sleeping — hud- 
dled together under the dry arches by Field Lane, Smithfield. Night after night 
fancy these boys — or just picture to yourselves one of them herding there un- 
washed, unfed, uncared for by the thousands around — to snatch a weary sleep; 
and coming out from his hard, damp, comfortless bed in the mornirig — it may be 
in a cold, dull, winter's day — without friends, without a home, without a single 
soul in all the wide world to care for or to guide him. How, I ask, is it possible 
for such a lad, starving for bread, to escape the commission of crime? These 
children, without character and without any employment, must be vagrants or 
thieves in order to Uve — ^and therefore are they to be deeply commiserated. 



512 ONFERENCE RESPECTING REFORM SCHOOLS. 

Some of these very bo)-s we have succeeded in rescuing. Thank God for it. 
From one of them (I ineiin one of those found in Field Lane) who emigrated, we 
have a letter stilting that he is earning 3os. a vveeii as a printer in JNIelbuurne, (a 
most gratifying fact,) and thanking us most heartily for all that has been done tor 
liim. And will any body tell me that these children have not hearts, and can not 
be reformed ? I could tell of cases, not by tens but by hundreds, in which boys 
and girls, taken out of the mire and the gutter — the very sweepings of the streets — 
as it were, have become honest and useful members of society. Out of some 400 
boys whom we have sent to the colonies from various schools, we have hardly 
heard of a single return to criminal practices ; but on the contrary, we find that 
in almost every ease they are doing well, and earning an honest livelihood. * * * 
As regards those children we can not reach — those who need to be fed, and even 
lodged, ere they can be taught — how can we expect to gather fruit from thistles, 
or to draw pure water from a muddy source? We may endeavor to reform them 
after falling into crime, and it is our duty ; but the chances are that we shall only 
be partially successful. Would it not be far better to prevent them falling into 
crime at all ? It was truly and eloquently said by Dr. Guthrie, that it is a beauti- 
ful sight to see the life-boat dashing through the waves to save the shipwrecked 
mariners ; but much more beautiful was it to behold the lighthouse beacon which 
might prevent the wreck altogether. I perfectly agree with the committee on 
juvenile crime of the county of Aberdeen, a short passage from whose report I beg 
leave to read. They assert: 

"That the present mode of deahng with juvenile offenders has not attained the 
end desired ; that neglected outcasts, for whom neither the funds of the public, 
nor the generosity of private individuals, have cared, have been allowed to grow 
up in the midst of a Christ'an people, without any instruction in the first princi- 
ples of religion and even morality, and are not, at least in the first instance, the 
legitimate objects of vindictive punishment — that it is just and right, before inflict- 
ing punishment, and bi'anding for life with the character of a felon, to give the 
outcast child a chance of improvement — to put clearly before him the path of 
duty; and if after this training, he wilfully depart from it, then society has done 
its duty by him ; and if he incur merited chastisement, he must, in his heart, ac- 
knowledge that he has deserved it." 

This being the case, it strikes me that the work will never be thoroughly done 
by private benevolence. A great public good should be the work of the public. 
When I first took up the subject of ragged schools, they were merely evening 
schools, for gathering in fro.m the streets outcast, neglected children. Such I still 
consider to be the genuine r;igged school. But now, when we find it necessary 
for a large class to be fed, and clothed, and lodged, and cared for, and sent abroad, 
&c., &c., I am inclined to say I can not undertake all this. The paris^h or gov- 
ernment must help us ; and it is their duty, on the score of economy, philanthropy, 
and self-preservation, to do so. 

A. Thompson, Esq., Chairman of the Aberdeen County Prison 
Board, made a short statement of the Industrial Schools in Aberdeen, 
established mainly at the suggestion, and by the efforts of Mr. Sheriff 
Watson. 

We have now had an experience of ten years, the first of our schools having 
been established in October, 1841. We commenced that school with about 
twenty boys, and we gradually increased the number to seventy or eighty, which 
is about the utmost limit our experience leads us to believe an industrial school 
ever ought to be alloweil to attain. Two years afterwards we established a small 
school for girls; that school has since been divided into two, and in each of these 
there are now from sixty to seventy schi'lars. But we found that, although we 
were able to accomplish a certain amount of good in the city of Aberdeen, still we 
had not by any means attained all the good we desired. We found the streets 
infested by little vagrants and beggars ready to commit all sorts of annoying depre- 
dations. We therefore resolved to avail ourselves of a local act of ParJiament, 
by which it was provided that begging and vagrancy were crimes punishable by 
the magistrates. You will be perhaps surprised to learn that in Scotland we have 



CONFERENCE RESPECTING REFORM SCHOOLS. 5^3 

no vagrant act, and that vagrancy is not an offense there which, of itself, and 
alone, can be punished, as in England — but in the city of Aberdeen this power is 
possessed by the magistrates, under the provision of the local police act, and they 
gave the aid of their authority to the gentlemen who wished to extend the opera- 
tion of the industrial schools to a class of children still lower in the social scale 
than those who were already in attendance. xVccordingly, orders were given on 
a certain day in the year 1S45, to the police, to capture every little vagrant boy or 
girl whom they might find in the streets, and in the course of two hours seventy- 
five were collected — and if you can conceive seventy-five dirty ragged little chil- 
dren, trained up in all sorts of vice and wickedness, and unaccustomed to any sort 
of restraint, collected together in our small apartment, you may form some idea 
of the scene of confusion and uproar which ensued. The whole of the first day 
was spent in endeavoring to bring them into something like order, and in furnish- 
ing them with the only thing they seemed to appreciate, viz. : three good substan- 
tial meals. When dismissed in the evening, they were informed that they might 
return the next day or not just as they pleased, but if they did not come back 
they would not be allowed to beg in the streets. Kext morning, to the delight of 
all interested, almost the whole of them returned, and the system has been pur- 
sued from that day to this. When we begun this plan there were in Aberdeen 
280 children known to the police, who hved constantly by begging and petty 
thefts. For the last seven or eight years scarcely one had been seen, cases do 
occasionally occur, but they are very rare. W"e have almost completely succeeded 
in extirpating the race of juvenile beggars in Aberdeen. 

The next step in the history of our experience is perhaps the most interesting 
of all. Our establishment at first, of the boys' and girls' school, certainly cleared 
the streets of one part of the juvenile delinquents, but neither the worst nor the 
most dangerous class. Those whom we caught on the second occasion were 
those training up manifestly to fill our prison cells. Now what are the results as 
to them ? The number of boys and girls in the schools last described are generally 
about Kill — of those who have been at this school, seventy-one have since we 
opened been placed in situations where they are now maintaining themselves by 
their own honest industry : and what is perhaps still more satisfactory, of the 
whole 171 who have passed, or are now passing through our hands, not one indi- 
vidual has been taken up by the police for any offense great or small. 

When the schools were first started — like many other new and untried 
schemes — they met with considerable opposition, but a few resolute friends stood 
by them. The first success was not very obvious, and after they had been opened 
about two years the funds fell off", and we experienced that " excruciating agony," 
want of money, which was referred to by one of the gentlemen who has preceded 
me, and, in consequence, the number of children in the schools was reduced to the 
lowest possible point. But by this time the scheme had begun to take some little 
hold of- the public mind, and I am rejoiced to tell you that the working classes of 
Aberdeen came forvi'ard and expressed an earnest desire that the schools should 
not be given up, but that if possible they should be carried on and extended. They 
offered to raise subscriptions among themselves, and subscription papers were ac- 
cordingly carried round, both among the higher and among the lower classes, and 
I have to say, that of the whole amount contributed, two-thirds came ft'om the hard 
earnings of the working men and the working women of Aberdeen. By this most 
happy and timely addition to the funds we were enabled to get over the difficulties 
which threatened us, and we have been just able to keep moving ever since. The 
total number of children at all the schools is somewhere about four hundred. 

There are still two or three more statistical facts which I wish to place before 
the meeting. We were much annoyed in the county of Aberdeen by the number 
of juvenile vagrants who came out from the city. We employed the rural police 
to prepare returns to see what effect the juvenile schools were producing. The 
first return was not thought of until the year 1845. We were then informed that 
in that year (184.5) the rural police apprehended G'2 little children, or juvenile 
vagrants, who were traveling alone throughout the county, begging or stealing on 
their own account. In the year 1846, the number was reduced to 14 ; in 1847 it 
was further reduced to 6 ; in 1848 the number was again 6 ; in 1849 it was re- 
duced to 1 ; and in 1850 it rose again to 2 ! so that we have pretty thoroughly 
disposed of that class of offenders. 



514 CONFERENCE RESPECTING REFORM SCHOOLS. 

It is a practice with us, as it is I believe in England, for women to go out beg- 
ging through the country, attended by children, sometimes their own, and some- 
times hired, with the sole end and object of exciting compassion, and obtaining 
additional alms. In 18-41 the rural police stopped in the county of Aberdeen 1,2U3 
of these persons. That number was gradually reduced year by year, until, in 
1850, there were only 387 — less than a third of the number we had nine years 
before. 

There is another test which, with your permission, T shall furnish you. In the 
year 1841, before the schools were opened in Aberdeen, the juvenile commitments 
to the Aberdeen prison amounted to 61. In the year 1850, the number was re- 
duced to 14. But I can give you a still more striking evidence of the value of 
these schools. In 1845 we were obliged, in a great measure, to close the doors 
of our schools, for the reasons which 1 have already mentioned. I have stated that 
in 1841 there were 61 juvenile delinquents; in 1842 the number was reduced to 
30 ; and in 1843, when the schools were partly closed, the number rose again to 
63. Now here, I think, is correct evidence of how the schools are working. Open 
the schools, and keep the children in regular attendance, and the juvenile vagrants 
disappear; juvenile crime is diminished — shut the doors, and they immediately 
reappear, flourish, and increase. 

We have, in addition to our proper schools, what we term a child's asylum, and 
this is an essential part of the system. It is a place to which any child found wan- 
dering or deserted is conveyed in a friendly manner by the police. It is attached 
to the House of Refuge, and the directors of that establishment give every possible 
facility for superintending the management of the children. The children are kept 
here until the committee meet. Formerly thej' met every day, but now it is not 
necessary to do so ; they are summoned when required. Each case is investi- 
gated most minutely; if it appears that the parents are able to take charge of the 
children, or that they ought to do so, they are sent for and remonstrated with, and 
induced, if possible, to do their duty. If it appears that they have a claim upon 
any parish, then a coi'respondence takes place between the committee and these 
parochial authorities, and the child is sent to its parish ; but in the greater number 
of eases the child is placed at once in one of our industrial schools. The object of 
this minute scrutiny is to prevent improper persons getting upon our very limited 
funds. We wish to keep these funds sacred for the persons who are really suita- 
ble objects, and who belong to the city. In all our schools the system is the same. 
As a general rule, the children learn about four hours' lessons in the day, four to 
five hours' work, one to one and a half hours' play, and three good substantial 
meals. Much has been said to-day, and the importance of the question can not 
be denied, as to the policy of compelling the children to attend these schools. 
Hitherto our experience has shown us that no compulsion is necessary beyond the 
attraction of the three substantial n)eals. Most of them were previously unaccus- 
tomed to a regular supply of wholesome food ; they soon learn its value, and re- 
quire no other inducement to return daily to their work and lessons ; and I ven- 
ture to say that the attendance of these poor children, the very outcasts of society, 
at these schools, is more regular than among schools of a higher class. With re- 
gard to time, I may state that they come in summer at seven and in winter at eight 
o'clock in the morning ; there is then an hour or an hour and a half's religious and 
miscellaneous instruction, such as geography, facts in natural history, and occa- 
sionally a singing lesson. The children then spend a short lime in play, and after- 
wards breakfast. From ten to two they work. At two o'clock they dine, and 
after some recreation they work from three to four, and from four to seven they 
have lessons suited to their different ages, and at seven they have a plain substan- 
tia! supper, and a short religious exercise follows ; after which the whole are dis- 
missed to their homes. Now this plan of sending them back to their homes is a 
point upon which we have had many an.xious consultations. The propriety of 
allowing them to return to their degraded and debased parents was questioned by 
many as being calculated to destroy the moral influence which the school exercised 
over them. But our e-xperience tends to show that the reverse is the case. I 
frankly admit that it is a doubtful question, and many exceptional cases may occur ; 
but we know also instances in which the saving knowledge of truth obtained at 
school has been communicated to the outcast parents through the httle child. We 
think, then, that we have been successful in Aberdeen to a great extent, and, in- 



CONFERENCE RESPECTING REFORM SCHOOLS. 5I5 

deed, even beyond the extent we hoped to obtain when these schools were first 
established. The two great principles which we have endeavored to act upon are 
these — to show the children from the first that we really and truly love them, and 
desire their good, aud that all our exertions, whether in the way of teaching, or 
feeding, or remonstrating with them against evil conduct, are solely and only with 
the desire of doing them good, and that lesson the children themselves seem to 
have learned. But above and beyond this, we have sought to base our every step 
upon God's revealed word. * * * We have been told truly to-day of the 
expense the public are put to in keeping the youthful convict in prison. If I re- 
member aright, the lowest estimate was £18 or £20 a year. That is precisely 
our own experience in Scotland. But when we get hold of these children, and 
instead of sending them to prison, bring them to our industrial schools, we find the 
whole expense of teaching and feeding them is under £5 a year. And of that 
expense, on an average, about £1, 5s. is saved to the school by the work, of the 
children. So that we can bring up children — so far as man can do it — honestly, 
and industriously, and religiously, at an expense of £3, 15«. per annum. Whereas, 
if you send them to the poor-house, they cost about £10 per annum each with us, and 
I believe a larger sum in this country. If they are sent to prison, we know that 
the expense is from £1S to £25 ; and if we send them upon the distant voyage to 
Australia, we know that the cost altogether amounts to a sum not much, if at all, 
under £300 sterling. Upon an average of cases, we find that five years' training 
in the industrial schools is sufficient to make the child a useful member of society ; 
and suppose the expense to amount to £5 per annum, we have then the choice of 
making one of these children an honest and virtuous member of society for £25, 
or of sending him ultimately into a penal settlement, at a cost, including his previ- 
ous training in crime, of about £300. It appears to me that there can be little 
choice to a wise man in the matter. Sir, I have often thought, when I have passed 
a little ragged urchin in the street, one of the numerous class who are being 
trained up to a life of crime and misery, '' My poor little fellow, you are just a bill 
of exchange for two or three hundred pounds sterling, drawn upon the public of 
Great Britain, and the last farthing of that sum you will certainly cause us to pay 
before your career is ended." Much has been said to day of the expense of our 
prisons, but that is, after all, trifling compared with the enormous expense, and the 
serious loss the country is put to, by the depredations these persons commit. A 
single instance was alluded to, in which a large amount of plunder was carried off; 
and you yourself, Mr. Chairman, alluded to a case that had occurred in your own 
family. But it is not the plunder from the rich, and the quantity of plate, jewelry, 
and money, that is so taken, that creates the greatest amount of inconvenience ; 
but it is the extreme suffering caused to the working and industrious classes by 
having their hard-earned property taken from them. If you look at the records 
of trials and convictions before judges, and in police offices, you will find that a 
large number of cases occur in which the property is stolen from this class. Many 
of them, too, are afraid to appear to prosecute, and no small part of those crimes 
are committed against the poorer classes of society, which never appear at all. 

Rev. H. Townsend Powell, Chairman of the Warwick County 
Asylum, (who has given, without fee or reward, his time, attention, 
and talent, to the institution for twenty-six years.) gave the following 
account of the earliest reformatory institution of England, which is sit- 
uated at Stretton-on-Dunsmore in the county of Warwickshire : 

The institution commenced its operations in 1818, and in 1827 it was clearly 
ascertained that up to that period forty-eight per cent, of the whole number who 
had been subjected to the experiment had been permanently reformed. It was 
also made clear that a saving had been effected in the county expenditure, result- 
ing from the diminished number of prosecutions, the cost of which was charged 
on the county rates. Under the second master, the proportion of reformations 
was 58 per cent, of those who had quitted the institution. Under the present 
master, it has risen to 64 per cent ; and, if we take the latter part of his time 
only, since the last improvement in management has been introduced, it has risen 
to G3 per cent. 



5ig CONFERENCE RESPECTING REFORM SCHOOLS. 

The system adopted is a system of kindness and persuasion, blended, neverthe- 
less, with salutary coercion and correction. « * * Xhis is effected by daily 
setting before him the comforts of a well-ordered family — by occupying and inter- 
esting his mind — by sending him on little embassies of confidence, and exciting in 
him a feeling of respect for himself and his own character, and inducing him to 
participate in that esprit du corps which regards the honor of the institution, of 
which he is a member, as if it were his own. * * * It is acknowledged by 
all that " evil communications corrupt good manners ;" and therefore all ai'o 
anxious to separate uncontaminated juveniles from old offenders; but it is not so 
generally acknowledged that association is no less availing for the propagation of 
good than evil. * * * I adopted the conclusion that association is no less 
availing for the purpose of reformation than it is for the purpose of contamina- 
tion, and that the difference is this : where the preponderating moral influence is 
in favor of evil, there evil will increase : on the contrary, where the preponderat- 
ing moral influence is in favor of virtue and religion, there virtue and religion will 
flourish and abound. This principle has been invariably borne in mind in con- 
ducting the institution at Stretton-on-Dunsmore, and I can not help thinking that 
if it were in a more favorable locality, and a power of detention, but without bars, 
and gates, and walls, were given us by law, we should be able to exhibit a yet 
more favorable result than any which has yet appeared. But, if we are to carry 
on our experiment on a larger scale, I would still urge the adoption of the sugges- 
tion contained in the memoir of 1827, viz. : that the institution should consist of 
one or more establishments, under the same general surveillance, but varying in 
strictness of discipline ; so that the return of the criminal to honesty, should be 
accomplished by a coresponding return of liberty. 

In pursuing this subject, we will introduce a particular account of the 
organization and management of several of the institutions referred to 
in the foregoing discussion, and will begin with the Rauhen-Hause at 
Horn, near Hamburgh, which may be regarded as the pioneer and 
model of all the others. 



REFORM SCHOOL OF THE RAUHEN-HAUS. 



HORN, NEAR HAMBURG. 



The Redemption Institute, or Rauhen-Haus. at Horn, four or five 
miles out of the city of Hamburg, was established by an association of 
benevolent individuals, aided by a legacy of Mr. Gercken, in 1833, for 
the reception of abandoned children of the very lowest class. From 
the beginning it has been conducted by Mr. T. H. \A"ichern who has 
made it the mission of his life, to reclaim this class from habits of idle- 
ness, vagrancy, and crime, by making them teel the blessing of a Chris- 
tian and domestic life, and the pleasure of earning their own bread, and 
of doing good to others, by their own industry. His first step was to 
procure a plain dwelling, and to remove every thing from without or 
within which gave it the appearance of a place of punishment or cor- 
rection ; and in this house he has resided with his own family. Into the 
bosom of his own family he received three boys of the worst description, 
and in the course of a few months, nine others of the same stamp, mak- 
ing them feel at home, and yet with full liberty to go away if they wished, 
but recognized by him, and his wife, and his sister, as members of the 
same household, and fellow-laborers in the garden and the farm. By 
forgetting or forgiving the past, and encouraging every effort on the 
part of these depraved outcasts of society, to form better manners and 
habits, by addressing them always in the look and tone of heartfelt in- 
terest in their welfare, bj^ patient and long suffering forbearance with 
their short comings, by touching exhibitions, at appropriate times, of the 
character and teachings of Christ, by regular instruction in the branches 
of an elementary education, by alternate recreation and employment, of 
which they receive the return not only in their own comfortable lodging 
and support, but in small but constantly accumulating savings. Mr. 
\\ ichern succeeded in working remarkable changes in the character of 
a large majority of all who became inmates of his family. 

By degrees the establishment has been extended from a single house 
to nine, on the original plan of not increasing the size of each, so to im- 
pair its domestic character, and to make each family to some extent an 
independent community, having its own house — father and mother, its 
own garden, table, fireside, ^nd family worship ; and yet all the lamiliea 
uniting in larger meetings and operations, as neighbors and a community, 
and all looking to Mr. Wichern as the patriarch of the whole estab- 
lishment. The following account of the institution is taken from the Re- 
port of M. Ducpetiaux, inspector general of prisons to the minister of jus- 
tice, preparatory to the organization of the reform school of Belgium. 



518 REDEMPTION INSTITUTE AT HORN. 

The reform school of the Rauhen-llaus, at Horn, near Hamburg, was founded 
in 1833, bj' a society of charitable persons, and by the aid of private contributions, 
for the purpose of receiving and reforming vicious and unfortunately situated chil- 
dren. Commenced in a modest building roofed with thatch, from which it has 
taken its name, it now occupies about tvventy-tive acres of ground, upon which 
have been built, as they have been needed, a dozen houses, more or less spacious, 
each one of which has its proper destination. These houses are, 

1. The old thatched house, the cradle of the institution, serving for the dwell- 
ing of a family composed of twelve children and their chief. It contains, besides, 
the apartments of one of the principal instructors, a preparatory department for 
children entering, and the business otlice, of which more will be said below. 

2. The bakery building, with the storehouse for grain ; containing also the gar- 
dener's lodgings, and those of five apprentices and a printing assistant. 

3. The 8wiss house, occupied in the lower story by the printing office, and 
above by the boys' infirmary and the store-room for paper. 

4. The working house, containing in the first story a number of workshops for 
carpenters, tailors, shoemakers, spinners, wooden-slioe makers, &c., and above, 
apartments for a family of boys and a number of brothers. 

5. The bee-hive is occupied in the first story by a family of boys, and above by 
the lodgings of a number of brothers and the teacher of an elementary class. 

6. The girls" house, accommodating two families of little girls, one of which oc- 
cupies the lower story and the other the upper. 

7. The tower building containing the chapel or oratory, the library, the school- 
rooms, tlie preparatory department for girls, sundry rooms used by the children 
and bi-others, the apartments of the second head instructor, &c. 

8. The mother house, containing, besides the apartments of the director and his 
family, the kitchen, the laundry and store-room of provisions, lodging for some 
girls, the chambers for strangers, and some other premises for the use of the es- 
tablishment. 

9. The stables, the horse stables, store-room of farming tools; together with 
the apartments of the farming overseer, and the sheds serviiig for barns and store- 
rooms. 

10. The bookbinding and stereotyping shop. 

11. The fi.sher's cabin ; lodging a family of boys and a group of brothers. 

12. The shepherd's cabin ; containing in the first story a division of new comers 
with their overseer ; above the brothers' infirmary, and the apartments for pupils 
re-entering the establishment. 

13. The wash-room and its appurtenances. 

All these buildings are scattered and grouped picturesquely about, among the 
gardens belonging to the establishment. Several of them have been built by the 
children, with the help of the brothers overseeing them. There are three divis- 
ions in the establishment. 

1. The reform school for children ; which contains on an average 100 pupils, of 
whom two-thirds are boys, and one-third girls. 

2. The institute of brothers, including the officers of the institution and assistants ; 
and which serves also as a preparatory or normal school for the young men intend- 
ing to join the "inner mission'' founded by M. Wichern. The inner mission is 
intended, among other things, to train chiefs of families, overseers for reform 
schools, prisons, charitable institutions, hospitals, agents for Christian associations, 
(Eible societies, mutual aid societies.) working missionaries for home and colonics, 
&e. The institute contained 34 brothers in 1847 ; at which period 20 had left 
the establishment, and were acting in some of the above capacities, in Germany, 
Switzerland, and America. 

3. The printing establishment and business office, including a bookseller's, a 
bookbinder's, and a stereotyper's shop. 

These three departments, although attached to a common center, have each 
their separate existence, accounts and appropriations. They all originate from the 
private association, and are sustained by subscriptions, gifts, and legacies. The 
reform school has chiefly a local character, and draws its support principally from 
the city of Hamburg. The institute of brothers is of a more general cliaracter, and 
IS accordingly principally supported by beneficent persons elsewhere. The print- 
ing office and business establishment was organized by a stock company, and 



REDEMPTION INSTITUTE AT HORN. 519 

its profits are applied in certain proportions to the two other sections of the es- 
tablishment. 

The pupils of the reform school are classed in groups of 12 children. Each 
family under the supervision of a brother or sister, according to the sex of the chil- 
dren, occupies, as we have seen, a separate habitation, consisting of a sitting-room 
and a common sleeping-room. There are five families of boys, and two of girls ; 
and besides a preparatory department for new comers, before their admission and 
regular location in families. 

To each family is attached a group of brothers, of whom one fills the place of 
chief or father, and the others a.ssist him or supply his place in regular order. 

The officers, &e., employed in the govei'nment supervision, and other services 
of the establishment, are, 1. the director and his family. This post has been filled 
since the origin of the institution, by M. W ichern, with remarkable distinction ; 
it is chiefly to his efforts and persevering zeal that the Rauhen-Haus owes its com- 
pletion and prosperity ; 2. three instructors ; 3. three or four foremen or assist- 
ants ; 4. brothers, whose nun)ber is various and increasing ; 5. two sisters or as- 
sistants ; 6. twelve workmen in the printing and business establishment, merely 
paid wages, and not lodged on the premises. 

The instruction given to the pupils does not differ from that given in good Ger- 
man primary schools. The labor performed is of various kinds, and executed by 
separate families and pupils. They include the domestic labors, the housekeeping 
and hnuse-vvork, fiild and garden culture, and certain industrial occupations, whose 
profits are added to the resources of the establishment. 

Under the first class of occupations are, shoe-making,^ making and mending 
clothes and bedding, carpentry, wooden-shoe making, woolen thread-spinning, in 
which the young children are employed, baking, masonry and painting, house- 
kee|jing, cleaning house, furniture, &c. 

The farming work is directed by a farming overseer. The land is principally 
cultivated by the spade ; and the large kitchen-garden furnishes abundance of 
legumes (beans or peas) for the consumption of the establishment. There are 
several head of cattle on the farm. Tliere has been established a basket-making 
shop, which employs a number of children during winter. 

The workshops proper are the |n'inting shop, the bindery, lithographing shop, 
coloring shop, stereotypery, and wood-engraving shop. A silk-weavers' shop has 
also been in operation since I84fi. 

The girls are chiefly busied in the household, and fill the places of servants, 
cooks, washerwomen, ironers, laundry-women, and seamstresses. The younger 
assist the elder ; they pick legumes, make and mend coarse linen, knit and mend 
stockings, and keep the rooms in order. They all keep in order and mend their 
own clothes. 

All this work, except the printing and bookbinding, is performed under the di- 
rection and supervision of brothers or sisters, who, as a general rule, are expected 
to understand, at entering the establishment, some one of the occupations prac- 
ticed there. 

The physical ti-aining of the Rauhen-TIaus is at once simple and healthy. Noth- 
ing is neglected as to care of bedding, clothing, neatness, and sanitary regulations. 
Although the establishment is very healthy, a physician visits the establishment 
regularly. The food is frugal, but abundant. It usually consists, at breakfast, of 
soup thickened with buckwheat flour cooked in milk ; at dinner, of sf)up of various 
kinds, rice, barley, beans and others, with potatoes ; to which are added in sum- 
mer, green legumes, and meat regularly twice a week ; at supper, of a piece of 
bread and a glass of beer, or of the remains of dinner. The children are not put 
on allowance, and may eat as much as they please. The brothers eat at their own 
ordinary, except at supper, when they dine at a common table, presided over by the 
wife or mother of the director, at which also sit children whose birthdays are 
celebrated. 

The children are admitted at from eight to ten years of age, and remain at the 
establishment until after their confirmation, or until they can be placed in good sit- 
uations, or returned to their families without inconvenience. In 184.5, of 82 chil- 
dren, four (girls) were from 8 to 10 years old ; 31 from 10 to 14 ; 29 from 14 to 
16, and 18 from 18 to 23 years. No child, unless orphan or abandoned, is re- 
ceived without the oonsent of it& parents. 



520 ^ REDEMPTION INSTITUTE AT HORN. 

During ten years after the foundation of the establishment, the average age of the 
children, at the moment of their entrance, was 12 years and 6 months and a half, 
and at the time of their dismission, 17 years, two months, and two-thirds. It follows 
that the average duration of their stay, was 4 years, 2 months, and J^ths. From 
ISol to ]!!<47, there were 120 admissions. Pupils wlio can not re-enter their fami- 
lies, are usually apprenticed to masters carefully selected from among honest and 
pious artizans. There is no difhculty in getting these situations, and the apprentices 
from the Rauhen-Ilaus are even sought after, on account of the education and 
practical training which they have received at the establishment. The institution 
continues to exercise a beneficiary patronage over its graduates. Apprentices in 
the neigliborhood are regularly visited every week or every fifteen days, according 
to the distance, by the brothers, who carry them good advice, and converse with 
them on subjects interesting to tliem. Every fifteen days they meet in the after- 
noon or evening, in summer at the Rauhen-Haus, and in winter in the town, 
under the presldence of the director. They attend also at the festivals celebrated 
from time to time at the establishment. As active a correspondence as possible is 
maintained with the elder pupils who are at distant ]>]aces or in strange countries. 
The existence of tiie institute of brothers, and its extension within the last few 
years, as well as the situation of the brothers in different parts of Germany, facili- 
tate reports, and contribute to maintain, outside the establislnnent, the spirit which 
reigns within. 

The girls are usually placed at service. 

There is established a patronage fund, vv'hich pays expenses of apprenticeship, 
&c., occasioned by procuring situations. 

At the beginning of 1844, of 81 children who had left the establishment, 33 
were apprenticed to artizans or mechanics, 7 entered at service as farm-laborers or 
domestics, 7 had become day-laborers, 11 (girls) had become servants, 9 became 
sailors, 3 entered the army, 1 prepared himself for the university, 5 continue at the 
school ; the occupation of 3 is unknown, and 2 children belonging to a family of 
vagrants have not been able to be kept to any regular occupation. Of this num- 
ber, 27 including the sailors, eillier have no fixed residence, or are living at a dis- 
tance ; 16 have returned to their families, and consequently have ceased to sustain 
regular relations with the establishment ; 38 remain in regular and more or less 
frerjuent communication with it. 

According to information very carefully collected about the conduct of these 81 
children, (i or 7 only are conducting ill ; two of these were impixsoned for theft; 
all the others, 74 or 75, have given no cause for complaint, and some have distin- 
guished tliemselves by activity in labor and sound morality. A result so favora- 
ble would be very satisfiietory in ordinary life ; it therefore testifies much more 
strongly in favor of the organization and discipline of the Rauhen-IIaus, which, as 
we have already said, receives only vicious or condemned children, or those whose 
primary instruction has been entirely defective. 

At first sight, the organization of the Rauhen-Haus establishment present noth- 
ing ; fault even might be found with the confusion of the buildings, scattered here 
and there, and an absence of centralization which would seem calculated to cause 
difhculties in supervision, and to be contrary to economy. But these apparent 
faults disappear upon studying the interior organization of the institution, and upon 
considering the purpose of its creation. This purpose was to restore a family to 
the children ; to place them vi'ithin a sphere of relations, duties and affections 
calculated to change their habits, to reform their character, and to elevate their 
souls. The organization of the Rauhen-Haus hjis therefore been modeled upon 
that of the natural family. The children are classed in groups of 12 ; each group 
forms one family ; over each family is one overseer, who fills the place of a father. 
All the families besides, are gathered about a common center, and are under the 
authority of a common father, the director who presides over the entire institution 
and watches over its general interests. 

Each family occupies a separate tenement. This is usually in the lower story ; it in- 
cludes a common sitting-room, furnished with benches, tables, and cupboards, and 
having on one side a sleeping-room, and a small apartment serving for washing- 
room, and for a depository for housekeeping utensils. These apartments are distin- 
guished only by neatness and plainness ; they have no ornaments, except gifts pre- 
sented by friendly bauds. Eaoh dwelling has a yard for exercise, more or less 



REDEMPTION INSTITDTE AT HORN. 521 

shady, and a small garden in which the children raise the beans and peas needed 
for their own consumption. AH these little gardens are inclosed within the prin- 
cipal garden of the establishment, and form with it a whole by no means destitute 
of beauty and harmony. 

The chapel, school, and workshop, are common to all, and serve as a common 
bond between the members of different families, who meet each other in them at 
certain intervals. 

In the morning, in summer at 4 past 4, and in winter at 5, the bell rings, as the 
signal to rise. The brother or sister repeats a short prayer ; the children make 
their beds, wash and comb themselves, and usually, in summer, the boys run and 
take a bath in a small river running through the middle of the estate. Each 
family then puts its house in order ; the rooms are cleaned, the furniture dusted. 
If there be time to spare, it is used in study and reading, or in working in the gar- 
den. At 6 the bell rings again, and each family, under the conduct of its overseer, 
proceeds, Bible under arm, to chapel, to attend domestic divine service. This 
service which is performed with soleiimity, lasts about an hour, at the end of 
which time each family returns home, where it finds breakfast ready. Half an 
hour is allowed for this, during which the brother reviews and explains, as may be 
necessary, the preceding instruction. From half past seven to twelve, the families 
disperse and form new groups. This time is occupied in school (usually for an 
hour,) and in manual labor in the gardens and workshops. At 12, all the mem- 
bers of each family meet again for dinner ; one of the children has set the table ; 
two others have been to the central establishment for provisions ; the meal is 
begun and ended with a short prayer repeated by the brother, who partakes of the 
same frugal fare with the children, and takes advantage of this intercourse to put 
liimself on familiar terms with them. After dinner comes play-time ; the children 
play, take care of their flowers, or read ; the servants wash and set away the 
cooking and eating utensils. At one the bell gives the signal for returning to 
work which is continued till half past four. From half past four to five, supper 
and rest. From five to seven, the time is again divided between labor and study. 
From seven to eight each family is within its own habitation, where it may busy 
itself in rela.xation or in whatever manner it pleases. At eight comes the evening 
divine service, which, like that in the morning, calls all the members of the institu- 
tion together in the chapel. Bedtime is from eight to half past nine, and the day 
ends as it begun, by a short prayer i-epeated by the brother who lodges in the 
same dormitory with them, but who sits up much longer than they. 

The occupations of Saturday are in some measure different from those of the 
other days of the week, 2 or 3 children are designated in each family, to clean up 
the house completely ; from 5 to 6, the whole family together puts the yard and 
garden in order, so that all may be neatly arranged for Sunday. From six to 
seven, the brother or sister presides at a conference, where are discussed the events 
of the past week, and matters of interest to the family ; the arrangement of 
labor for the next week is made, and the children in charge of them selected ; the 
servants for the time being restore the utensils which they have had in charge, 
and which are committed, after examination, to their successors, who become re- 
sponsible for them in their turn. This species of rotation maintains the activity 
and stimulates the emulation of the children, at the same time that it accustoms 
them to domestic occupations, and gives them a taste for, and habits of, order and 
neatness. 

Sunday is consecrated to worship and rest. Except while in chapel, each family 
remains together during the whole day. In the morning, at a proper time, the 
children change their linen, and put on their festival clothes, which generally differ 
from each other in form and color. The family appointed for that purpose, according 
to a succession previously designated, goes, with spades and rakes, to the burying- 
ground of the children who have died in the establishment, to put in order, to re- 
place flowers and shrubs, and to keep it in good condition. In the afternoon, after 
having attended divine service, each family, if there is time, goes to walk with its 
overseer. This walk has usually an object ; sometimes to visit a teacher or a far- 
mer in the neighborhood, sometimes to see some remarkable site, monument, or 
establishment. These excursions are varied by games or singing. Sunday is also 
the day for visits from parents ; and some children whose conduct is good, receive 
by way of reward, permission to visit their families, in the town or vicinity. And 



522 REDEMPTION INSTITUTE AT HORN. 

all the school, meeting together again, attends evening service, vs^hich concludes the 
day. 

Every day after morning service, the director holds a short meeting, at which 
the children and the assistants attend. At this meeting faults committed the day 
before are noticed, and the director admonishes or punishes ; the particular ar- 
rangements of the day are announced ; necessary directions to the assistants given, 
and a review made of the children, to see that they are clean and neat, and their 
clothes in good order. 

Every Monday, the director holds a meeting of the assistants, at which special 
reference is made to every child ; the director listens to the observations of the 
brothers, and gives them instructions. 

Lastly, on Saturday evening there is held a special meeting for the discussion of 
matters pertaining to labor, economy, supervision of workshops, &o. 

The two head teachers assist the director, and occupy his place, if needed. 
They have charge in particular of the supervision of families and workshops. All 
the premises are also visited once or oftener, every day. In each vestibule are two 
registers ; on one of them is an inventory of the furniture, and on the other the 
inspector enters whatever remarks his visit may have suggested. 

The organization of the Rauhen-Haus is so contrived, as we have remarked, as 
to attach the pupils to the institution, and to unite them and their overseers 
together, as if they were members of the same family. To appreciate the influence 
exerted for this purpose, we must, so to speak, descend into the depths of the es- 
tablishment, and investigate the little events which vary its existence. We will 
only mention, under this head, the festivals at which the pupils and assistants meet 
several times a year. These are of two kinds ; one confined to a single family, as 
those which celebrate the birthday and baptism of pupils or brothers, the arrival 
or departure of one of them, &c. ; the others are the general festivals at which all 
the families and assistants meet, together with the friends and benefactors of the 
establishment. i\t these, which take place monthly, the boxes intended to receive 
voluntaiy gifts are ornamented with flowers, and carried solemnly to the chapel 
by two little girls. They are opened before the assembly, and prayer is offered for 
those persons whose charity contributes to the support of the institution. The an- 
niversary of the foundation of Rauhen-Haus is celebrated every year, with solem- 
nity ; but of all these solemnities, the most remarkable are those at Advent and at 
Christmas. We shall be thanked for giving, on this subject, some details which 
we find in the tenth report of the director, (184.5,) and which give, at the same 
time, an idea of the spirit reigning within the establishment, and of the artless char- 
acter of its members. 

"From the commencement of autumn may be discerned the symptoms of joy at 
the approach of Christmas. A new life seems to animate the families of boj-s and 
girls. All is excitement ; one is thinking of the gift which he expects, another of 
that which he means to give ; imagination is active ; plans fail and succeed ; when 
all arrangements are in good train, each family is hard at work within its own par- 
ticular circle ; every body is carefully keeping a secret : the brothers and sisters 
help the children at their work. As the important day approaches, activity 
redoubles ; not a leisure moment is lost ; the weekly evening which each family 
has at its disposal, is especially devoted to these mysterious preparations. What is 
their design ? To prepare Christmas presents wherewith to surprise the director 
and his family. Sometimes they are models of the Rauhen-Haus buildings ; some- 
times of religious edifices •, or pictures in relief of scenes from the Bible. Some 
of these models are five or six feet high, and executed with remarkable care and 
accuracy ; in the chapel may be seen the altar, the pulpit, the organ, the stalls, 
the bells ; the workshop is supplied with all its tools, the chamber with its furni- 
ture, beds, chairs, tables, stoves, &c. All these articles are carefully hidden until 
the day of their solemn exhibition. Meanwhile, at Advent, begins the religious 
instruction introductory to the coming festivals ; by which their minds and hearts 
are both prepared. The Christmas songs are practiced ; and soon are in every 
mouth ; those lately arrived learn them from the elder ; their meaning and relig- 
ious signification is explained. During the last week of Advent, joy resounds 
from all sides. On the Sunday before Christmas, each family, under the direction 
of the brother its supervisor, goes about the neighborhood to invite to the feast the 
respectable poor, with whom the establishment has constant connection. These 



REDEMPTION INSTITUTE AT HORN. 623 

good people must also have their gifts ; and the pupils take upon themselves this 
responsibility, and appropriate to this purpose their small savings. In these visits 
they sometimes see wretched spectacles ; but a picture before their eyes serves to 
put good thoughts and useful remembrances into their minds. 

At last the holy day is come. All is properly prepared ; the day passes ; it is 
evening. The large vestibule of the "' ^Mother House" is opened, and each family 
arrives in procession, carrying the gift which it has patiently prepared. All the 
articles, whose bulk is sometimes considerable, are arranged in the middle of the 
room, and are ornamented with wroaths and evergreens ; the Christmas tapers 
are lighted, and when all is in complete order the director and his family are in- 
vited to behold the spectacle prepared for them. Their arrival is greeted with 
shouts and songs ; the hall glitters with lights ; all gather in groups and admire 
the result of the labor of each family ; paintings, transparencies, inscriptions, tes- 
tify to the sincere alFection of the children towards their benefactor ; and certainly, 
to him, this testimony is not the least precious of their gifts. During the same 
evening, the assistants and brothers receive the gifts designed for them. The pro- 
gramme of the rejoicings of the next day is communicated to the assembly, the 
Christmas songs which have been printed are distributed, and after having re- 
turned thanks to God by hymns and prayer, the families return in the same order 
to their respective dwellings. 

Next day the bell proclaims the grand festival. All arise in haste by lamp- 
light ; the children put on again their festive garments and gather at the " Mother 
House," where was held the joyous meeting of the preceding evening. All sing 
the hymn of the day, and after having returned thanks to God, they return home 
to breakfast. Divine service takes place as usual. Meanwhile the kitchen is in 
unusual activity. At noon, all members of the establishment take their places at 
a large table, and partake of a repast, whose most delicate dishes have been sent 
as presents by friends from the town and neighborhood. Some of these friends, 
some former pupils, some parents, seat themselves among the children, and become 
with them members of one large family. There is joy in every heart ; singing 
succeeds : and before the feast is finished, come the poor invited several days 
before by each family. All rise, in a few minutes every thing is put away in its 
place, and every trace of the repast has disappeared. Each family, with its guests, 
returns to its well-warmed home, to familiar entertainment ; where the children 
sing their prettiest songs, to do honor to their visitors. About half-past two, there 
arrive from every direction the friends of the institution, who, for the sake of at- 
tending this ceremony, have often traveled several leagues in inclement weather, 
and in the depth of winter. The bell rings anew, and the families proceed to the 
chapel, conducting their poor visitors, who at their arrival take their seats at a 
table spread expressly for them. The chapel ornamented with foliage and ever- 
greens, looks like a thick grove. Although of considerable size, it can scarcely hold 
the numerous audience assembled at the solemnity. The director reads the gos- 
pel for the day, between whose verses are sung hymns appropriated to the occa- 
sion. A discourse chiefly addressed to the poor and to visitors from abroad, 
reviews the purpose, origin, and progress of the institution. Then come forward 
the schools of the neighborhood, with their instructors at their head ; one offers a 
prayer and sings a hymn in memory of the pupils dismissed from the Rauhen- 
Haus ; another invokes the protection of God for poor and abandoned children ; 
another implores pity upon all prisoners ; all then unite their voices in a conclud- 
ing hymn, after which each school deposits its modest offering in the box appointed 
for receiving gifts to the establishment. 

It is time to proceed to the decoration of the feast to the memory of absent 
friends. This is the moment which is awaited with so much impatience by the 
children from the beginning of the Advent. From the commencement of this 
period, all the school meets at noon to listen to the reading of those passages of 
scripture which announce the coming of the Messiah ; which is followed by the 
singing of a hymn. The chandelier of the chapel is furnished with as many can- 
dels as there are days in Advent ; every day one more of these is lighted, so that 
the number of lights constantly corresponds with the approach of the festival. 

We left all the members of the institution in the chapel. No sooner have the 
ceremonies above described terminated, than is commenced the lighting of all the 
topers in the ohandelier, a^d also of a multitude of wax candles skillfully arranged 



524 REDEMPTION INSTITUTE AT HORN. 

throughout the building, which quickly glitters with light. This illumination is 
generously furnished by the friends of the establishment. The appearance of the 
chapel, with its tapers, its candles, its green boughs and ornaments, is truly mar- 
vellous. The spectator, especially if for the first time, is overpowered by the en- 
thusiasm of the pupils and the guests. As the illumination proceeds, the singing 
concludes ; when it stops, the director, amidst profound silence, reads the follow- 
ing passage from St. Matthew : " When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, 
and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory," 
&c. After this reading the pupils come forward by families towards the poor 
guests, and give them the little presents which they have prepared for them ; then 
each family in succession sings another song, and the ceremony concludes with a 
prayer and concluding chant, in which all the assistants join. 

The poor return home, carrying salutary impressions and joj'ful recollections ; 
the children return to their homes until 6 in the evening, when another signal 
calls them to the chapel. Some of the friends of the institution, present in the 
afternoon, have departed ; but others have arrived to be present at the ceremony 
of the evening. In the interval, tables are arranged in the chapel, on which are 
put the Christmas gifts for the families and the children : which gifts also are 
supplied by the inexhaustible kindness of the benefactors of the institution. These 
gifts are of all descriptions ; books, images, wall-cards, (cartes murales.) little arti- 
cles of furniture, tools, etc. ; they are accommodated to the wants, and commonly 
satisfy the desires of each. It is delightful to see the pleasure which is afforded by 
the sight of this little exhibition. Scarcely is the saloon opened, when all, small 
and great, pupils and visitors, hurry in, crowding together as if in a fair, where 
each selects the article which pleases him best. Thus ends the day, which, of all 
the days in the year, is most ardently desired, and leaves the .most delightful 
impressions. 

This day has more to-morrows than one ; each family renews its own memory 
of it, within itself Let us transport ourselves to one of these renewals, some 
weeks after Christmas. It is Sunday evening, a new comer would imagine that 
the festival had been postponed for that family, and that it was celebrating it for 
the first time. Evergreens and green pyramids ornament the saloon, and upon 
the table the presents are arranged. The organ, the violin, and the flute, accom- 
pany all kinds of singing ; the joy is as great and as uncontrolled as at the gen- 
eral feast. The guests have not been forgotten ; and an invitation to the private 
festival of a family is never neglected. The day before, the children sent written 
invitations to comrades in other families, who are present at the designated time. 
Among them is a newly admitted pupil, who must be shown the manner of keep- 
ing Christmas. The director's family has also been invited, and comes, bringing 
Christmas cakes or other little presents of the same kind, which are the more wel- 
come as they are more unexpected. While all are rejoicing, the door opens and 
there enters, accompanied by a dozen pupils and a brother, a messenger in strange 
costume, carrying an immense game-bag, and a feathered hat. There is surprise 
in every face, for nobody expected any such apparition. Meanwhile the messen- 
ger comes forward, and delivers to each member of the family a large letter ad- 
dressed to him. All hasten to open them ; and after removing several envelopes, 
it appears that each letter contains a small present. Who was the messenger, and 
whence come these tokens of friendship ? Another family got news of the festi- 
val, and promptly determined to contribute to it; and so each of its members 
selected from his own property a gift to a comrade in the other family. One pupil 
was appointed to take charge of the gifts, and all accompanied him to enjoy 
the surprise of their brothers, and to partake in their joy. It is unnecessary to say 
that the impromptu visitors receive a cordial welcome ; they take seats at the table 
and partake of the modest supper which is prepared ; the singing goes on, and the 
festivities of the evening prolonged to a later hour than usual, end, as always, by 
prayer to God." 

The institute of the brothers of the Rauhen-Haus, like the school of foremen at 
Mettray, forms an essential part of the organization. M. Wiehern, like M. M. 
Demetz and de Bretigneres, has perceived that the work of reforming vicious and 
condemned children could not be intrusted to mercenary hands ; and that it was 
necessarj' to accomplish it, to use motive higher than those of temporal interest. 
The brothers of the Rauhen-Haus are to a certain extent similar to the brothers of 



REDEMPTION INSTITUTE AT HORN. 525 

charity, and brothers of Christian doctrine, in Catholic countries. To be admitted 
to the institute, they must furnish procjf that their conduct has always been honor- 
able, and safe from all reproach ; that they have always done the duty of a good 
Christian, and that they have truly a religious vocation ; that they have no infir- 
mity, and enjoy good health and a robust constitution ; that they understand farm- 
ing, or some trade useful in the establishment, or at least that they have sufficient 
mechanical talent to learn some one of these occupations ; that they have a certain 
amount of education, or the intelligence and disposition necessary to profit by the 
special course of instruction intended for them in the institution. They are also 
required to have the consent of their parents to their entering the proposed career, 
and the certificate of their exemption from military service. Their age at admis- 
sion is usually from twenty to thirty years. Notwithstanding the strictness of 
these conditions, candidates are never wanting, and their number is usually even 
greater than that of disposable places. 

The institute of bi'others is supported, like the reform school, by subscriptions 
and private gifts, and has its own separate treasury, finances, and accounts. 

The brothers, in their connection with the reform school, have charge of the di- 
rection of families, and of the supervision of pupils confided to their care. They 
keep them in sight, night and day; they eat with them, sleep in their dormitory, 
direct their labor, accompany them to chapel, partake in their recreations and 
sports. Attached at first to families, as assistants, after a certain time of appren- 
ticeship, they undertake, in rotation, the direction. They visit the parents of the 
children, and report to them tlieir conduct and progress ; exercise an active and 
beneficial supervision of the pupils, after their departure from the school ; teach 
the elementary class ; assist the director in religious instruction and in the writing 
and correspondence of the estiiblishment. The monthly enrolment or rotation of 
brothers in each family brings each brother successively in contact with all the 
pupils, enlarges their experience, facilitates their apprenticeship and assists in teach- 
ing practical knowledge, and as it were, brings into contact with all the families 
the experience acquired in each. 

Besides these duties, the brothers in turn attend a special course of instruction 
presided over by the director, with the assistance of the two head teachers. This 
course occupies twenty hours a week, so distributed as to correspond with the 
working hours of the children, and including religion, sacred and profane history, 
German, geography, pedagogy, singing and instrumental music ; there is also a 
special course in English. The brothers are classed in two divisions, an upper 
and lower, each directed by one of the teachers. Each course lasts two years, so 
that the complete instruction given to each brother occupies, on an average, four 
years. At the end of this time, the brothers should be prepared to fulfill the duties 
of the " Inner Mission," whose agents they are. These duties, as we said at the 
beginning of this account, are as various as the needs which the mission under- 
takes to satisfy. The brothers, accordingly, at leaving the institute, are usually 
placed in one or the other of the following positions : 

Chiefs or fathers of families in reform schools organized like that of the Rauhen- 
Haus ; overseers and assistants for moral discipline, in establishments for children; 
instructors in the same ; instructors in agricultural schools ; directors, stewards, 
overseers, or vv'atchmen in prisons of different kinds ; directors or fathers of fami- 
lies in hospitals and charitable institutions ; overseers of infirmaries ; agents of 
benevolent or mutual aid societies ; missionaries and preachers in colonies to Amer- 
ica; missionaries within the country, for journeymen and traveling apprentices, 
&c., &c. 

The number of demands for brothers for these different purposes, or other simi- 
lar ones, increases every year ; so that the director is continually trying to extend 
the normal institute intended for their preparation. 

The printing office, the bookselling shop, and their dependencies, attached to the 
establishment in 1842, contribute the double purpose proposed by the founders; 
they furnish occupation for a number of children during their stay at the Rauhen- 
Haus, at the same time that it teaches them an occupation which they can practice 
after leaving ; and also serve as a means of propagating the principles and views 
which liave governed the work undertaken by M. Wichern with such unusual per- 
severance and so much success. Here is published yearly a double report on the 
situation of the reform school, and the condition and progress of the institute of 



526 REDEMPTION INSTITUTE AT HORN. 

brothers and of the Inner Mission. There is also issued a review, appearing twice 
a month, under the title of " Flying Leaves," (Fliegende Blatter,) which is in- 
tended not only to inform the public of matters concerning the Rauhen-Ilaus, but 
also to give news of charitable establishments and operations at home and abroad. 
We have not examined the spirit governing these publications, and extending 
throughout the establishment, and consequently have not formed opinions on it. 
Some term it exaggerated ; for our own part we are pleased to see there the ex- 
pression of a sincere and profound conviction, and of a true Christian sentiment of 
compassion for evils and miseries requiring prompt relief. 

The accounts of the different sections of the Rauhen-Haus are kept by the di- 
rector, under the control of the administrative committee of twenty members, 
chosen from among the founders and benefactors of the establishment. Each sec- 
tion has its separate treasury and accounts. The treasuries are eight in number, 
namely : 

1. Treasury of Iho reform scbool. 

2. " '• " iiisritufe of brothers. 

3. " " " printing office. 

4. " " " business establishment, and book shop and dependencies. 

5. " " " childrens' savings, where account is kept with each, of expenses and 

receipts. 

6. *• " " brothers' savings. 

7. " " " patronage of the institution. 

8. " " " private gifts for particular purposes. 

The accounts of 1844-45, fix the receipts and expenses of the school as follows : 

RECEIPTS. 

From subscriptions $2,107 40 

" voluntary gifts, 632 80 

" payments for board, 1,186 80 

" charity box, 165.68 

" sundry receipts, 35.42 

Total, 4,828.08 

This amount does not include farming produce, receipts from workshops, private 
gif\s for particular purposes, nor gifts in kind, which make every year a considera- 
ble sum, and diminish by so much the receipts of the establishment. 

EXPENSES. 

Maintenance and repairs of buildings, $365. 14 

Insurance against fire, 25.70 

Expenses of pupils leaving 13.70 

Board, 2,110.00 

Oil and light, 119 42 

Fuel 323.70 

Washing, 100.84 

Expenses of onler— supervision, 78.84 

Clothing of children 178.00 

' Physician and drugs 47.14 

Expenses of supervision, 208 56 

Salary of director, 428.56 

Farming and other tools, 48 28 

Furniture and cooking utensils, 220.56 

Salaries, 143 70 

Expense of school, 24 00 

Expense of cultivation, 224 00 

Cattle, 78.5(i 

Rents 59 42 

Expense of receiving children, 3. 14 

Presents to children, 4.56 

Printing and postage, 7.42 

Sundry expenses, 14.84 

Total, 4,828.08 

There were in the school in the same year, 100 persons — 86 children, and 14 
officers. The expense per head was therefore $51.71 ; or counting children only, 
$60.00. 

The capital of the establishment, at the same time, was $4,178.46 ; and its in- 
ventory of buildings and real estate, represents a value of $6,538.10. 



REDEMPTION INSTITUTE AT HORN. 62V 

We append the following notices ot" this excellent institution by two 
distinguished American educators. 

Prof. Stowe. in his Report on Elementary Public Instruction in 
Europe, selects the establishment at Horn, asatibrding a striking exam- 
ple of the happy influence of moral and religious instruction in reclaim- 
ing the vicious and saving the lost. 

Hamburgh is the largest commercial city of Germany, and its population is ex- 
tremely crowded. Though it is highly distinguished for its benevolent institutions, 
and for the hospitality and integrity of its citizens, yet the very circumstances in 
which it is placed, produce, among the lowest class of its population, habits of deg- 
radation and beastliness of wliich we have but few examples on this side the At- 
lantic. The children, therefore, received into this institution, are often of the very 
worst and most hopeless character. Not only are their minds most thoroughly 
depraved, but their very senses and bodily organization seem to partake in the 
viciousness and degradation of their hearts. Their appetites are so perverted, that 
sometimes the most loathsome and disgusting substances are preferred to whole- 
some food. The superintendent, Mr. Wichern, states, that though plentifully sup- 
plied with provisions, yet, when first received, some of them will steal and eat 
soap, rancid grease, that has been laid aside for the purpose of greasing shoes, and 
even catch May-bugs and devour them ; and it is with the utmost difficulty that 
these disgusting habits are broken up. An ordinary man might suppose that the 
task of restoring such poor creatures to decency and good morals was entirely 
hopeless. Not so with Mr. Wichern. He took hold with the firm hope that the 
moral power of the word of God is competent even to such a task. His means are 
prayer, the Bible, singing, affectionate conversation, severe punishment when una- 
voidable, and constant, steady employment, in useful labor. On one occasion, 
when every other means seemed to fail, he collected the children together, and 
read to them, in the words of the New Testament, the simple narrative of the suf- 
ferings and death of Christ, with some remarks on the design and object of his 
mission to this world. The effect was wonderful. They burst into tear.s of con- 
trition ; and during the whole of that term, from June till October, the influence 
of this scene was visible in all their conduct. The idea that takes so strong a hold 
when the character of Christ is exhibited to such poor creatures, is, that they are 
objects of affection : miserable, wicked, despised as they are, yet Christ, the Son 
of God, loved them, and loved them enough to suffer and die for them — and still 
loves them. The thought that they can yet be loved, melts the heart, and gives 
them hope, and is a strong incentive to reformation. 

On another occasion, when considerable progress had been made in their moral 
education, the superintendent discovered that some of them had taken nails from 
the premises, and applied them to their own use, without permission. He called 
them together, expressed his great disappointment and sorrow that they had 
profited so little by the in.structions which had been given them, and told them 
that, till he had evidence of their sincere repentance, he could not admit them to 
the morning and evening religious exercises of his family. With expressions of 
deep regret for their sin, and with promises, entreaties, and tears, they begged to 
have this privilege restored to them ; but he was firm in his refusal. A few e;ve- 
nings afterwads, while walking in the garden, he heard youthful voices among the 
shrubbery ; and, drawing near unperceived, he found that the boys had formed 
themselves into little companies of seven or eight each, and met, morning and eve- 
ning, in different retired spots in the garden, to sing, read the Bible, and pray 
among themselves; to ask God U:> forgive them the sins they had committed, and 
to give them strength to resist temptation in future. With such evidence of re- 
pentance, he soon restored to them the privilege of attending morning and evening 
prayers with his family. One morning .won after, on entering his study, he found 
it all adorned with wreaths of the most beautiful flowers, which the boys had ar- 
ranaed there at early daybreak, in testimony of their joy and gratitude for his 
kindness. Thus rapidly had these poor creatures advanced in moral feeling, relig- 
ious sensibility, and good taste. 

In the spring, Mr. Wichern gives to each boy a patch of ground in the garden, 



528 REDEMPTION INSTITUTE AT HORN. 

which he is to call his own, and cultivate as he pleases. One of the boys began to 
erect a little hut of sticks and earth upon his plot, in which he niipht rest during 
the heat of the day, and to which he might retire when he wished to be alone. 
When it was all finished, it occurred to him to dedicate it to its use by religious 
ceremonies. Accordingly, he collected the boys together. The hut was adorned 
with wreaths of flowers ; a little table was placed in the center, on which lay the 
open Bible, ornamented in the same manner. He then read with great serious- 
ness the 14th, 1.5th, and 24th verses of the exviiith Psalm : 

" The Lord i.s my strength ami my song, and is become my salvation." 
'•Thevoice of rejoicing and salvation is heard in the tabernacle of the righteous." 
" This is the day which the Lord hath made. We will rejoice and be glad in it." 

After this, the exercises were concluded by singing and prayer. Another boy 
afterwards built him a hut, which was to be dedicated in a siinilar way ; but when 
the boys came together, they saw in it a piece of timber which belonged to the es- 
tablishment, and ascertaining that it had been taken without permission, they at 
once demolished the whole edifice, and restored the timber to its place. At the 
time of harvest, when they first entered the field to gather the potatoes, before com- 
mencing the work, they fortned into a circle, and, much to the surprise of the su- 
perintendent, broke out together in the harvest hymn : 

" Now let us all thank God." 

After singing this, they fell to their work with great cheerfulness and vigor. 

I mention these instances, from numerous others which might be produced, to 
show how much may be done in reclaiming the most hopeless youthful offenders 
by a judicious application of the right means of moral influence. 

Hon. Horace Mann in his " Educational Tour," thus describes his 
visit to the Rauhen-Haus. 

It was opened for the reception of abandoned children of the very lowest class, 
children brought up in the abodes of infamy, and taught not only by example but 
by precept, the vices of sensuality, thieving, and vagabondry, children who had 
never known the family tie, or who had known it only to see it violated. Ham- 
burgh, having been for many years a commercial and free city, and, of course, 
open to adventurers and renegades from all parts of the world, has many more of 
this class of population than its own institutions and manners would have bred. 
The thoughts of Mr. Wichern were strongly turned towards this subject while yet 
a student at the university ; but want of means deterred him from engaging in it, 
until a legacy, left by a Mr. Gercken, enabled him to make a beginning in 1833. 
He has since devoted his life and all his worldly goods to the work. It is his first 
aim that the abandoned children whom he seeks out on the highway, and in the 
haunts of vice, shall know and feel the blessings of domestic life ; that they shall 
be introduced into the bosom of a family ; for this he regards as a divine institu- 
tion, and therefore the birthright of every human being, and the only atmosphere 
in which the human affections can be adequately cultivated. His house, then, 
must not be a prison, or a place of punishment or confinement. The site he had 
chosen for his experiment vvas one inclosed within high, strong walls and fences. 
His first act was to break down these barriers, and to take all bolts and bars from 
the doors and windows. He began with three boys of the worst description ; and 
within three months, the number increased to twelve. They were taken into the 
bosom of Mr. Wichern 's family ; his mother was their mother, and his sister their 
sister. They were not punished for any past offenses, but were told that all should 
be forgiven them, if they tried to do well in future. The defenseless condition of 
the premises vvas referred to, and they were assured that no walls or bolts were to 
detain them ; that one cord only sliouid bind them, and that the cord of love. The 
effect attested the all but omnipotent power of generosity and affection. Children, 
from seven or eight to fifteen or sixteen years of age, in many of whom early and 
loathsome vices had nearly obliterated the stamp of humanity, were transformed 
not only into useful members of society, but into characters that endeared them- 
selves to all within their sphere of acquaintance. The education given by Mr. 
Wichern has not been an aesthetic or literary one. The children were told at the 
beginning that labor was the price of living, and that they must earn the? "wn 



REDEMPTION INSTITUTE AT HORN. 529 

bread, if they would secure a comfortable home. He did not point them to ease 
and affluence, but to an honorable poverty, which, they were taught, was not in itself 
an evil. Here were means and materials for learning to support themselves ; but 
there was no rich fund or other re.sourees for their maintenance. Charity had 
supplied the home to which they were invited ; their own industry must supply 
the rest. Mr. NMchern placed great reliance upon religious training ; but this did 
not consist in giving them dry and unintelligible dogmas. Pie spoke to them of 
Christ, as the benefactor of mankind, who proved, by deeds of love, his interest in 
the race, who sought out the worst and most benighted of men, to give them in- 
struction and relief, and who left it in charge to those who came after him, and 
wished to be called his disciples, to do likewise. It is strange that, enforced by 
such a practical exemplification of Christian love as their fatherly benefactor gave 
them in his every-day life, the story of Christ's words and deeds should have sunk 
deeply into their hearts and melted them into tenderness and docility ? Such was 
the effect. The most rapid improvement ensued in the great majority of the 
children ; and even those whom long habits of idleness and vagabondry made it 
difficult to keep in the straight path, had long seasons of obedience and gratitude, 
to svliich any aberration from duty was only an exception. 

As the number of pupils increased, Mr. Wichern saw that the size of the family 
would seriously impair its domestic character. To obviate this, he divided his 
company into families of twelve, and he has erected nine separate buildings, sit- 
uated in a semi-circle around his own, and near to it, in each of which dwells a 
family of twelve boys or of twelve girls, under the care of a house-father or house- 
mother, as the assistants are respectively called. Each of these families is, to 
some extent, an independent community, having an individuality of its own. 
They eat and sleep in their own dwelling, and the children belonging to each look 
up to their own particular father or mother, as home-bred children to a parent. 
The general meeting every morning, — at first in the chamber of Mr. ^V'ichern's 
mother, but afterwards, when the numbers increased, in the little chapel, and their 
frequent meetings at work, or in the play-ground, form a sufficient, and, in fact, a 
very close bond of union for the whole community. Much was done by the chil- 
dren themselves in the erection of their little colony of buildings ; and in doing 
this, they were animated by a feeling of hope and a principle of independence in 
providing a dwelling for themselves, while they experienced the pleasures of be- 
nevolence in rendering assistance to each other. Mr. Wichern mentions, with 
great satisfaction, the good spirit of the architect who came upon the premises to 
direct in putting up the first house. This man would not retain a journeyman for 
a day or an hour, who did not conduct with the utmost decorum and propriety 
before the children who were assisting in the work. 

Instruction is given in reading, writing, arithmetic, singing, and drawing, and, in 
some instances, in higher branches. Music is used as one of the most efficient in- 
struments for softening stubborn wills, and calling forth tender feelings ; and its de- 
privation is one of the punishments for delinquency. The songs and hymns have 
been specially adapted to the circumstances and wants of the community, and it has 
often happened that the singing of an appropriate hymn, both at the gatherings 
in the mother's chamber, which were always more or less kept up, and in the little 
chapel, has awakened the first-born sacred feeling in obdurate and brutified hearts. 
Sometimes a voice would drop from the choir, and then weeping and sobbing 
would be heard instead. The children would say, they could not sing, — they must 
think of their past lives, of their brothers and sisters, or of their parents living in 
vice and misery at home. On several occasions the singing exercise had to be 
given up. Frequently the children were sent out to the garden to recover them- 
selves. An affecting narrative is recorded of a boy who ran away, but whom Mr. 
Wichern pursued, found, and persuaded to return. He was brought back on 
Christmas eve, which was always celebrated in the mother's chamber. The 
children were engaged in singing the Christmas hymns when he entered the 
room. At first they manifested strong disapprobation of his conduct, for he was a 
boy to whose faults special forbearance had been previously shown. They were 
then told to decide among themselves how he should be punished. This brought 
them all to perfect silence, and after some whispering and consulting together, one, 
who had formerly been guilty of the same fault of ingratitude, under still less ex- 
cusable circumstances, burst out 'in a petition for his forgiveness. All united in it, 

84 



530 REDEMPTION INSTITUTE AT HORN. 

reached out to him a friendly hand, and the festival of the Christmas eve was 
turned into a rejoicing over the brother that had been lost but was found. The 
pardon was not in words merely, but in deeds. No reference to the fact was after- 
wards made. A day or two after, he was sent away on an errand to the distance 
of half a mile. He was surprised and affected by this mark of eontidence ; and 
from that time never abused his freedom, thouoh intrusted to execute ei)nimiss:ons 
at great distances. But he could never after hear certain Christmas hymns with- 
out shedding tears ; and long subsequently, in a coiiKdential communication to Mr. 
"VYichern, respecting some act of his former life, (an unburdening of the overladen 
conscience, which was very common with the inmates, and always voluntary ; for 
they were told on their arrival, that tiieir past life should never be spoken of unless 
between them and himself,) he refei-red to the decisive effect of that scene of lov- 
ing-kindness, upon his feelings and character. 

One peculiar feature of this institution is, that the children are not stinmlated by 
the worldly motives of fame, weahli, or personal aggrandizement. The superin- 
tendent does not inflame them with the ambition, that if they surpass each other 
at recitation, and make splendid displays at public examinations, they shall, in the 
end, become high military officers, or congress-men, or excite the envy of all by 
their wealth or fame. On the other hand, so far as the world's goods are con- 
cerned, he commends and habituates them to the idea of an honorable poverty; 
and the only riches with which he dazzles their imaginations are the riches of good 
works. He looks to them as his hope for redeeming others from the sphere 
whence they themselves were taken ; and there have been many touching in- 
stances of the j'eformation of parents and families, for whom the natural affection 
first sprang up in these children's hearts, after they had learned the blessings of 
home and what the ties of nature really are. 

One of the most interesting effects of this charity is the charity which it repro- 
duces in its objects; and thus it is shown that, in the order of nature, the actions 
of good men^provided they are also wise — not less than good seed, will produce 
thirty, or sixty, or a hundred fold of beneficent fruit. Mr. Wichern makes a great 
point of celebrating Christinas, and the friends of the school are in the habit of 
sending small sums of money, and articles of various kinds to adorn the festival. 
This money has often been voluntarily appropriated by the children, to charitable 
purposes. They frequently give away their pennies, and instances have happened 
where they have literally emptied their little purses into the hands of poverty and 
distress, and taken off their own clothes to cover the naked. On one occasion, six 
poor children had been found by some of the scholars, and invited to the Christ- 
mas festival. There they were clothed, and many useful and pleasing articles, 
made by the givers, were presented to them. One of the boys read a passage 
from the history of Christ, and the Christmiis songs and other songs of thanks- 
giving and praise were sung. To the sound of the organ, which a friend had pre- 
sented to the little chapel, some verses welcoming the strangers, succeeded. The 
guests then departed, ble.ssing the house and its kind inhabitants; but who can 
doubt that a voice of gladness, more precious than all worldly applauses, sprang up 
unbidden and exulting in the hearts of the little benefactors ? 

But among numerous less conspicuous instances of the change wrought by wise 
and appropriate moral means, in the character of these so lately abandoned chil- 
dren, the most remarkable occurred at the time of the great Hamburgh fire, in 
May, 1842. In July, 1843, I saw the vast chasm which tlie conflagration had 
made in the center of that great city. The second day of the fire, wlien people were 
driven from the city in crowds, and houseless and half frantic sufferers came to the 
Rauhe-Haus for shelter, the children, some of whom had friends and relatives in 
the city, became intensely excited, and besought Mr. Wichern for leave to go in 
and make themselves useful to the sufferers. Not without great anxiety as to the 
force of the temptations for escape or for plunder that might assail them in such an 
exposed and tumultuous scene, he gave permission to a band of twenty-two to ac- 
company him, on condition that they would keep together as much as possible, and 
return with him at an appointed time. Tliis they readily promised ; nor did they 
disappoint him. Their conduct was physically as well as morally heroic. They 
rushed into the greatest dangers to save life and property, and though sometimes 
pressed to receive rewards, they steadily refused them. At stated intervals they 
returned to the appointed place to reassure the confidence of their superior. On 



REDEMPTION INSTITUTE AT HORN. 53 1 

one occasion, a lad remained absent long beyond the time agreed upon, but at last 
he appeared, quite exhausted by the labor of saving some valuable property. Mr. 
Wichern afterwards learned from the owner, not from the lad, that he had steadily 
refused the compensatinn offered to, and even urged upon him. When the com- 
pany returned home at the ap|)oiuted time, he sent foi-th another band under the 
care of a house-father, and these exerted themselves in the same faithful and effi- 
cient manner. This was done as long as the necessity of the case required. From 
this time the Rauhe-Haus was the resort of the poor and homeless, and not for 
days only, but for weeks. The pupils shared with them their food, and even slept 
upon the ground to give their beds to the destitute, sick, and injured. I can hardly 
refrain from narrating many other facts of a similar character connected with this 
institution, for if the angels rejoice over a rescued sinner, why should not we par- 
take of that joy when it is our brotlier who is ransomed ? 

In his report for 184.'), Mr. Wichern says, the institution was actually so im- 
poverished by the demand made upon it at that time, and the demands upon pub- 
lic chai-ity have since been so great in that unfortunate city, that the inmates have 
been almost reduced to suffering from the necessaries of life, particularly as he was 
induced to receive several children rendered homeless by that calamity. To this 
object, however, even the children of the house were ready and willing to con- 
tribute portions of their wardrobe, and they submitted cheerfully to other priva- 
tions. Mr. Wichern regretted above all other things the necessity of refusing 
many applications, and it is but doing ju.stiee to the citizens of Hamburgh, to state, 
that on an appeal made by him for iunds to erect a new building, they were gen- 
erously and promptly raised by those who had such unusual claims upon their 
charity. 

A single remark, I must be allowed to make. When an individual effects so 
much good, it seems to be often thought that he accomplishes it by virtue of some 
charm or magic, or preternatural influence, of which the rest of the world can not 
partake. The superintendent of the Rauhe-Haus is a refutation of this idea. 
Laboriously, perseveringly, unintermittingly, he uses mkans for the accomplish- 
ment of his desiied ends. VN'hen I put to him the question, in what manner he 
produced these transforming effects upon his charge, his answer was, " Ry active 
occupations, music, and Christian love." Two or three things should be stated in 
explanation of this compendious reply. When anew subject comes to the Rauhe- 
Haus, he is first received into Mr. Wichern's own family. Here, under the 
wise and watchful guardianship of the master, he is initiated into the new life of 
action, thought, feeling, which he is expected to lead. His dispositions are 
watched, his character is studied ; and as soon as prudence allows, he is trans- 
ferred to that one of the little colonies whose house-father is best qualified to man- 
age his peculiarities of temperament and disposition. Soon after the opening of the 
establishment, and the increase of its numbers, Mr. Wichern found that it would 
be impossible for him to bestow the requisite care and oversight upon each one of 
his pupils which his necessities demanded. He oast about for assistance, and 
though he was able to find those in the community who had enough of the spirit 
of benevolence and self-sacrifice to undertake the difficult labor to which his own 
life was devoted, yet he soon found that they had not the other requisite qualifica- 
tions to make their benevolent purposes available. He could find enough well-in- 
tentioned persons to superintend the workshops, gardens, &e., but they had not 
intellectual competency. So he could find schoolmasters who could give good 
lessons, but they were not masters of anj" handicraft. He was therefore driven, as 
he says, to the expedient of preparing a class of teachers, to become his auxiliaries 
in the work. For this end, he has superadded to his original plan a school for the 
preparation of teachers ; first to supply himself, then to send abroad to open other 
institutions similar to his own, and thirdly to become superintendents of prisons. 
This last object he deems very important. Questions about prison-architecture, ht 
says, have given a new literature to the world ; but as yet, nothing, or but little, 
is done to improve the character or increase the qualifications of prison-keepers. 
I have often felt the force of th's remark, in the numerous continental prisons 
which I have visited. Though the masters of the prisons have generally appeared 
to be very respectable men, yet the assistants or deputy-turnkeys have very often 
seemed to belong to a low order of society, from whose manners, conversation, or 
treatment of the prisoners, no good influence could be expected. 



532 REDEMPTION INSTITUTE AT HORN. 

This second institution of Mi'. Wichern is in reality a normal school, which the 
necessities of his situation suggested, and forced him to establish. 

During the ten years of the existence of this institution, there have been one 
hundred and thirty-two children received into it. Of these about eighty were 
there on the 1st of July, 1843. Only two had run away, who not either volunta- 
rily returned, or, being brought back, had not voluntarily remained. The two 
unreclaimed fugitives committed offenses, fell into the hands of the civil magistrate, 
and were imprisoned. 

Who can reflect upon this history, where we see a self-sacrificing man, by the 
aids of wisdom and Christian love, exercising, as it were, the evil spirits from more 
than a hundred of the worst children whom a corrupted state of society has en- 
gendered ; who can see this, witliout being reminded of some case, perhaps within 
his own personal knowledge, where a passionate, ignorant and perverse teaeher, 
who, for the sake of saving a few dollars of money, or from some other low mo- 
tive, has been put in possession of an equal number of fine-spirited children, and 
has, even in a short space of time, put an evil spirit into the bosom of them all ? 

What is most remarkable in reference to the class of institutions now under con- 
sideration, is the high character of the men, for capacity, for attainments, for soci;il 
rank, who preside over them. At the head of a private orphan house in Potsdam, 
is the venerable Von Tiirk. According to the laws of his country. Von Turk is a 
nobleman. His talents and acquisitions were such that at a very early age, he 
was elevated to the bench. This was, probably, an office for life, and was attended 
with honors and emoluments. He officiated as judge for fourteen years ; but in 
the course of this time, so many criminal cases were brought before him for adjudi- 
cation, whose only cause and origin were so plainly referable to early neglect in 
the culprit's education, that the noble heart of the judge could no longer bear to 
pronounce sentence of condemnation against the prisoners ; for he looked upon 
them as men, who, almost without a parado.x, might be called guiltless offenders. 
V^ hile holding the office of judge he was appointed school inspector. The para- 
mount importance of the latter office grew upon his mind as he executed its duties, 
until, at last, he came to the full conception of the grand and sacred truth, how 
much more intrinsically honorable is the vocation of the teacher, who saves from 
crime and from wrong, than the magistrates who waits till they are committed, 
and then avenge them. He immediately resigned his office of judge, with its life- 
tenure and its salary ; traveled to Switzerland, where he placed himself under the 
care of Pestalozzi ; and, after availing himself for three years of the instructions of 
that celebrated teaeher, he returned to take charge of an orphan asylum. Since 
that time he has devoted his whole life to the care of the neglected and destitute. 
He lives in as plain and inexpensive a style as our well-off farmers and mechanics, 
and devotes his income to the welfare of the needy. I was told by his personal 
friends that he not only deprived himself of the luxuries of life, but submitted to 
many privations in order to appropriate his small income to others whom he con- 
sidered more needy ; and that his wife and family cordially and cheerfully shared 
such privations with him for the same object. To what extent would our own 
community sympathize with, or appreciate the act, if one of the judges of our 
higher courts, or any other official dignitary, should resign an office of honor and 
of profit to become the instructor of children. 

Even now, when the once active and vigorous frame of the patriarchal man is 
bending beneath the weight of years, he employs himself in teaching agriculture, to- 
gether with the branches commonly taught in the Prussian schools, to a class of or- 
phan boys. What warrior, who rests at last from the labors of the tented field, after 
a life of victories ; what statesman, whose name is familiar in all the courts of the civi- 
lized world ; what orator, who attracts towards himself tides of men wherever he 
may move in his splendid course ; what one of all these would not, at the sunset 
of life, exchange his fame and his clustering honors, for that precious and abound- 
ing treasury of holy and beneficent deeds, the remembrance of which this good 
old man is about to carry into another world ! Do we not need a new spirit in our 
community, and especially in our schools, which shall display only objects of vir- 
tuous ambition beiore the eyes of our emulous youth ; and teach them that no 
height of official station nor splendor of professional renown, can equal in the eye 
of Heaven, and of all good men, the true glory of a life consecrated to the welfare 
of mankind ? 



REFORM SCHOOL, OR COLONIE AGRICOLE, 



METTRAY, NEAR TOURS, IN FRANCE. 



The institution or colony of Mettray, four miles from Tours, was 
founded by M. Demetz and M. le Vicomte de Bretigneres de Courteilles, 
both gentlemen of wealth and high social position, who, associating them- 
selves with other philanthropists, founded in 1837 a society, whose 
object is thus expressed : 

1. To exercise a benevolent superintendence over children of tender 
years, who have been acquitted of crimes in consequence of their youth, 
and which may be confided to their care by the State ; to procure for 
these children, placed in an agricultural institution, a moral and relig- 
ious education, as well as an elementary instruction ; to teach them a 
trade; to accustom them to the healthy toils of agriculture, and to pro- 
cure them situations at the expiration of their term, in the country, at 
the homes of artizans, or small farmers. 

2. To watch over the conduct of these children, and to give them all 
the aid of their patronage as long as they shall need it, or for three 
years. 

The founders of Mettray accepted the sublime doctrine of Christianity, 
which authorizes a belief in the possibility of regeneration, and permits 
not to despair of the most abandoned human being; and they have 
made religion the fundamental principle of their system. "' On religion," 
writes De Tocqueville, one of its founders, " depends the future of all 
penitentiary reform." 

The practice of religion, the love and habit of labor, the spirit of 
family association, the emulation of example, the cultivation of honor, 
the habitual obedience to law, and a self-imposed restraint on the use of 
liberty — these grand and simple ideas embrace all the reforming in- 
fluence, all the moralizing power of Mettray. Placed here with a view 
to their restoration to society as freemen and productive laborers, they 
are here ingeniously indoctrinated with the spirit of the family, habit- 
uated to social duties, a self-regulated liberty, and to the constant occu- 
pation of their choice. No armed police, no walls, no bolts, no keys, 
honor alone preserves at once discipline and freedom. " Why," said a 
visitor, " do you not escape ?" " Because there are no walls, and it 
would be disgraceful," replied the colonist of Mettray. 

The details of organization, instruction, employment, and administra- 
tion^ and the results, economical and reformatory, of this interesting 
enterprise, will be found clearly set forth in the following report of a 
visit made by M. Ducpetiaux in 1849, and included in his Report to the 
Minister of Justice in Belgium. 



534 REFORM SCHOOL, OR COLONIE AGRICOLE, AT METTRAY. 

The following account of the school of Mettray is taken from notes 
made during a visit there in September. 1849. with special reference to 
certain matters of organization, administration, discipline, and statistics; 
Its purpose was altogether practical ; for which reason, it enters into 
details which are usually overlooked in visiting such an estabhshment, 
only to form a more or less complete idea of it, or to write a description. 

There was another purpose, in addition to this, namely: to observe 
the effects of the revolution in France of 1848 upon the school of Met- 
tray, and to judge of the strengtii and vitality of an enterprise com- 
menced by private efforts. Our fears on this subject have been quite 
relieved. Mettray has resisted both the political and financial crisis; 
and notwithstanding the decree which, by suppressing mechanical labor 
in the prisons, has broken up its workshops and confined its pupils en- 
tirely to agriculture, and the material reduction in its resources, we found 
it in its usual prosperity, and under its usual admirable discipline. 

The peculiar character of this establishment is owing to the qualities of its 
otficers. There are there two men — M. Demetz and Viscount de Courteiljes — 
bearing titles, and enjoying all the advantages of fortune and high social position, 
who devote themselves exclusively to an unobtrusive and wearisome employment. 
Their virtues and their example have gathered around them a band of young 
men animated with the same spirit, and who have sacrificed unhesitatingly their 
own interests to that of the work in which they are associated. Unfortunately, 
this number has recently been diminished by the necessity of retrenching the 
expenses of the establishment within the bounds of the strictest economy. The 
reform in this direction has only operated upon the corps of officers. Some, 
thinking their number too great, thought it might be reduced without inconven- 
ience. This, however, was not the opinion of the committee sent in 1849, by 
the committee on labor of the national assembly, to visit the school of Mettray. 
This commission declared in its report, that the school was a great source of 
good, and would save to society a still greater sum of evil ; and ended by say- 
ing that the government could receive nothing but honor from taking the school 
of correction at Mettray under its protection. Hon. M. Gillon, representative 
from the department of the Meuse, spoke with regard to the officers, as follows : 

"The large expense at Mettray is owing to the number of persons employed; 
but this large number is required by the plan of the school, which is, to use moral 
influences, and to use them so well that the children will remain honest people 
all their lives. It is of great importance to them to leave the school witii health 
improved, mind educated, and knowing an occupation which puts them above 
want ; but moral reformation, the social affections, the principles of honesty and 
religion, good habits and qualities of heart, are a thousand times more important; 
and these it is impossible to bestow upon the children without costly and numer- 
ous preparations. It would be possible, instead of building a separate house for 
forty only, to lodge them in large rooms like barracks ; instead of placing a head 
of a family over every forty children, an overseer might take charge of eighty or 
a hundred ; but in that case the personal influence of the directors or of their 
subordinates, coming from a more distant point and extending over a greater sur- 
face, would be less deep and thorough, and the effects less salutary and lasting. 
Nature gives only a few children to one father. 

" That cheaper arrangements might have been made, we do rot deny ; but it 
is difficult to believe that in that case such complete and satisfactory results would 
have followed. Certainly those which we actually witnessed at Mettray do not 
appear to have been too dearly purchased." 

Notwithstanding the justice of these observations, an imperious necessity forced 
the directors to dismiss twenty assistants ; by which a saving was made of $3,585. 
After this reduction, the officers and assistants of the school and their salaries 
were, at our visit in September, 1849, as follows. 



REFORM SCHOOL, OR COLONIE AGRICOLE, AT METTRAY. 5^5 



Two directors, without salary. 
One assistant direclor, willnouf salary. 
One general agent at Paris, witliout salary. 
One ctia()la n. S36U. and lodging 
One principal secretary, S400, lodging, board, 
and uniform at 612 per annum 



A. — Officers. 

One treasurer, $400. and same. 

One book-keeper and chashier, $240, and 

same. 
One head teacher, $200, and same. 
One head overseer of labor, $240, and same. 



Eleven chiefs of families, $100, lodging, board, I One singing-master, (employed also as clerk,) 
and uniform at $12 per annum. $100, and same. 



B. — Chiefs op Families 
00, lo 
anni 
One jailor, $100, and same. 

C. — Sub-Chiefs op Families. 

Twelve sub-chiefs of families, 40 dollars, 

D. — Foremen of Mechanical Workshops. 



One master tailor, $60, with board and lodg- 
ing. 

One master blackmith, $230. and lodging. 

One master wooden-shoe maker, $180, and 
lodging. 

One master wheelright, $180, and lodging. 



One foreman of painting, glazing, and lighting, 

$120. and lodging. 
One master carpenter, $140. and lodging. 
One master rope-maker, $140, anil lodging. 
Two masons, paid by the day, at (1 Ir. 75c.) 

35 cents. 



E. — Agricultural Foremen. 
Ten agricultural foremen, $60, with board and I Two gardeners, paid by M. Courteilles, but 
lodging. I whose labor is given to the school. 

F. — Teamsters. 
One head wagoner, $80, with board and lodg- I Three drivers — two at $60, one at $50, with 
ing. I board and lodging. 

G. — Other Assistants. 
One watchman, $120. I One farm watchman, $60, with board and 

One domestic, $60. with board and lodging. lodging. 

One messeiiger, .$60, with board and longing. | One miller, $200, in full. 

All those in lists B, C, D, E, F, and G, have also a uniform, except the gard- 
eners and the miller. 

H. — Sisters of Charity. 

Seven sisters of charity, $30, with lodging and maintenance, except clothes 
Of the seven, one is the superior ; the others respectively have charge of ex- 
penditure, cooking, washing, work-room, infirmary, and pharmacy. 

The medical supervision is intrusted to a physician of Tours, who visits daily 
the sick of the school. 

The entire number of officers and assistants, paid and unpaid, is 65, besides ? 
sisters of charity. Their proportion to the number of the pupils, is one to seven. 
The amount of salaries is $6,410 ; of other allowances, $4,565, namely : 

Board of maintenance of 55 assistants, at 20 cents a day, 

average, $4,015 

Uniform of same, at average of $10 per annum, 550 

Total, $4,565 

The whole expense for personal services is therefore $10,975; that is, for 522 
pupils, an expense of $21 a year each. 

Each individual employed may have twelve days' vacation a year, which are 
arranged according to his own convenience and that of the establishment, but so 
that not more than two are absent at the same time. 

The preparatory or training school of foremen continues to answer the purpose 
of its creation ; it is an actual seminary from which the establishment draws its 
best and most devoted officers. 

Admissions to the preparatory school are not allowed, except for very particular 
reasons, before the age of sixteen years ; they are much more frequently at sev- 
enteen and eighteen. 

No fee is demanded for the instruction ; the school provides for them, and gives 
them an education in the knowledge requisite for overseers, teachers, and farmers. 
They occupy a separate location, in the building with the infirmary. Tliey occupy, 
in case of need, the places of the lieads and sub-heads of families, act as substi- 
tutes generally, and serve as clerks. After a certain period of probation, those 
who have not the necessary qualities or capacity, are sent home to their femiliea. 



536 REFORM SCHOOL, OR COLONIE AGRICOLE, Al METTRAY. 

Of 157 pupils admitted to the preparatory school, up to 1st January, 1849, 36 
are still at Mettray, where they fill the places of secretary, treasurer, cashier, 
teacher, store watchman, conductor of labor, chiefs and sub-chiefs of families; 
9 have left Mettray, to enter the profession of teaching ; 14 are engaged in dif- 
ferent occupations, (roads and bridges, railroads, insurance offices, trades ; ) 10 
have entered the army ; 5 are farming overseers; 31 are practicing industrial 
occupations; 51 have left the school for want of capacity ; 1 is dead. 

Tlie school of foremen has now 12 pupils, of whom several intend to teach, 
and the others to practice horticulture or agriculture. 

NUMBER ADMITTED. 

The school proper has increased only slowly and progressively. During the 
ten years since its foundation, its numbers have enlarged as follows : 



December 31, 1840, 77 

" 1841, 134 

" 1842, 176 

" 1843, 221 

" 1844, 339 



December 31, 1845, 376 

" 1846, 425 

" 1847, 528 

" 1848, 526 

" 1849, 560 



The last reports on the condition of the school, in 1848 and 1849, furnish some 
interesting statistics, from which an opinion can be formed upon the actual condi- 
tion of the school, and the results up to this time of the arrangement and disci- 
pline introduced there. 

One thousand one hundred and eighty-four children have been admitted into 
the school, from its establishment in June, 1839, to December 31, 1849. In 
1849 alone, there were 144 admissions. 

Of this number were present, January 1, 1850, 546. In November, 1849, the 
number of pupils was 563 — the greatest since the opening of the school. 

Of 1040 children admitted up to 1st January, 1849, 237 were illegitimate, 742 
born of a first marriage, 61 were of parents married a second time. 

During the same time there entered 13 children under 7 years old, 222 imder 
12 years old, and 805 over 12. 

The 560 scholars who composed the school in the end of 1849, were occupied 
as follows: 336 farming, 71 gardening, 141 learning trades, 12 cooks, lamp- 
lighters in infirmary, &c. 

The occupations learned at Mettray are almost all connected with the labors of 
the field. Such are the trades of the wheelwright, blacksmith, farrier, carpenter, 
mason, wooden-shoe maker, shoemaker, tailor, rope-maker, sail-maker. The pupils 
have not made any additional clearings ; but they have dug a hundred acres 
of land, eighteen inches deep. They have also made and repaired all the roads 
of the school and the farm. The soil of the latter, although presenting some dif- 
ficulties on account of the boulders scattered over it, is nevertheless, in general, 
fertile. It produces gi-ain of all kinds, wine, cider, various fruits, legumes, fodder, 
madder, &c. 

The decree of the Provisory Government which put an end, in the beginning 
of 1848, to labor in the prisons and benevolent institutions, forced the authorities 
of Mettray to close half their workshops, and to send the hands to agricultural 
labor ; which explains the large number of pupils employed there. 

This change has not taken place without great embarrassments, and difficulties 
of daily occurrence. All peculiarities and characters are not fit for agricultural 
labor. The apprentice to a carpenter, a wheelwright, or blacksmith, who was 
just about becoming a journeyman, regretfully remembers his trade ; becomes 
disgusted with the labor of the farm ; and murmurs, and is dissatisfied at the 
government which condems him to involuntary labor. It is not now, as formerly, 
the preference or the talent of the children which must be consulted, but the ne- 
cessities of the new situation of the school. 

Notwithstanding these difficulties, the conduct of the pupils has continued good, 
as is shown by the register of honor. The average number of names in this re- 
gister, during 1849, has been 224 ; of whom are registered — 



For the first time, 56 

For the second time, 29 

For the third time, 18 



For the fourth time, 22 

For the fifth time, 19 

For the sixth time, 16 



REFORM SCHOOL, OR COLONIE AGRICOLE, AT METTRAY. 537 

For the seventh time, 12 I For the eleventh time, 5 

For the eighth time, . . ., 1 | For the twelfth time, 4 

For the ninth time, 9 P'or the thifteenth time, 4 

For the tenth time, 8 | For the fourteenth time, 5 

And one, each of the following numbered times — fifteenth, sixteenth, seven- 
teenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth, twenty-first. 

In 1847, of 509 pupils, were registered 226 names; in 1848, of 522 pupils, 
were registered 257 names ; and the same year 46 names were erased. The 
children remain in the school, in general, for a period of not more than tliree 
years ; and as the register of honor is written up every three months, it is easy 
to see why the number of names entered more than twelve times, is very small. 

Since the opening of the school, 528 pupils have been put in situations, 105 of 
whom were placed during 1849. Of these 528 — 150 are in military service, 
either by conscription or voluntary enlistment — 127 in the army, and 23 in the 
navy ; 17 are married, and most of them have children ; 150 have remained of 
irreproachable deportment ; 26 have conducted moderately well ; 6 have run 
away from their guardians ; 46 have relapsed. Of these last, .33 arc from towns, 
and 19 from Paris — the remaining 11 from the country. Their number may at 
first sight appear painfully large, but on considering the condition in which these 
children have been placed, it seems surprising that it is not greater ; for, of 528 
children leaving during ten years, 43 were foundlings ; 46 are of parents re- 
married, (step-children;) 222 have neither father or mother; 106 are illegiti- 
mate ; 18 are of parents living in concubinage ; 142 are of families of bad repu- 
tation ; 77 are of parents now in prison. 

With such parentage, was there not good reason to fear for their future? 

At Mettray, as at most otlier schools of the same class, it is often noticed that 
the children sent from the towns show repugnance to agricultural labor. Of 200 
pupils from the department of the Seine, 9 only have finally settled in that em- 
ployment. These children belonged mostly to families of mechanics, who spoke 
contemptuously, in their letters, of rural occupations. The children born in the 
country fortunately have different feelings. 

The annual reports furnish interesting details of the nature and results of the 
patronage extended to the dismissed pupils, and of the efforts made to find them 
situations. The success of these operations in 1848 and 1849, has surpassed the 
expectation of the directors. The number of pupils in situations increases year!}', 
and forms a numerous outside population, constituting really a second school, out- 
side the first. The correspondence of the officers with these young people is 
daily, and requires special agents and continual care. There is, in truth, almost 
no end to the assistance given to the pupils of Mettray. The establishment sus- 
tains to-day more than 509 pupils, whom it has really adopted, and whom it 
watches vigilantly ; and this number Is Increasing dally. But this occasions no 
fears to the authorities of the school, because they are convinced that for so good 
a work, there will never be any lack of sympathy. 

The pupils are permitted, when out of work, and until there is a good situation 
found for them, to re-enter the school and take their place temporarily in the 
family of which they formed a part. This receives them like a brother, and 
divides its food with them. 

The pupils who continue to conduct themselves well for two years after leaving 
Mettray, receive from the directors a symbolic ring with the device, " Faithful- 
ness surpasses all," (Loyaute passe tout.) 

The penalty of continued misconduct is the replacement of the pupil in the 
central establishment. This was inflicted during 1848 but three times — twice for 
innnorality, and once for assisting in an attempt to run away. 

The sanitary condition of the school is very satisfactory, and the number of 
deaths has been very small. From its foundation in 1840 to 1849, during 10 
years. It has lost only 59 children. The number and per centage of deaths during 
that period has been as follows : 



Year. 
1840 


Number. 

2 

7 

1 


Rate. 
1 to 51 
1 to 26 
1 to 40 
1 to 47 
1 to 144 


Per cent. 
=: 2 

= 4 

— 2A 
= 2\ 


Year. 

1845 


Number. 
4 


Rate. 
1 10 84 
1 10 76 
1 to .50 
1 to 51 
1 to 134 


Per cenl. 


1841 

1842 .... 


1846 

mr .... 

VS48 

lSi9 


7 

10 

17 

3 


— 2 


1843 .... 

1844 ... 


3 

5 


= 5 

= S 



538 REFORM SCHOOL. OR COLONIE AGRICOLE, AT METTRAY. 

Of the 17 pupils deceased in 1848, thirteen were diseased with pulmonary 
consumption, one with typhoid ftver, one with tuberculous meningitis, one with 
scrofulous consumpt.on, and one with dropsy. In 1849, of four deaths, two were 
from pulmonary consumption, one from typhoid fevei', and one from scrofula. 
This small mortality is the more surprising, because cholera and dysentery made 
great ravages in 1849 in Tours and the vicinity. 

The amount of mortality depends especially upon the health of the children 
when they arrive at the schools. According to the reports of tlie physicians em- 
ployed at Mettray, that place is perfectly healthful. The pupils liave up to this 
time escaped all the epidemic maladies which have ravaged the country. Inves- 
tigation of the register shows that the number of children admitted to the infirm- 
ary decreases in proportion to the increase of the length of their stay in the 
school ; which proves that their constitutions are invigorated under the regimen 
there established. 

Of 1184 children admitted at Mettray, up to December 31, 1849, 717 came 
completely ignorant; 270 had some notions of reading; 143 knew how to read 5 
54 only knew how to write. 

The pupils have 14 hours of school instruction a week, divided as follows : Re- 
ligious instruction, 2 hours; reading, writing, and arithmetic, 10 hours; vocal 
music, 2 hours. The chaplain also teaches the catechism an hour every day, to 
those children who have not received their first communion^generally 9-lOths 
of the whole. The elementary instruction given to the pupils is equivalent to 
that received by the mechanics in the towns. The classes are formed in each 
family under the direction and supervision of the head instructor. The cliiefs 
and sub-chiefs have assistants chosen fi'om among the pupils, and who receive daily 
a special lesson two hours long from the head instructor. At certain peiiods of 
the year, each family selects six of its best scholars who, together with those se- 
lected by the other families, write compositions. These exercises are followed by 
the delivery of prizes. By this double arrangement, of the daily classes in the 
families, and the meeting of them all, is secured all that emulation which springs 
from the strife of many competitors. 

One of the general inspectors of primary schools, who was recently sent to 
Mettray by the minister of public instruction, sums Up as follows the amount of 
instruction given at the time of his visit : 

"The pupils are children deprived, for the most part, until they come to Met' 
tray, of all instruction, moral or intellectual. All that is indispensable for them 
is the first rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic, and instruction in re- 
ligion. In addition to this, however, have beeh taught to the more intelligent, 
linear drawing and singing church music. Lessons in vocal and instrumental 
music are given to the best pUpils, by way of reward. 

Upon the whole, I am of the opinion that the school of Mettray deserves the 
testimony of your highest good wishes, and that it will be proper to grant to it a 
subsidy from the public funds, for the increase of the joint school established 
there for foremen and pupils." 

Besides the practical instruction resulting from the employing of the pupils in 
agriculture, they attend, once a week, a course of lessons in agriculture, horticul- 
ture and veterinary practice. The directors of Mettray propose to adopt for this 
course the course of study of the agricultural schools ; they also intend to estab- 
lish a special agricultural school for young persons other than the members of the 
school pi-oper, who may wish to study such a course, regarding for this purpose 
the usual course of cultivation in the neighborhoods 

The division of the pu|)ils into families is a characteristic of the discipline at 
Mettray : each family occupies a separate building, containing its dormitory, re- 
fectory, and school. This house is 39 feet long by 2U feet wide, and containing 
a basement and two stories. The outer room of the basement serves for a work- 
shop ; in some of the houses it is divided into compartments by a partition low 
enough to permit a single overseer in the middle, to inspect all the divisions, and 
high "enough to prevent the children, when seated, from seeing each other, or com- 
municating. The air circulates in the open space above, so as to keep all the com- 
partments at the same temperature, whatever the number of children employed 
in each. The first and second stories are each thrown into one spacious room, 
wliich, by an ingenious arrangement, serves in turn as dormitory, refectory, play- 



REFORM SCHOOL, OR COLONIE AGRICOLE, AT METTRAY. 539 

room in bad weather, and school -room. Two beams, fixed by a hinge at one end, 
are erect d against the wall, one on each side of the door. To arrange the refec- 
tory, these are lowered and resled on uprights; in vvh.eh posit. on they separate 
the room into two diV:sioiis, leaving a passage in the niiddie fur the overseers ; 
boards are la.d crosswise the room, upun the beams, resting npDii them and the 
wall, and the refectory is ready. To prepare the dornn'tory, nisiead of the boards 
ate arranged haminocks, stowed along the walls, which are taken down and hung 
to the beams. These hammocks are slung parallel to each other, but so that of 
every two children, the head of one is toward the wall, and of the other toward the 
beam. This arrangement hinders talking, and facilitates supeivisinn. Above eaclr 
is a cupboard containing the effects of the pupil, which he isreijuired to keep very 
neatly. 

At one end of the room is a small alcove shut in from it by blinds, permitting 
the occupant to look tlirough without being seen. Here the '" chi^f of the family'' 
sleeps. He has the supervision of two sections of 20 children each, and is assisted 
by a " sub-chief" and two " elder brothers," chosen from among the pup.ls. 

This arrangement is the same for all the houses except two, one of wli.oh serves 
for the lodging of the chaplain, and the other contains the business oftices of the 
school. The space of 33 feet, wh cli separates the houses from each other, is oc- 
cupied by sheds which serve as depositories for farming, and for shelter from rain. 
The house where the youngest of the children are lodged has been placed, by a 
touching inspiration, under the protection of Mary, the patron of the altiicted and 
of the motherless. The other houses have carved upon their fronts the names o( 
the individuals or towns whose l.berality contributed to the foundation of iMettray. 

The ten houses are arranged upon two sides of a spacious court, planted with 
shrubs and covered with turf Atone end of it is the church, a siinple and ma- 
jestic structure, rustic yet elegant ; at the other is a pavilion which serves as a 
dwelling house for M. de Metz, one of the directors. In front of this are erected 
the mast and spars of a ship, with their rigging and sails. This apparatus, wh'ch 
is quite perfect, is to be used for the exercises of the naval apprentices. It was 
presented to the school by the niinister of marine. 

To the right and left of the church are two buildings containing a large school- 
room, a store-room of farming tools and models, lodgings for assistants ; behind it 
is the house of correction, surrounded with a walled court-yard. This is a small 
prison consisting of cells, built so as to form a prolongation to the church ; so that 
the children when shut up may attend divine service, and s?e the priest at the 
altar, without leaving their cells, or seeing one another. This is arranged simply 
by drawing a screen. 

Around the house of correction are arranged the farm-yards and buildings, a 
handsome range of stables for cattle, barns, a piggery, horse-stables, a dairy, &c. ; 
and a little further the cemetery. The principal stable, which can accommr)date 
fifty head of cattle, is divided lengthwise by a wide passage, on both sides of which 
are arranged the mangers. 

Near the entrance to the establishment, but a little on one side, is a separjite 
building containing the infirmary, the laundry, the school of foremen, the apart- 
ments of the sisters of charity, the kitchen, the wash'i'oom, the bakery, the shop, 
&c. ; before it is the gymnasium and its apparatus ; behind it, the kitchen-garden. 

All the buildings have been erected after the plans of the architect M. Hlouet, 
who has himself directed the operations in the most honorably disinterested man- 
ner. From the accounts which we have seen, it appears that each house for pupils 
cost $1,520; the cow-house $.5,089.40, and the chapel and prison, .$18,934.20. 
Adding to the price of each house the sum of .$480 for movables and other ex- 
penses, we have a total of $2,000 ; equal to an annual expenditure of $100 for 
each family, and of $2.50 per pupil. 

The cemetery which stands some distance from the buildings, forms a parallelo- 
gram, where the graves are arranged in regular order. At the head of each is 
planted a cypress ; in the middle of the cemetery is erected a cross. The " elder 
brothers have the care of the cemetery. All the children attend the funerals : and 
the directors, on the.se occasions, address them in simple and touching words, 
which make upon their minds the impression which the funeral ceremony makes 
upou their imagination. 



540 REFORM SCHOOL, OR COLONIE AGRICOLE, AT METTRAY. 

The expenses of the school are so calculated as to furnish each pupil with neces- 
saries, but with no superfluities. 

The bedding consists of a simple hammoelc, a small grass mattress, a pillow, a 
pair of sheets, and one or two coverlids, according to the season. 

The wardrobe given to each pupil at his admission, contains, 

1 shirt, $1 .2 :» ; 2 blouses, $1 .34 ; 3 pair pantaloons, $2.07 ; 2 pair gaiters, $0.30 ; 
1 cap, $0.40 ; 1 straw hat, ,$0 25; 1 pair shoes, $1.20; 1 pair wooden shoes, 
$0.23; 2 blacking-brushes, $0.10 ; 1 hair-brush, $0.0.3 ; 1 comb-brush, $0.05 ; 

1 comb, $0.05; 1 black neckcloth, $0.20; 1 red do., $0.15; 1 woolen blouse 
$1.21 ; 1 woolen waistcoat for winter, $1.00 ; 1 pair drawers of fustian for winter, 
$0,40; total, $10.20. 

The shirts, and washed clothes in general, are owned in common ; and are 
changed often enough to obey the requirements of neatness. These clothes in- 
clude for each child 3 shirts, 3 handkerchiefs, and 2 pair winter stockings. 

At leaving, the pupil also receives a complete wardrobe, viz., 2 pair pantaloons, 

2 blue blouses, 1 waistcoat, 1 cap, 1 pair suspenders, 3 cotton shirts, 2 cravats, 3 
pocket-handkerchiefs, 3 pair under stockings, 1 pair shoes ; of which the expense 
is estimated at $ti.OO. 

The labor and age of the children require substantial nourishment, which is fur- 
nished as follcjws : 

Two days per week. 

Bread, 26^ lb. (7.50 gr.,) costing, $0.03.6 

Dinner ; meiit, four-tenths of a pound, legumes, bread, and soup,... 0.02 

Supper ; potatoes and butter ; salt and onions, 0.01 

Drink, 0.00.4 

$0.07 
Five days per week. 

Bread, 26i lb $0.03.6 

Dinner; beans or other legume, butter, salt, onions, 0.00.6 

Supper ; legumes, butter, 0.01.6 

Drink, 0.00.4 

$0.06.2 
The weekly board of each pupil at Mettray cost, September, 1849, $0.45 ; at the 
reform school of Ruysselede, at the same time, it was not over $0.28. 

The daily arrangement of time varies with the seasons. [See appendix.] 
At entering the school, the pupil is intei'rogated as to his birth, the condition of 
his family, the fault which brought him before the court, and in short all the de- 
tails of his short and often sad history. This information is entered in a register, 
where also is written afterwards v^'hatever concerns each pupil, his stay at the school, 
his conduct and situation after his departure. An examination of this moral 
account is very interesting ; it shows the good effect of the management and dis- 
cipline of the establishment. We made minute investigations into the elements of 
these modest annals, for the purpose of preparing a similar S3'stem, which we have 
introduced into the reform school at Ruysselede. 

After having been examined, the pupil is placed in a family, and set at work 
either on the farm or in a workshop, in a manner suitable to his age and strength, 
and as much as possible, to his individual fitness. It has been considered proper 
to teach or continue the child in the occupation of his family, if it have an honest 
one, for the pupil, at the expiration of his term,, should naturally return to his 
parents, and render them his services. This very practical considei-ation demands 
respectful attention. 

The classification by families establishes among the pupils who compose them a 
sort of community of interest and bf)nd of brotherhood. All feel under obligations 
to each, and each to all. Interest and emulation are excited among the pupils with 
as much skill as propriety. Part of the work is given out by tasks ; and the self- 
respect of the pupils urges them to show themselves worthy of this mark of confi- 
dence. They are taught to consider it honorable to be useful to their comrades, 
and especially to their masters ; and accordingly none are employed in detached 
services ; for cooking, baking, in the kitchen-garden and infirmary, in waiting 
upon the foremen's table, except those whose conduct has been good. From time 
to time are held general meetings of the pupils in the workshops ; the children 
decide on each others merits, and the highest receive a small individual reward. 



REFORM SCHOOL, OR COLONIE AGRICOLE, AT METTRAY. 54 1 

which is placed in the savings-bank. No regular wages are ever given for labor. 
Neither the payments nor prizes, of which we have spoken, are given, except to 
pupils whose names are upon the register of honor. The distribution is made once 
a week for the school, and once a month for the workshops ; the amount may 
average $5.00 per pupil. The elder brothers have a special payment of !$0.20 a 
month, besides a ration extra on Sunday, and for them, likewise the payments 
made for labor and good conduct are doubled. 

The classification of the pupils by families, as above remarked, is the peculiar 
characteristic and the pivot of the discipline of the school. The families are formed 
by means of a nucleus, around which are arranged and aggregated the new pupils. 
This plan allows of the preservation of the family feeling, and of its peculiarities and 
associations. The regulations inserted after this notice give complete information 
as to the organization and discipline of the famiUes, and the privileges and duties 
of the chiefs, sub-chiefs, and elder brothers. 

The elder brothers, chosen by the pupils within each family, can not inflict pun- 
ishments ; they only note marks for ill conduct. These bad marks are read by a 
director, on Sunday, in the general meeting of all the officers and pupils. In this 
same meeting, the director gives a detailed account of the situation of each family, 
distributes penalties and rewards, gives news from pupils gone and in places, 
reads extracts from their correspondence, and communicates all matters of interest 
to the school. 

Each chief of a family makes a special report on the conduct of the pupils ; 
this is read at the meeting of the chiefs of families and officers, which takes place 
every Saturday afternoon. At this meeting, over which a director presides, is 
arranged the outline of the report for the general meeting on Sunday, tlie list of 
rewards and punishments, &c. 

The punishments are as follows : 

1. Public admonition; 2. standing still — deprival of play; 3. dry bread for 
one or two meals ; 4. being shut in a cell on Sunday ; 5. imprisonment in 
lighted cell ; 6. ditto, in dark cell, (the duration of this imprisonment is never 
told, but it is not generally more than two or three days. The imprisoned pupils 
perform two hours' exercise a day, at an ordinary step, and at the gymnastic step, 
in the yard around the house of correction. During these exercises, the more 
culpable wear handcuffs ;) 7. dungeon for not more than three days ; 8. erasure 
from register of honor ; 9. replacement in the central establishment. 

Some offenses are adjudicated by the pupils themselves, who are appointed a 
jury for that purpose; the directors reserving only the power of moderating tha 
verdict. When a gross offense is committed, the foreman sends the offender to 
the " hall of reflection," an isolated apartment, where he remains some time 
before being visited by a director. During this interval, the child recovers from 
his auger, the director then hears his story, and punishment, if necessary, is never 
inflicted on him while irritated. 

Rewards are individual and collective. The latter are bestowed upon families, 
and consist of public eulogies, and of presents and tokens of remembrance, which 
are preserved with care. The others consist of eulogies, public likewise, gifts of 
articles of daily usefulness, rewards for labor and for application while in school, and 
favors of different kinds. But the principal encouragement, and that most valued, 
is registration in the register of honor, which is granted only to pupils who have 
been three months without punishment, and who have, besides, distinguished 
themselves for good conduct. 

All these ingenious details, showing the high order of intelligence which pre- 
sides at Mettray, and also a profound knowledge of the character of children, 
have been more or less imitated in most of the other reform schools, and espe- 
cially at that of Petit-Bourg, where we find the elder brothers under the name 
of monitors, the jury of pupils, the weekly meeting of officers, the register of 
honor, &c. 

We have seen that the industrial organization at Mettray received a rude blow 
by the decree of the provisional government (in 1849) above-mentioned. At the 
time of our visit, however, the workshops were beginning to be re-established. 
Of the 11 families in the school, 7 were more especially occupied in agriculture; 
the 4 others, although furnishing a certain number of agricultui'ists and horticxil- 



Winter wheat, 150 

Spring " 7^ 

Winter oats, , 52 

Spring " 8l( 

Mangel wurtzel, lit 

Peiis 3- 

In(Jian curn , 10 

Potatoes , , 8J 

Beans , , , , 7^ 



542 REFORM SCHOOL. OR COLONIE AGRICOLE, AT METTRAY. 

turists, were chiefly employed in the workshops, at wheelwrighting, blacksmith- 
ing, locksmithing, carpentry, shoemaking, tailoring, rope and sail-making. 

To have the right of changing to another woikshop, the pupil must rank among 
the fii'st three of his family, and be registered in the register of honor. 

The school cultivated, at first, only 80 acres ; it has now extended its improve- 
ments to more than 500 acres. Of this extent it owns about 37 acres ; the re- 
mainder is leased from neighboring proprietors. 

In 1847, the division as to crops was as follows : 

Acres. Acres. 

Winter vetches, , 20 

Spring " 15 

Grnpe vines, , , 20 

Meadow 62J 

Hemp 3 

Kilohen-garden 22J 

Jerusiileni artichokes, ,, 2i 

Clover, sant'oin, 23 

Wood 10 

Total 49H' 

There are, moreover, 15 J acres, occupied by play-grounds, roads, buildings, 
underwood, and pastui'e, making a total of 505 acres, the entire domain of the 
school. 

Numerous springs rise from the slopes. A small river and a brook flow the 
whole length of the farm, from northeast to south. The brook is used to irrigate 
an extent of 37^ acres. The river can not b^^ used for that purpose, being used 
by a number of mills, very near each other. The school has no manufacturing 
establishment ; but it owns a grist-mill with three run of stones, to which miglit 
be added a cleaning machine, or a machine for cutting woolen rags. The farm- 
ing apparatus is sufiicient. 

Three families of pupils live on three farms worked by the school. A fire 
which occurred upon the farm of Gaud.eres, but which was soon put out, occa- 
sioned this arrangement. It was supposed that one watchman was not sufficient 
during the night. Providence, as it always does, brought good out of evil ; aux- 
iliary schools have thus been founded, which may serve as models for establish- 
mjnts smaller than ftjjttray. We know that this system of small schools has 
long existed in Switzerland and Germany, where it lias produced the best results. 
It has been advocated in France by the lion. M. de Rainneville, who has put it 
in practice on his farm of Allonville, near Amiens. M. Achille Duclesieux has 
also devoted himself enthusiastically to its introduction into Brittany, having suc- 
cessfully established an experimental school at Saint Ilan, (Morbihan,) 

Besides the chief and sub-chief of the family occupying it, there is attached to 
each farm at Mettray a farming overseer and a female liousekeeper. Each farm 
occupies from 75 to 100 acres. The buildings are so arranged as to contain, 
bisides the barn and stable, the necessary room for the housekeeping and lodging 
of the family. There is a common kitchen, and a separate room for the chief. 
The apartment of the pupils is arranged so as to serve in turn for sleeping room, 
refectory, school-room, and covered play-ground. It is usually from 45 to 52 feet 
long, and from 23 to 26 feet wide. For securing a healthy atmosphere are used 
ventilators, in the ceiling. The furniture consists of a hammock for each pupil, 
three pair of tables, twelve benches, shelves along the wall for stowing property, 
two cupboards, the sub-chiefs bed, and the cooking apparatus and farming tools, 
An inventory is given in appendix F. The cost of furnishing the establishment, 
and putting it in working order, may be estimated at (1,100 to 1,200 francs) 
$220 to $240. The school furnishes provisions for, and directs the administra- 
tion of the three farms, although each of them has its separate accounts, kept by 
the chief of the family. 

In other respects, the regulations and discipline of the detached families upon 
the farms, are quite the same as those of the families resident at the central 
establishment. In case of sickness, the pupils are carried to the central infirmary 
and treated there. Every Sunday the detached families pass the day at the cen- 
tral school, and join in the exercises, meetings, and sports of the other families, 
Thus is maintained the common bond among them. 

Agricultural labor is the principal occupation at Mettray now, and the existing 
workshops can be considered only as dependencies upon the agricultural establisljr 



REFORM SCHOOL, OR COLONIE AGRICOLE, AT METTRAY. 



543 



ment. This state of thinjEfs demands the greatest care ia cultivation, which unfor- 
tunately is by no means in a satisfactory condition. Being pressed by circum- 
stances, and by the necessity of extending the ai'ea of cultivation in proportion to 
the growing number of inmates, the direotoi-s at Mettray have had to struggle 
with great local difficulties. Much of the land hired requires labor, long, costly, 
and difficult for children to perform. Many large stones must be moved before 
the plow or spade can be used. Tliis slow operation is hardly performed before 
the leases expire. The school, therefore, probably does not recover its advances, 
and the proprietors of the land, aind not the school itself, receive the advantage 
of its severe labors. Add to this the frequent change of the farming overseers, 
each using a different system and diflerent processes, and it is easy to account for 
the unfavorable pecuniary result of the agricultural operations of Mettray. In 
1848. this branch of the establishment incurred a considerable debt, which has 
probably now been paid ; but the necessity is demonstrated of a radical and intel- 
ligent reform in this department. The directors are seriously occupied about this 
matter ; if we might offi.'r them our advice, it would be, to inquire in the first 
place if it would not be best to limit cultivation to the land already cleared and in 
good condition, and to turn the rest, if possible, into meadows. By concentrating 
upon the former the labor and the manure which have proved insufficient for too 
extended an area, there would no doubt be obtained crops better, and relatively 
more abundant. The kitchen-garden in particular should be so enlarged as not 
only to answer the demands of the establishment, but to yield a surplus, which 
would probably find a market in the neighborhood and at Tours. 

The school at Mettray has ever since its its origin enjoyed lively sympathies, 
commanded not only by its object and its usefulness, but also by the personal 
character of its founders. General and municipal councils, courts of appeal, civil 
and commercial tribunals, royal and private families, all have hastened to its aid. 
Juries have made collections for it. M. Leon d'Ourches has given to Mettray 
$32,000. Others, instead of giving money, have generously provided the school 
with farming tools, clothes, books for the library, pictui'cs, vases, and ornaments 
for the church. These unostentatious ofTerings have been considerable. The 
government has not confined itself to paying all the personal expenses of the 
children confined there, but has also assisted the establishment with considerable 
annual appropriations, 

The ordinary expenses from 1839 to 1848, were . . $117,519.74 

E.xtraordinary do., 96,297.38 

Total expenses, $213,817.12 



Receipts from without, $187,365.98 

" at home, 12,071.27 

Total receipts, 

Balance of expenses over receipts,. . . . 



$199,437.25 



$14,379.87 

The annual expense for maintenance of pupils, assistance of dismissed pupils, 
school of foremen, and advancement of cap' tal, (amortissement du capital,) divided 
by the number of pupils at Mettray, gives ihe following results : 



Year. 

1840 


Populntion. 

.57 

113 


per 


Expense 
head per day. 

... $0,46,1 
21.4 


Year. 
1845, , 


Population. 
34.5,... 


per 


Expense 
head per day. 

.. «0.26 9 


1841 


1846 

1847, 


400, . . . 




.27.9 


1842 


160 




.20.9 
.28 3 


459,... 




.26.1 


1843, 


188,.... 


1848 


509,... 




.20.1 


1844 


289 




.26.3 


1849 


536,... 




.19. 



It appears that the expense has regularly decreased, according to the increase 
of the population. This diminution has continued through 1848 and 1849, in 
spite of the breaking up of the workshops and of the consequent decrease of 
profits on labor. This result is due to the economy introduced by the directors 
into different branches of the service. By persevering in this course, reorganize 
ing its mechanical labor, and adopting a system of agriculture which shall put an 
end to deficits and bring in a profit, the school of Mettray will undoubtedly suc- 
ceed, in a short time, in overcoming the difficulties which it has hitherto encoun- 
tered, and in settling its organizjition upon a firm financial basis. This is the 
more necessary, since the government, after 1849, pays oply 14 cents a day, 



)44 



REFORM JSCHOOL, OR COLONIE AGRICOLE, AT METTRAY. 



instead of 16, for each pupil, and only $14.00, instead of $16,00, for wardrobe at 
entrance. 

APPENDIX. 
A. — Employment of Time. 

Summer 



SUNDAYS AND FEAST-DATS. 



Hours. 



WORKINO DATS. 



5. Rise, make beds. 

5^. Dress, wash, &c. 

5j. Distribution of work. 

7|. Breakfast, and play. 

84. Distribution of work. 
12|. End of work. 

2. Sciiool begins. 

3i. Distribution of work. 

6i. Instrumental band practice. 

1%. End of work ; put up tools. 

8. Supper. 

8J. Prayer ; evening singing. 

9- Bedtime. 
10. Curfew. 



5. Rise, arrange beds, and clothes, &c. 
5J. Dressing, washing, &c. ; prayer. 

6. General cleaning up. 

7. Breakfast, and play hours. 

8. Mass. 
94. General meeting for discipline. 

104. Play. 

llj. Military exercise • exercise with fire- 
pump. 
Dinner and play. 
Vespers and benediction. 
Gymnastics. 

Moral lesson, by director, or school. 
Baths, or play. 
Supper. 
7j. Prayer, singing, and arrange property. 
84. Bedtime. 
10. Curfew. 
Note.— Elder brothers are chosen the first Sunday of each month 
Winter Season. 

SUNDAYS AND FEAST-DAYS. 

Hours. 

C. Rise, make bed ; order, effects. 

6A. Dress, wash, &c. ; prayer. 

6J. General cleaning of house, &c. 

7i. Breakfast, and play. 

8. Mass. 

9i. General meeting for discipline, &c. 
lOi. Play. 

Hi. Exercises; military, and with fire 
engine. 

1. Dinner, and play. 

2. Vespers, and benediction. 

3. Gymnastics. 

5. Moral instruction, or school. 

6. Reading class. 

7. Supper. 

7J. Prayer, singing ; oraermg, effects. 

8J. Bedtime. 

10. Curfew. 

Note. — Elder brothers are chosen on the first Sunday of each month. 
B. — Regvlatwns of Infirmary. 

1. The infirmary is directed by a sister of charity ; it is a place of quiet and repose ; 
silence must always be observed there; order and propriety must always reign there ; 
children making troulile will be marked the first time, and punished by the sister, if 
they renew their disorderly conduct, they will be removed to a cell, where their med- 
icSil treatment will be continued. 

2. The police regulation of the infirmary belongs to the superior of the sisters of 
charity, and to the sister having charge there. The pupils must treat them with obedi- 
ence and respect ; failure to do which would be ungrateful. 

3. Each bed is numbered. 

4. Each pupil entering the infirmary will be taken thither by the chief of the family, 
who will deliver him directly into the hands of the sister in charge. The sister 
will enter in a register opened for the purpose, the pupil's name, the letter of his family, 
the number of the bed he occupies, and the date of his entrance. 

5. At the first visit of the physician shall be entered, if practicable, in a special 
column, the nature of the disease. 

6. Two registers shall be opened, one for the entrance and discharge of pupils, and 
the number of days passed in the infirmary, and the other for prescriptions and medical 
observations. 



Hours. 


WORKING DATS. 


6. 


Rise, make beds. 


6i. 


Dress, wash, &c. 


6.V. 


Distribution of work. 


11 


Breakfast, and play. 


84. 


Distribution of work. 


12-45. 


End of work. 


1. 


Dinner, and play. 


2. 


Distribution of work. 


6. 


School. 


7. 


Supper. 


1%. 


Prayer, singing. 


8. 


Bedtime. 


10. 


Curfew. 


Instrumental music three times a week, 


at noon. 



REFORM SCHOOL, OR COLONIE AGRICOLE, AT METTRAY. 545 

7. A journal shall also be kept by the sister, of the conduct of the children in the 
infirmary, in which she shall enter the punishments inflicted by her, and the offenses 
requiring severer penalties. The foreman on guard shall come for this journal every 
Saturday, and carry it to the council, where it shall be read, and shall carry it back, 
every Sunday morning. 

8. In the absence of the sister, the pupils shall obey the pupil in charge, who shall 
make note of all offenses, and report them to the sister. 

9. Each pupil shall come to the infirmary dressed in a cap, neckcloth, blouse, panta- 
loons, and shoes, and shall have his comb and hair-brush. The sister shall give the 
chief of the family a receipt for the linen and other effects brought by the pupil. If 
any pupil shall come without the above articles, the pupil in charge of the infirmary 
shall get them from the chief of the family alone. 

JO. Every pupil discharged from the infirmary shall be delivered to the foreman on 
guard, to wliom the sister shall send word by the pupil in charge, at a quarter before 
eight in the evening, on Monday and Friday, when he goes to supper. The foreman 
on auard, at his return lo duly, shall send the pupil to the chief of his family. To 
facilitate this service, the sister shall give the list of pupils leaving, daily, to the over- 
seer of labor, who shall insert it in hi.s report. 

11. The coming of the physician shall be announced by a signal. The fiupil in 
charge of the infirmary shall touch the bell, upon which the foreman on guard shall 
cause the trumpet to sound. This visit takes place twice a week, on Monday and 
Friday. 

12. The chief of the house of correction shall report to the physician, at each visit, 
the sanitary condition thereof 

13. No pupil shall be taken to see the doctor without-the written certificate of the 
chief of his family. The night guard is especially charged to take them to the doctor, 
upon proof that they have such certificate. 

11. There shall take place a dressing (pansement) every day at half-past eleven, for 
sick pupils. The foreman on guard shall conduct them to it regularly, with an elder 
brother, so that the pupils shall be at the infirmary at iialf-jiast eleven. 

15. Any pupil falling sick during working hours, shall be put forthwith under charge 
of the chief of his family, who alone shall have authority to conduct him to the infirmary. 
In his absence, the sub-chief shall perform this duty in his [)lace. 

IG. The treatment ordered for pupils sick at the familj', shall be explained by a note 
which the sister shall send to the chief of the family, who shall superintend the execu- 
tion of the directions. 

17. Whenever the directors shall enter the infirmary, all pupils not confined to their 
beds shall place themselves at the foot of their beds, and remain there until the gen- 
tlemen go out. 

C. —Regulations for Chief of Family. 

1. The school is divided into families of 40 children. Each of them is directed by a 
chief, who is under the immediate supervision of the head secretary. 

2. The insignia of the chief of a family are two ornaments worked upon the sleeves, 
and black velvet on the cap. He has authority over all officers of a grade lower than 
his own. 

3. The chief of a family has under his orders a sub-chief and two elder brothers, 
who assist him in the supervision of the family. He reads, every month, to his sub- 
chief and elder brothers their duties. 

4. The chief of a family has charge of the education of its children. He oversees 
their primary instruction, under the direction of the teacher. He has charge of their 
dress and support, attends to their wants, corrects their faults ; in a word, he is the 
father of the family, and is to fulfill all the duties of the station to the children, as if he 
were so in every respect. 

5. The chief of the family keeps the journal and all papers belonging to the family. 
He has charge of the correspondence of those who can not write, but he is forbidden to 
mail them until they have been left unsealed at the business office of the administration. 

6. He is responsible for all the property and keeping of his house, linen, furniture, 
bedding, clothing, lighting, in short every thing upon the inventory of the family. 

7. The chief of a family should understand the platoon exercise, for the purpose of 
managing his family the better during general meetings. He presides over all the 
sports and movements of the family, watches over its order, and its work, the good 
condition and neatness of his house, and all his children. He makes an inspection of 
property daily, and one of clothing weekly. 

8. He lives all the time with his family. He rises first, and goes to bed last. He 
keeps at hand the keys of his doors and cupboards, shuts the house at night after curfew, 
during religious services, Sundays and feast-days. 

9. The chief of a family inflicts punishment upon his children, conducts to the parlor 
those who have committed a grave offense, and to the infirmary those who are sick. 
He sends to the night-guard, with a written certificate, all children of his family whom 
the doctor should see, and who are not permitted to be so seen without such certificate. 

35 



546 REFORM SCHOOL, OR COLONIE AORICOLE, AT METTRAY. 

10 He is to visit at least twice a week, those of his children who are in the cells or 
the infirmary, and to report such visits to the directors. 

11. Every Saturday he receives from the sister having charge of the washing, the 
clean linen, and every Monday he delivers her the dirty linen. He is forbidden to 
retain any thing. He receives also for safe keeping all articles given to the good pupils. 

12. Whenever the chief of the family is not at the same time foreman of a work- 
shop, he is occupied during working hours in some of the business offices. 

13. He directs a division in school, attends the music class, gymnastics, baths, and 
all the meetings of the whole school. 

14. He performs in his turn the service of day and night watchman, and of waiting on 
visitors. 

15. The chief of a family has leave of absence for a day every month, and every 
year a vacation. Whenever he wishes to be absent from the school, he will notify the 
secretary the evening before, who will report the same to the directors. 

16. The chief of the family is allowed to be up, in his room, until curfew ; at which 
time every one else in the house must be in bed. 

17. The chief of the family is recommended not to have any thing about which may 
tempt the pupils. 

18. The chiefs of the families will send all the children to the foremen of the work- 
shops, and the latter will send the children, at their return, to the chiefs; during these 
movements, the pupils should always be in their ranks. The chiefs of families will not 
detain any pupil from his work, or call him off from it, without having received written 
orders therefor. 

19. If the chief of a family finds its impossible to perforin his duty, from sickness 
or any other valid reason, he will immediately notify the secretary, who will fill his 
place. 

20. The chiefs of families will call the children down from their meals by sound of 
trumpet, for the purpose of sending the sick to receive the physician's visit, or the 
dressinif, every day at 25 minutes past one at latest. 

21. For communications relating to their duties, the chiefs of families are to report 
themselves at half-past ten every morning to the director, who will attend to their 
requisitions, and give his personal attendance at their families, if it should be 
required. 

D.— Regulations of Sub-Chief of Family. 

1. Each family is divided into two sections. The sub-chief commands one of them, 
under direction of the chief 

2. The insignia of the office of sub-chief are a lace sewed upon the sleeve. He 
commands all officers of a grade below his own. 

3. The sub-chief is under the immediate orders of the chief, and should pay him 
obedience and respect. 

4. The sub-chief assists the chief in supervision, and in taking care of the pupils 
during play-hours, in the sleeping and eating rooms, and whenever the family is 
together. 

5. He fills the place of the chief, when the latter is absent. He should understand 
the theory, and be able to command the manoeuvres, of the platoon exercise. 

6. The sub-chief notes all offenses committed by the pupils, and reports them to the 
chief, who alone has power to inflict punishments. 

7. The sub-chief keeps the attendance roll of the family, by letters and numbers. 
He calls the roll three times a day, and keeps himself constantly certified of the 
presence of the pupils. He marks all the effects of each pupil with his matriculate 
number. 

8. He has speciaf supervision of the pupil in waiting, and of those whose duty it is 
to clean up after every meal, and on Sundays. 

9. The sub-chief teaches one division of pupils. He should be present at music 
class, exercises, gymnastics, baths, and all times when the school is together. 

10. He performs in his turn the duty of day and night watch, of waiting on visitors, 
and of filling the place of foreman of a workshop. 

11. The sub-chief is allowed to sit up in his room at night until curfew, when all 
others in the house must be in bed. 

12. From the first distribution of work until breakfast, the sub-chief may attend in 
the monitor's class, to compilete his education. 

13. The sub-chief will not be absent on any pretext, without having notified his 
chief. 

14. The sub-chief has a day's leave of absence every month, and a vacation every 
year. Whenever he may wish to be absent from, the school, he will notify the secre- 
tary in writing the evening before, who will report the request to the directors. 

15. The sub-chiefs are recommended not to have any article about them, which may 
tempt the pupils. 

IG. Whenever from sickness, or other valid reason, the sub-chief can not perforo) 
his duties, he will forthwith notify the secretary, who will supply his place. 



REFORM SCHOOL, OR COLOME AGRICOLE, AT METTRAY. 547 

17. The sub-chief will not join in any of the plays of the pupils. He is forbidden 
to read or write, during the hours of recreation, with his colleagues, or any one else. 

Note. — The best chief is not he who speaks loudest ami punishes ol'tenest, but he who gives 
just commands, whose words are concise, persuasive, and such as to command respect, and 
. who punishes seldom. 

The intelligent chief should study the character of his children, so as to be able to adapt 
his words and manner to the age and peculiarity of each. 

E — Rebilatio.ns for the Elder Brothers. 

1. The elder brother is chosen by the pupils, by secret ballot. He must be chosen 
from among the names on the register of honor. If the director approves the choice 
which has been made, he announces the appointment for one month, gives him an 
embrace, and attaches to his sleeve the lace which i.s the ensign of his office. The 
elder brother will merit the title and the confidence bestowed upon him, by exemplary 
conduct, 

2. The elder brother may be re-elected. 

3. There are to be two elder brothers in each family. 

4. At the first sound of the trumpet the elder brother will rise, will order the rest to 
rise, will dress himself promptly, assist the young children, and help the chief and 
sub-chief in the supervision of the dormitory, and of washing and dressing. 

5. In the family and workshoji, in all the exercises within the house, and wherever 
he may he, the elder brother will assist his chiefs in supervision, will see that all move- 
ments from place to place, within the house, are made with propriety, silence, order, 
and regularity. He will reprimand pupils committing the slightest error, and will mark 
in a book used for that purpose, those who do not obey his first admonition. 

6. When the family is together, the first elder brother carries the colors, and stands 
at the right hand of the first rank ; the second behind him, in the rear rank. They will 
dress the ranks of the pupils, and should learn to direct the manoeuvres of the piatooa 
exercise. 

7. The elder brother will assist the chief and sub-chief in supervision of sports. It 
is there that he is to occupy himself earnestly in preventing disputes, imprudence, and 
impropriety, in rejiroving gross expressions, and lorbidding dangerous games. 

8. It is the special duty of the elder brother, through the pupil in charge, to maintain 
the dormitories, the interior of the house, and the sheds, in constant neatness. 

9. The elder brother, under direction of the chief and sub-chief, will announce bed- 
time, and will see that the proper movements are orderly made. 

10. The elder brother, who shall see any grave violation of rules, shall immediately 
report it 10 the chief of his family, or the loreman of his workshop. 

11. An elder brother is designated every day in turn, to assist at the dressing (at the 
infirmary.) 

12. The elder brother is exempt from all extraordinary services. 

We can not better close this extended account of the Mettray jnsti- ' 
tution, than by quoting the published opinions of an English and Amer' 
lean observer. 

M. D. Hill, Esq., recorder of Birniingham, thus speaks of a visit to 
Mettray in 1848: "In the year 1848 I made my way to Mettray, near 
Tours, in France. 1 was received with the utmost kindness, and ad- 
mitted into the fullest confidence by M. Demetz. the illustrious founder 
of the institution — a judge who descended from the bench because he 
could not endure the pain of consigning children to a prison when he 
knew their future would be made worse than their pasl. 1 examined, 
or rather cross-examined, each department of the institution, with all 
that unamiable incredulity which jhirty years' practice at the bar may 
be supposed to have generated; 1 began with a sort of prejudice — a 
determined siispicion — fighting my way backward, step by step, until, 
as proofs advanced, the conclusion was forced upon me that my position 
was untenable. I found that at Mettray. where they possess and exer- 
cise the power of compulsory retention, and where, for desertion, a boy 
is sent back to the prison from which he had been withdrawn — the 
amount of reformation reached to what I at first thought the incredible 
proportion (but which I fully verified) of 85 per cent." 



548 REFORM SCHOOL, OR COLONIE AGRICOLE, AT METTRAY. 

Mr. Coleman, in his European Agriculture, after giving a brief de- 
scription of Mettray, as an agricultural institution, remarks: "When 
one looks at the innumerable herds of children, turned, as it were, adrift 
in a great city, not merely tempted, but actually instructed, stimulated," 
and encouraged in crime, and observes them gradually gathering in and 
borne onwards on the swift current with increasing rapidity to the pre- 
cipice of destruction, until escape becomes almost impossible, how can 
we enough admire the combined courage, generosity, and disinterested- 
ness, which plunges in that it may rescue some of these wretched vic- 
tims from that frightful fate which seems all but inevitable? 1 do not 
know a more beautiful, and scarcely a more touching, passage in the 
Holy Scriptures than that which represents the angels in Heaven as. 
rejoicing over a repenting and rescued sinner. It is, indeed, a ministry 
worthy of the highest and holiest spirits, to which the Supreme Source 
of all goodness and benevolence has imparted any portion of his Divine 
nature. 

"If we look at this institution even in a more humble and practical 
view, as atibrding a good education in the mechanical and agricultural 
arts, its great utility can not be doubted : and much good seed will be 
sown here, which, under the blessing of God, is sure to return excellent 
and enduring fruits. 

"I should have said before, that there is connected with the institu- 
tion a hospital which was a model of cleanliness, good ventilation, and 
careful attendance ; all the services of which were rendered by those 
indefatigable doers of good, the Sisters of Charity." 



AGRICULTURAL AND HORTICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL 



PETIT-BOURG. 



The Agricultural school of Petit-Bourg was founded in 1844, by the society for 
assisting poor children and youth, foundlings, abandoned children and orphans, in 
France, and especially within the department of the Seine and Seine-et-Oise. 
The society of which Count Portalis was president, is located at Paris ; and the 
school occupies the ancient property of M. Aquado, at Evry-sur-Seine : which 
includes a large chateau and its dependencies, and a park of about 150 acres, 
bounded partly by walls, partly by the railroad of Oorbeil. The estate is beauti- 
fully situated upon sloping ground on the river Seine. Water is brought to it by 
extensive works, from a distance of several miles. It is conducted plentifully into 
the kitchen-garden, (ten acres, inclosed with high walls and intersected with 
ten other low walls for montreuil espaliers,) after which it enters large basins which 
serve for swimming-baths, and to supply the wash-rooms and other domestic uses. 
Paved or sanded yards, alleys of horse-chesnuts. ploughed land, large and beauti- 
ful meadows, and copses, afford opportunities for exercise, sufficient for all 
purposes. 

In the kitchen-garden are a poultry-yard, a small piggery, and a building with 
eleven front windows, containing good cellars, and in the basement story, apart- 
ments used in the working of the kitchen-garden, and for workshops for trades 
not noisy. The first story is occupied by the laundry, the drug shop, the room for 
convalescents, the infirmary, containing 16 beds and warmed by a stove, and by 
apartments for sundry persons employed in the institution. In the upper story are 
several cells for punishment. 

Within the same garden, a large building, formerly used as an orangery, has 
been fitted up for the use of the pupils ; it contains a spacious dormitory, which 
will contain, if necessary, 160 children ; there are also two school-rooms, one for 
the assistants and the other for the pupils, and a wardrobe. The large apartment 
is arranged to serve successively for a sleeping-room, school-room, refectory, and 
covered play-ground. By a simple, easy, and rapid manoeuvre, all the furniture of 
the room disappears as if by enchantment ; the tables rise close to the ceiling, and 
while the movable posts supporting them are placed in receptacles where they do 
not obstruct the room, the hammocks which were near the windows are moved 
close up to the wall, and those in the middle of the room rise to hide and ventilate 
themselves in the garret, by means of trap-doors. The idea of this arrangement 
was borrowed from the agricultural school at Mettray, and is to be found in the 
school of Val d'Yevre and in other establishments of the same kind. 

The dormitory contains four rows of hammocks, and two aisles, at the ends of 
which are the more elevated hammocks of the overseers ; who by this means can 
see all that passes in all the beds of the children without trouble. It is lighted dur- 
ing the night, and ventilated by apparatus hke that used in most of the prisons of 
Belgium. 

Above the dormitory is a garret which serves for a drying-room .; and con- 
nected with the same building is a shed, which is used as a repository for farming 
tools, and for stables and cow-house. 

The chateau is occupied in the basement by apartments for schools and for the 
family of the director. 

The first story is partly occupied by sleeping-rooms for the pupils. 

The kitchen and its appurtenances, the pantry, the wash-room, the milk-room, 
&c., are in the cellars, which are of great extent. 

At the time of our visit, (September 2, 1849,) the number of scholars was 130. 
It was about being increased to 250, by receiving a number of ytning criminals, 



550 HORTICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OF PETITBOURG. 

acquitted in court as having acted without discernment, but detained under the 
66th article of the penal code. This addition has since been made ; the young 
prisoners have taken the place of poor and orphan children, and consequently the 
estiiblishment at Petit-Bourg must now be reckoned among the reform schools. 

The information collected by us relates to the first period of organization ; which 
fact should be recollected in reading what follows. 

The scholars at Petit- Ijourg may be divided into two classes ; 1 . poor children and 
orphans, placed here by the hospitals and asylums at an expense of $24 a year, 
besides clothes ; 2. boarders, paying $70 the first year, and $50 for each subse- 
quent year, always besides clothes. The number of this last class is 30. 

The age of admission is generally set at eight years ; the time of staying in the 
school may be as long as 5 yeai's. This length is required, in fact, by the interest 
both of pulpit and school ; by imparting mechanical skill to the former, and thus 
enabling him to repay part of the expense borne for him by the latter. 

The ofliicers of the school are fourteen, viz. : 

A director without salary, having only lodging, board and fuel, washing, &c., 
for himself and family. This place is filled by M. Allier, who may be considered 
as the real originator and founder of the institution. 

A book-keeper, paid $160.00 

A teacher, " 200.00 

An overseer of farming, " 200.00 

A gardener, " 140.00 



A horticulturali.st, 

A cutler and blacksmith, 

A carpenter, 

A wagon-maker, 

Two farm laborers, 

A cook, 

Two overseers, one {It $80, and one at $40.00. 



paid from $80.00 to $100.00 



Several women are also employed in different capacities, in the laundry, wash- 
room, infirmary, on the farm, &e. 

All these persons receive lodging, board, and general maintenance. They wear 
no particular costume, and may be married. 

The pupils arrive at half-past four in summer, and at half-past five in winter. 
Their bedtime is, nine in summer, and eight in winter. 

Each pupil has his own wardrobe, marked with his number. The dress is a 
blue blouse for work, a Scotch blouse for Sunday, and gray linen pantaloons in 
summer. In winter, the pantaloons are of cloth of the color of yellow earth, and 
under the blouse, a waistcoat with sleeves, of the same material with the panta- 
loons. Instead of wooden shoes are worn, in summer, laced boots, and in winter, 
clogs with wooden soles. The cap is of felt, varnished on the top only, and with 
the words " Petit-Bourg'' in front. Each pupil has also a woolen overcoat for 
severe weather. Recently pantaloons have been introduced, made of two different 
colors, to prevent escapes as much as possible. 

The bedding consists of a hammock, containing a mattress and small pillow of 
grass, a sack, instead of sheets of linen or cotton, one cotton coverlid in summer, 
and two in winter. In the infirmary, the pupils have, upon an iron bedstead, a 
grass mattress, a woolen mattress, a coverlid of cotton and another of gray woolen, 
two common sheets, and a pillow of feathers. 

Besides the dormitory, there are other sleeping rooms, containing from 15 to 
20 pupils. Each sleeping-room, is lighted all night, and has its monitor, who is 
chosen from among the pupils, and charged to preserve o7-der and silence. Besides 
these overseers, an overseer on guard passes continually through all the sleeping- 
rooms in succession, during the night. 

At eight o'clock in the morning the pupils have a piece of bread for breakfast; 
at noon and at night, soup, and one dish besides. They have meat three times a 
week, including Sunday ; salt meat twice, and fresh meat once. Their only drink 
is water. 

The elementary instruction given to the pupils comprehends reading, writing, 
spelling, and arithmetic. There is added a little land-surveyinsr, geography, linear 
design, singing, gymnastics, swimming, and use of fire-engine. There is also a 
course of agriculture and horticulture for those pupils intending to become farmers. 



HORTICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OF PETIT BOURG. 55 1 

The religious instruction is given by the priest of the commune, who acts as 
chaplain. The pupife attend the village churcli, which is situated within the park 
inclosure. 

As soon as the pupils arrive at the school, they are employed for about a fort- 
nigTit in the kitchen-gardens, or in the fields, to allow thein to gain health and 
Ktreiiglh, in which they are often deficient. They are then admitted to the work- 
shops ; their occupation being selected as nearly as possible with reference to their 
especial aptitude for it. 

Several workshops have been established ; of tailors, shoemakers, locksmiths, 
carpenters, cabinet-makers, house-painters. 

According to the agreements made with the foiemen of these workshops, the 
labor of the children is disposed of to them by contract, and they account to the 
school for it, at a fixed pricre per day for each pupil. 

This price varies of course, according to the nature of the occupation •, but it 
ought during the first year, to amount to an income averaging $16.00 for each 
pupil, and equal to one-third of the expense of their board and maintenance. 

This income the second year, ought to average $46.00 ; and to cover the entire 
personal expenses of the pupil. 

Afterwards, to the end of the apprenticeship, this income should increase so as 
to bring to the school a net profit equal at least to the advances of the first year. 

A part of this income should be laid up for a reserve fund for the pupil. The 
amounts applied to this fund should be entered in a book in the saving's bank, and 
it was supposed that the society would be able to add to it, from beneficiary funds, 
a greater or less amount, according to the conduct of the pupil in the workshops, 
his capacity, and his devotion to his fellow-pupils and to the school. 

All sums thus entered in the bank-book, should draw interest at 3 per cent., 
and should not become the property of the pupil unless he have observed punctu- 
ally the agreement made between the society and his family. Departure before 
the time agreed upon, besides giving a right of civil action against the family, 
should deprive the pupil of all his rights to any sum in bank, and of participation 
in all other favors which the society might bestow upon him at the time of his 
going, such as wardrobes, tools, pocket-money, nomination of a patron, &c. 

These ingenious contrivances to receive the apprenticeship of the pupils, reim- 
bursement of their expenses to the society, and provision for their future welfare, 
do not appear to have answered the expectations of their originators. The con- 
tractors have failed, or have not accepted the conditions attempted to be imposed 
on them. Consequently, except a few workshops of small importance, working 
entirely for the institution, agriculture is the principal and almost the only occupa- 
tion of the pupils. At the time of our visit, the employments were arranged a 
follows : 

Farmers, 86; gardeners, 11; horticulturists, 5; tailors and menders, 10; 
shoemakers, 3 ; carpenters, 3 ; cutlers, 3; painters, 2; cooks, 2; clerks in offices, 
3 ; in infirmary, 1 ; in steward's office, 1 ; total, 250. 

The domain includes about 250 acres, of which 10 are in meadow; about 100 
acres besides are leased, at $30 per year per acre. There have usually been about 
25 horned cattle ; but a murrian which recently appeared among them has obliged 
the administration to sell them. There are 12 horses. The most lucrative and 
most useful branch of cultivation is that of the kitchen-garden, part of whose pro- 
duets are sent to market. The garden itself, which is a large one, seems to be 
well laid out. Irrigation is practiced in it, as by the market-gardeners at Paris. 
The sale of flowers, fruit, and legumes, furnish a principal revenue of the establish- 
ment. There are handsome green-houses, containing over 14,000 pots. 

The moral and disciplinary regulations of the school, are described in the report 
of M. Allier, the director, to the general assembly of May 1 1th, 1845, at the Hotel 
de Ville of Paris, contain some excellent provisions. Unfortunately the absence of 
the director at the time of our visit, and the shortness of our stay, rendered it im- 
possible for us to ascertain whether this excellent system had been exactly followed. 
But below is such information as we have extracted from the above-mentioned 
report, or received from the assistant who directed our visit. 

The pupils are classed according to their conduct, in four divisions, viz. : 
Division of probation. I Division of reward. 

" " amdicration. | " •' punishment, 



552 HORTICFLTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OF PETIT-BOtTRG. 

As a means of stimulating their emulation while at work, %,sub-classification has 
been adopted, which cons.sts in arranging the pupils, in each workshop, into first, 
second, and third divisions. Each of these divisions has a little flag of a particular 
color. To belong to the first division is the highest ambition of the members of the 
other divisions. The same amount of work considering their relative strength, 
having been distributed to the pupils, and the time necessary for performing it 
being carefullj' calculated, the pride of each little group is set in action, and there 
results a pleasant strife to conquer in the game, which is silent as a game of chess, 
and as absorbing, and which, besides the honor of victory, does not lack material 
inducements ; for a certain prize is delivered at the end of every month to the first 
division, and encouragement to the second. 

'' It is pleasant." says the reporter, " to see with what earnestness and good-will 
the children ply tiie plane, the hammer, the file, the spade, the rake, and look 
around to see where their comrades and adversaries are ; for not only is there a 
struggle between two divisions, but also between the individual members of each 
division, for the first, second, &c., place in the division. The first in each divis- 
ion is the standard bearer. 

" In this manner the hours pass rapidly away without punishment. At the end 
of the task, joy shines in the eyes of the victors, and the shame of the vanquished 
seems impatient for the revenge which shall give them the standard or the place 
of honor. 

" At each judiciary meeting, good marks are also given to those who have done 
their work quickest and best, and bad ones to those who have labored ill or slowly. 
It often happens that the children gain an hour or two, by finishing their tasks 
before the appointed hour ; this time they may dispose of at pleasure, in play, in 
working in other shops, in reading or drawing, &c. ; but they usually ask for 
more work, or kindly assist their slower comrades, for the purpose of preventing 
the bad marks to which the latter are liable ; for where the honorable rivalry of 
labor ends, there brotherly love begins. 

" This system, which puts into action the powerful motives of interest and pride, 
while it preserves fraternal friendship, needs no commentaries. It is simple and 
true, because it is taken from nature. To judge of it, all that is necessary is to look 
at one's own heart and to question one's self" 

The pupils assemble once a month for the special purpose of electing by ballot 
the monitor-general of the school and the monitors of the separate workshops. 
This operation is performed without any intriguing, and it has been remarked that 
the best scholars are chosen unanimously, or by an immense majority. The di- 
rector, however, reserves a veto upon this choice ; although he has very seldom 
been obliged to use it. Tlie appointment of monitors by their peers is copied from 
the appointment of elder brothers at Mettray ; as is also the appointment of a jury 
to try offenses committed by the pupils. The pupils usually accuse themselves, 
and affix, according to circumstances, the maximum or minimum of punishment. 
These spontaneous condemnations are submitted to the approval of their brothers 
the monitors, who revoke or confirm them ; and are then carried before a supreme 
tribunal, of the officers, assistants and foremen of workshops, who give a judgment 
in the last resort. 

" Although a little new and prompt," says the report formerly quoted, " our 
justice is none the less real justice, and tends daily to lessen the number of cul- 
prits and of those condemned more than once. It has this advantage ; that the 
guilty can not claim to be innocent, nor to be too severely punished ; for both 
monitors and we ourselves most often interfere to mitigate penalties, and some- 
times to pardon, limiting ourselves to a reprimand. 

" Meanwhile, if (which is very rare) any pupil denies the accusation brought 
against him, then public information becomes the duty of all pupils having cogni- 
zance of the fact charged ; that no culprit may escape who aggravates his offense 
by a lie, and that no innocent person may be punished. In this case an inquest is 
held, before which the overseers and witnesses are heard. Accu.sers and defend- 
ers arise for the occasion among the pupils, and from monitors and assistants who 
decline voting upon the judgment pronounced in first instance by the monitors, and 
finally by the tribunal of assistants." 

The punishments are as follows, in the order of their severity : 

1. Simple reprimand. ■ 



HORTICULTimAL REFORM SCHOOL OF PETIT BOnRG. .5.53 

2. Detention, with or witliout labor, from the recreations of the week- 

3. Detention from the recrc-ations of the Sunday. 

4. Dry bread for one or more meals. 

5. Passage from a higher to a lower division. 

6. Lighted cell, witli labor. 

7. Dark cell, without labor. 

8. Erasure of name from register of honor. 

9. Loss for one or more months of votership and of eligibility. 

10. Inability for one or more months to receive letters of pardon. 

11. Inability for one or more months to partake or be present at distributions of 
alms. 

12. Inability to see and embrace one's parents at the visit next after con- 
demnation. 

13. Inab'lity for one or more months to carry the standard. 

14. Inablity for one or more months to assist sick companions. 

L5. Inability during one or more months to be chosen to assist at family 
festivals. 

All these punishments are dreaded most on account of the shame accompany- 
ing them. It is likewise to be noticed that the severest are those which are of a 
purely moral character. Expulsion from the school is only inflicted upon pupils 
considered wholly incorrigible. 

There is a similar gradation of rewards, based upon the same principle, as 
follows : 

1. Honorable mention. This is a public complimentary notice, addressed to the 
pupil deserving it, to encourage him to do still better in future. 

2. Passage to a higher division. 

3. Registration in the register of honor. This registration is for two months ; 
and is the privilege of the division of reward only. 

4. Encouragements. These are small books. 

5. A. crown over the place occupied by the pupil, in the school, or shop, or both, 
as he has deserved it in one, or the other, or both. 

6. Tools of honor. These are offered and gained as prizes. 

7. Prizes. These are usually books useful in the occupation of the pupil, moral 
tales, liistory, books of piety, &c. 

8. Becoming standard-bearer of division. 

9. Selection by their comrades to attend the family festivals. Once a month, 
the officers, assistants, and foremen, meet in the evening of Sunday around a table 
frugally furnished, as usual, but with one additional dish. The monitors are, ex 
officio, invited. .After the desert, the singing master assembles the pupils present, 
and sings with them rt-ligious, moral, or national songs. After the singing, all 
separate, promising to endeavor to make the worst scholars worthy of attending at 
these modest feasts. 

10. Letters of pardon. These letters, which are only given with great reserve, 
empower those holding them to pardon pupils undergoing punishment, except in 
certain grave cases, of which the director is judge. 

11. Permission to watch with the sick. This also is a rare privilege, and cul- 
tivates among the pupils sentiments of benevolence and of fraternal affection. 

12. Honor of carrying and bestowing the alms of the school. The alms-chest 
is replenished in several ways. 1. One Sunday a month, all the officers, assist- 
ants, foremen, and pupils, go without meat, and the consequent saving is deposited 
in the alms-chest. 2 Once a month there is taken from the amount credited to 
each pupil in the savings-bank, 4 cents ; that is, 48 cents a year. A monthly 
collection is also made among the officers, a-ssistants, and foremen, and the amount, 
along with that taken from the deposits for the pupils, also put in the chest. 

With this money the pupils of the division of reward, or those who have per- 
formed some laudable action, are enabled to go, on the first Sunday of each month, 
to carry to the aged poor of the village, sometimes garments, sometimes bedding, 
sometimes medicine, but never money. 

Nothing has been neglected which might awaken the moral sense in the chil- 
dren of th(» school, or contribute to elevate their souls. For the same purpose the 
walls in ditFerent places are covered with such phrases as the following: 

Silenoe. 



551 HORTICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OF PETIT-BOURG. 

God sees us. 

Idleness impoverishes and degrades. 

He «ho will not work should not eat. 

Labor enrielies and honors. 

Let us be brothers. 

Benevolence elevates man. 

Children, grow up by labor. Men, some time labor will make you great. 

Religion is goodness, every where and always. 

To love the poor is to love God. 

Evening and morning, after the usual prayer, the pupils address another to God 
for their instructors and benefactors. 

Once a year a mass is sung for the repose of the souls of such instructors or 
benefactors as are dead ; after which ceremony, flowers are laid upon the graves 
of dead pupils. 

There was much difficulty, particularly at the beginning, in finding competent 
and active assistants, and such as would be devoted to the success of the undeitak- 
ing. Frequent changes in consequence occasioned great embarrassments. To 
encourage the agents of the school, they were given an interest in its profits, by 
I'eserving to them a percentage upon the produce of labor and of the workshops. 
The amount thus voluntarily distributed is retained by the society, and entered in 
a book called the book of division of profits. No one is permitted, on any pretext, 
to draw any or all of these funds ; and if any assistant or foreman leaves the 
school improperly, or is sent off for ill conduct, the amount so credited to him on 
book becomes the property of the other assistants and foremen, being divided 
equally among them. 

A second book, cal'.ed the savings-bank book, is also keptfor entering the reten- 
tion of 5 per cent, on all salaries. It is not permitted to draw this deposit ; but at 
the departure of the assistant or foreman, for whatever reason, it is paid to him, 
unlp.«s retained by the society as indemnity for damages due from him, for this 
book is kept to habituate the assistants to economy, and to put a sort of caution- 
money into the hands of the society. The same use is made of funds entered upon 
the book of division of profits, in case of malversation or loss. The amounts 
entered on the savings-bank book pay 3 per cent, to the depositor. The sums 
entered in th 'se two books, together with the savings which some of the assistants 
are able to lay by, form considerable reserve funds. 

Saturday evening every week, all the ofhcers, assistants, and foremen, meet in 
a family council, and consider all the praiseworthy or reprehensible actions of the 
pupils under their ordirs. By this means no fault, however small, and no good 
action, however insignificant, can happen during the week, in school-room, court, 
workshop, dormitory, or play-ground, without being noticed. While the teacher 
for instance, praises a scholar for his conduct and progress in study, the foreman 
of his workshop may find him stupid and lazy. By such contradictions attention 
is drawn to the child ; all watch him to better advantage, and after a few weeks 
of study and minute observation, the true character of the child is discovered, and 
often his good qualities are brought out even by means of his faults. 

This meeting has another purpose, to arrange a line of conduct for each pupil, to 
be followed out next day at an assembly called the meeting of emulation ; at which 
the ofheeis, assistants, and foremen of workshops are present, as well as the pupils 
and visitors. At this meeting are performed the duties of the jury above-men- 
tioned, and rewards and punishments are distributed. The idea of this meeting 
was copied from the school of INIetlray, which, although there seems to be some 
unwillingness to avow it, has served as the type of the organization not only of the 
school of Petit-Bourg, but also of most other establishments of the same kind 
erected in France within a few years. 

Petit-Bourg has not a school of foremen like that at Mettray, but it endeavors in 
a similar manner to form among the pupils a seminary for assistants who may suc- 
cessively fill vacant places. 

The patronage of the scholars on leaving the school is nearly on the same basis 
in the two establishments. A patron is named for each pupil, who, in concert 
with the establishment, endeavors to find him a good situation. 

To understand the financial condition of the school of Petit- iBourg, we have ex- 



HORTICULTITRAL REFORM SCHOOL OF PETTTBOURG. 555 

amined the accounts and estimates of the few last years, and have arrived at the 
following results : 

III 1M5. for 118 pupils, the expenses were $15,032.80 ; being $127.57 each, 
per year, and .$.).'25 each, per day. 

In 1846, for 123 pupils, the expenses were $.17,631.12, after deducting income 
of farming and workshops. The items of this expense are as follows : 

Board of pupils, $00.10.4 per day each, $1,661.08 

Clothing, 12.48 " year, " 1 ,535.03 

Bedding, J.24.2 " " " 152.73 

Washing, 1.95.2 " " " 240.07 

Fuel, 58.2 " " " 71.74 

Light 2.93.8 " " " 361.32 

Mending clothes, 5.(12 " " " 617.76 

School expenses, 39 " " " 47.95 

Sundries 80.21 

Rent, taxes, insurance, 1 ,554.41 

Repairs. &c., furniture and buildings, 746.65 

Expenses of ofHees and management, 2,678.05 

Salaries and maintenance of assistants, 6,880.38 

Entire expense, 19,627.38 

Income from cultvation and shops, 1,996.26 

Net expense, 17,631.12 

The expense for each pupil, during 1846, therefore was $143.34 ; or .$0.39 per 
day. 

In 1847. the estimates for an average number of 125 pupils presented the fol- 
lowing valuations : 

Salaries and maintenance of officers, &c., $6,720.00 

Maintenance of pupils, $60 each, 7,500.00 

Fuel, lights, washing 800.00 

Taxes, repairs of buildings 640.00 

Expense of management, freight, traveling, 2,320.00 

Shops, cattle, manure, &c., 1,000.00 

Contingencies, 400.00 

19,380.00 

T, •. < Kitchen-garden, $1,000.00) o nnn nn 

Receipts, { rp-,, . t "^ j t , ,^nn i\n t 2,000.00 

^ ' ( Tilled land, woods, &C.. 1,000.00 ) _J 

Net expense, 17,280.00 

The expense per pupil, in 1848, was therefore $139.04, or .$0.38 per day, not 

including rent. 

In 1849, the expense was diminished by the increased number of pupils to 

$94.67 ; or $0.25 each, per day. The school purchased the estate of Petit- Bourg, 

in 1846, for ,$54,t>00, raised by the grand lottery established for the school at that 

time, the net accruing from which, was more than $100,000. 



Connected with the prison of " La Roqtiette," in Paris, is an institution called 
the '• Patronage Society," which has been formed voluntarily by benevolent indi- 
viduals. Its object is to guide and provide for young prisoners on their liberation. 
Each boy has a patron who exercises an influence over him, even during his 
confinement, by counsel and exhoi'tiition. On his being set at liberty, his 
piitron comes or sends for him, and places him in some situation for which he 
has fitted himself in the workshop of the penitftitiary. Instead of being thrust 
out of the gates with rags on their backs, with whch they entered them, and 
with just .suificient money to lead them into temptation, as was formerly the case, 
the poor lads are at present furnished with decent clothes, and gain at once an 
employment ;md a respectable livelihood. Their patrons visit them fVequ 'ntly, 
superintend their conduct, and by the aftletionate sympathies they show them, 
encourage and confirm thern in a virtuous course of life. They call them their 
children, and the reciprocal affection wliich often springs up between the little 



55(5 PRISON OF LA ROQUETTE, IN PARIS. 

outcasts and their protectors is really very beautiful. Numerous cases have oo- 
cuiTfii where youthful vagabonds and thieves have become exemplary characters 
through the parental kindness of the gentlemen who have adopted them. One 
instance is mentioned, in the society's reports, of a former inmate of " La Ro- 
qut-tte" having formed an attachment to an amiable and industrial girl, when not 
liaving money to meet the expenses of his marriage, his patron gave him the 
means, was present himself at the wedding, and furnished the lodging of the 
new-married couple with chairs, tables, a bedstead, and some linen. The most 
unequivocal proof of the value of the society's exertions consists in this, — that 
before its existence, out of 217 youths that were liberated between the years 1831 
and 1833, 99 were recommitted several times and for grave offenses; whereas 
since the association has entered upon its mission, out of 269 lads tiiken under 
their charge only 51 were again sentenced to a second term of imprisonment. 
And it is to be observed that the 99 recommittals above specified were merely 
those wh.ch took place in Paris, under tlie real names of the offenders ; how 
many more happened in the provinces, and under false names, can not be ascer- 
tained. But all who are pos. lively recommitted, whilst under the superintend- 
ence of the society are known, as they can not quit their situations without the 
fact being oonmiunicated to their patrons. A report of the society affirms that 
of those who have been guilty of no fresh transgression against the law, 58 were 
not ordy laborious, economical, and submissive to their masters, but join to those 
qualities virtues which must gain them general esteem ; that 124, without being 
so remarkable, are nevertheless excellent young men, and good workmen, who 
give every kind of satisfaction to their employers and protectors; so that out 
of 2fi9 juvenile delinquents there are 182 thoroughly reformed, who are the joy 
and glory of the society. 



AGRICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL 



RUYSSELEDE, BELGIUM. 



The following account of one of the most interesting educational in- 
stitutions of Belgium, is mainly a translation from a Report* by M. 
Ducpetiaux, Inspector General of Prisons and Charitable Institutions, to 
the Minister of Justice, on Agricultural Colonies, Rural Schools, and 
Schools of Reform, for indigent vagrant and mendicant children and 
youth, in 1851. 

1. Purpose of the Reform Schools; preliminary measures ; basis of organi- 
zation. 

The attention of government has long been directed to the condition of the poor 
youth, beggars, and vagrants, who are sheltered in the alms-houses and imprisoned 
by the courts. From the misfortunes which have of late years fallen upon the 
population both of East and West P'landers, the number of these cliildron and 
youth has rapidly increased. According to a return made in 1848, this increase, 
for the three years preceding, was as follows : 

YOUTH REGISTERED. 1845. 1846. 1847. TOTAL. 

In prisons, 2,575 5,886 9.352 17,813 

In alms-houses, 1,823 2,914 3,697 8,434 

Total, 4,398 8,800 13,049 26,247 

Thus, in the short space of three years, 26,247 children and youth of both sexes 
were registered as admitted into the prisons and alms-houses. There are un- 
doubtedly repetitions in this number ; the same children are recorded twice, thrice, 
or even oftener, on the same register. But on the other hand this estimate did 
not include children admitted into prisons with their parents ; numbering, during 
the same period, some thousands. 

It is to be remarked, besides, that the principal alms-houses, being entirely filled 
during the crisis of distress, were obliged to limit or even to suspend admission. 
Hence a great part of the increase in the number imprisoned. Shut out from the 
alms-houses, many of these unfortunate people, to escape from hunger, cold, and 
death, asked admission into the prisons, and even committed small misdemeanors 
in order to gain the right of such admission. 

So wretched a spectacle has shown the necessity of energetic measures to oppose 
a barrier to this invasion of poverty, and to snatch this mass of unfortunate youth 
from influences which, by perpetuating their degradation and their misery, expose 
society to incessant perils and increasing expense. 

The department of justice ]>repared a plan, chiefly with this design, for the es- 
tablishment of special reform schools, for poor youth, beggars, and vagrants of both 
sexes. This plan was presented to the Chamber of Representatives, Nov. 17, 
1846 ; and was thoroughly examined by a committee of the central section, {section 
centrale,) which reported on it, May 6, 1847. The government prepared a new 
plan, based on this report, which it submitted to the Chamber of Representatives, 

* Colonies Agricoles, Ecoles Rurales et Ecoles de Reforme pour les indijrents, les mendiants 
et les vagabonds, et spfcialement pour les enfants des deux sexes, en Suisse, en Allemagne, 
en France, en Angleterre, dans les Pays-Bas et en Belgique. Rapport address^ a M. Tesch, 
Ministr0*de la Justice, par M. Ducpetiaux, Inspecteur G^ngral des prisons, iic. Bruzelles, 
1661. 



558 AGRICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OF RUYSSELEDE, BELGIUM. 

Feb. 28, 1848. This having been thoroughly discussed by both Chambers, was 
passed into a law concerning alms-houses and reform schools, April 3, 1848. 

The fifth article of that law enacts that the regular alms-houses shall be used ex- 
clusively fur the reception of adult paupers, beggars, and vagrants. That the gov- 
ernment shall erect special establisliments for young paupers, beggars, and 
vagrants of botli sexes, under sixteen years of age. 

The.se establishments shall be so oi'ganized as to employ the boys, as much as 
possible, in agriculture, and to instruct them in such labt)r as may be profitably 
practiced in the fields. The two sexes shall always be placed in distinct and sepa- 
rate establishments. 

By article 7, the expense of support to be paid by the communes for the youth 
admitted into these establishments is never to exceed, for the communes of each 
province, the expense of support of the inmates of the alms-houses of each province. 

The oi-ganization, management, and discipline of these establishments are de- 
termined by royal decrees, vviiich are not to issue without hearing the permanent 
deputations of the provinces in which they are situate'd. 

Six hundred thousand francs (about $12(1,000) is appropriated for the land and 
buildings for these establishments, and for fittings, furniture, and other necessary 
expenses. 

The government is to make an annual report to the legislature, of all action 
under the above law, and of the condition of the institutions established in confor- 
mity with it. 

Government engaged actively in the execution of the law of the 3d of April, 
1848. The necessary preparatory investigati(jnsand operations occupied a porti(<n 
of that year ; and on the 8th of March, 1849, a royal decree ordered the establish' 
ment of two reform schools in the commune of Ruysselede, (West Flanders;) 
one to receive .500 boys, and the other for 400 girls and young children of from 
two to seven years old. 

Separate buildings are to be used for these two institutions, so as strictly to pre- 
serve the separation of the .sexes. These, liowever, are to be so arranged as to 
admit of a Common direction, to combine their labor economically, and to render 
ceitain mutual services, so as to reduce the expense of management and house- 
keeping. 

The former of these establishments may be regarded as definitely organized ; 
it will soon be able to receive its entire complement. The erection of the second 
depends at present upon the extension of the estate, of which we shall have occa- 
sion to speak below. 

2. General arrangement of the agricultural reform school for hoys. 

This establishment occupies the premises of a sugar-house erected some years 
since, which came into the hands of the government, in the beginning of 1849, 
and has been altered and enlarged for its present use. The ftirm which belonged 
with them has been so much enlarged, as to bring it into convenient business com- 
munication with an estate of some 200 hectares, (about 500 acres ;) a road has 
been built to open a direct cf>mmunication witli the canal, and with the railroad 
from Gand to Bruges ; the transhipment and transport of manure has been facili- 
tated by the construction of a whai'f and of a large cistern at the edge of the canal ; 
lastly, a steam-engine of five horse power has been erected for milling grain, rais- 
ing water, heating the main building, and cooking for the workmen and cattle ; 
arrangements are in progress for connecting with it an elevator, a thi'ashing ma- 
chine, a straw-cutter, a turnip-cutter, &c. All these machines will economize 
labor, and will enable the managers to employ to the best advantage the strength 
and skill of the laborers, instead of employing them in turning wheels and in 
other purely mechanical and monotonous labor. 

3. Arrangement of the buildings of the school and farm. 

The buildings of the reform school are regularly arranged, and may be consid' 
ered under two heads, viz., the school proper, and the farm. 

1. The .school comprehends all the necessary buildings for the offices the opera- 
tions, and the accommodation of the officers ; which occupy the two wings toward 
the road. The central building contains, in the lower story, the dining-room of 
the pupils, furnished with tables seating 500 children, two school-rooms, the princi- 
pal office for business and the dining-room of the officers ; in the secona story, 



AGRICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OF RUYSSELEDE, BELGIUM. 559 

four large dormitories, each furnished with a hundred and twenty-four cots, a su- 
perintendent's chamber, and wash-stands for the pupils. In the garret is a large 
reservoir tilled by the steam-engine, which distributes water to all parts of the es- 
tablishment. The rooms on the first floor are warmed by a furnace. 

To the right of the central building, facing from the road, are the kitchen of the 
pupils, the bakery, the steam-engine with its appurtenances, the pantry ajid the 
store-rooms ; to the left, the kitchen of the officers, a plunge-bath or swimming- 
bath, baths, a fire-pump, and in the second story, the infirmary of the pupils with 
its dependencies. Lastly, the play-ground of the pupils is bounded on three sides 
by a building of one story, over wliich are ample granaries ; in this building are 
the workshops, the forge, carpenter's shop, spinning and weaving rooms, the tailor's, 
shoemaker's and sti-aw-weaver's shops, &e., as well as a temporary wash-house, to 
serve until the completion of the girls' school. The chapel stands at one corner ; 
it is built in a style at once simple and elegant ; and near it, as in the reform school 
at iMettray, is a small cell for such young beggars and vagrants as are sent to the 
school for punishment, and for the pupils in such aggravated or exceptional cases 
as require such quarantine or discipline. 

2. The farm buildings, standing near the school, comprehend a dwelling-house 
for the farmer and the farm laborers, stables for from 80 to 100 head of cattle, a 
dairy, two stables for 12 horses, two piggeries, a sheep-fold, a poultry-yard, two 
covered receptacles for manure, a roomy barn, and a large carriage house for 
vehicles and farming tools, over which are lofts for hay. A watering place for the 
cattle, and large cisterns for liquid manure and for drainings complete these ar- 
rangements : which on the whole and in detail, furnish a real model farm. 

All the buildings which we have enumerated, together with the two court-yards 
of the school and the enclosure around which sUmd the mills and wood-houses, 
form nearly a regular parallelogram, of 135 metres long, and 200 wide, (about 
450 feet by e.iO.) 

4. Extent and division of the estate. 

The property of Ruysselede contains 126 hectares, 89 ares, 10 ceiitiares, (about 
320 acres;) it forms an isosceles triangle with the vertex to the northwest and 
the base to the southeast. It is bounded on one side by the new road laid out by 
the establishment, and on the others by public roads, so that it is quite separated 
from the estates adjoining. It is divided into squares, chess-board-wise, generally 
containing froni 1 to 3 hectares (2^ to 7^ acres) each, and separated by rows and 
avenues of larch, fir, and wild cherry, which last serve for cart-paths, &c. The 
soil is a gray sand, without any mixture of clay, and therefore light, friable, and 
easily worked. But it also, to become productive, requires careful cultivation, and 
large quantities of manure, especially liquid manure. For this reason the au- 
thorities of the school have concluded an arrangement with the jail (maison de 
force) at Gand, for the annual delivery of about 10,000 hectolitres (about 4,200 
hogsheads) of solid and liquid manure. 

5. Measmes of organization ; decrees and instructions. 

The department of justice, which has jurisdiction over the reform school, has 
successively t-aken different measures for their organization. The royal decree of 
March 8, 1849, determines the number, duties, and salaries of the officei's, and ap-- 
points a committee of from three to five members of the legislature for the inspec- 
tion and supervision of the reform schools. The decree of May 7, 1849, com- 
pleted this arrangement by determining the mode of filling vacancies and the 
jurisdiction of the committee. 

The continued imprisonment by the commissioner of beggary and vagrancy 
causing much inconvenience, the decree of February 28, 1850, ordered their im- 
mediate transfer to the reform schools, where they will serve out their terms in 
separate quarters. 

A royal decree of the same date with the last, extends the provisions of the 
decree of December 14, 1848, for the assistance of liberated convicts, to young 
paupers, beggars, and vagrants, at their dismissal from the reform schools. There 
is to be opened in each of these establishments a register of the offers which may 
be made by farmers and other employers, to hire, on certain conditions, such of 
the pupils as may p(issess the requisite qualifications. 

The mmisterial circular of March 2, 1850, calls the attention of public proseca- 



560 AGRICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OF RUYSSELEDE, BELGIUM. 

tors to the purpose of the refi)rm schools, and furnishes invariable rules for the 
arrangement of transfers to, and among them. Another circular, of the same 
date, sends similar instructions to the governors of provinces. 

Lastly, the royal decree of July 3, 1850, specifies the conditions and forms of 
admission to the reform schools, and of dismission from them. 

By this decree, and by the law of April 3, 1848, the reform schools are especially 
designed. 

1. For young paupers, under sixteen years of age, who present themselves vol- 
untarily for admission, with a certificate from the municipal authority of their place 
of settlement, or from the municipal autliority of the neighborhood where they 
happen to be, or where their usual residence is. 

2. For young paupers liolding a certificate from the permanent deputation, from 
the gdvernor <if the province, or from the commissary of the district (arrondisse- 
ment) in which the place of settlement of such paupers, their residence, or casual 
locality, may be. 

3. For children and youth sentenced by the commissioner of beggary or 
vagrancy. 

4. For children acquitted by him, but retained under the penal code to be 

educated, up to a certain age, in a house of correction. 

5. For children not guilty of any misdemeanor, indented with farmers, artisans, 
or charitable institutions. 

6. Numbers ; entries. <^c. 

The first pupils entered in March, 1849, shortly after the purchase of the prop- 
erty and the conmiencement of the preparatory work. There were admitted at first 
19 children from the alms-house of Bruges, then 15 from that of Combre ; a little 
after these were a Imitted i 3 young beggars and vagrants acquitted by the courts as 
having acted without knowledge, but detained under the 66th article of the penal 
code, who had been placed in the juvenile penitentiary of Saint Hubert, for want 
of any proper receptacle. These, with 24 received singly during the same time, 
make a total of 121 pupils on the 1st of January, 1850. 

From that time to January 1st, 1851, the number has been as in the following 
table : 

Acquitted by the courts, but detained by law in a house of correction, ... 92 

Sentenced on application of communes, 156 

Sent by benevolent institutions, 3 

Total, 251 

Young paupers entering the reform schools voluntarily, are kept for at least six 
months the first time ; and for at least one year, if they have been in the school 
before, or if they have before been inmates of an alms-house. At the end of that 
time, the civil authority of their place of settlement, their family, or atiy responsi- 
ble person, may claim their dismission, upon engaging to provide for their educa- 
tion, apprenticeship, and support. Demands for such purpose are to be addi-essed 
, to the permanent deputation of the council of the province to which such»pupils 
belong ; directly, if made by the civil authority of their place of settlement ; if by their 
family, or by strangers, then through the civil authority which would have juris- 
diction in the case. The deputation determines upon the security ofTered, and au- 
thorizes or refuses the dismissal of the pupils. In the absence of any claims made 
as above, the deputation, after consultation with the inspecting committee and with 
the director of the schools, may authorize the dismissal of the pupil, provided he 
is in a condition to earn his own living. The dismissal of children and youth sen- 
tenced by the commissioner of beggary or of vagrancy, is ordered by the gover- 
nor of the province in which is their place of settlement, or if that can not be 
found, by the minister of justice. 

Such dismission alwaj's depends on these conditions, viz. : that the pupil has 
remained at least two years in the reform school, if sent there for the first time ; 
and at least four years, if he is an old offender ; and, that he is in a condition to 
earn his own living, or at least is claimed by the civil authority of his place of set- 
tlement, by his family, or by some responsible person, under a guaranty that he 
shall not return to begging or vagi'ancy, and that he shall be furnished either with 
work or with sufficient support. The acceptance or refusal of this guaranty is 



AGKICULTDRAL REFORM SCHOOL OF RUYSSELEDE, BELGITM. 56 1 

left to the governor and to the minister of justice, respectively. The minister or 
the governor may always authorize a dismissal before the time fixed, if their be 
special reasons for it. Before such authorization, however, the minister or gover- 
nor is to advise with the committee of inspection, the director of the establishment, 
and the civil authority of the place of settlement of the pupil. 

The time of dismission of children acquitted by the commissioner of beggary 
and vagrancy, is determined by the sentence under which they are placed in the 
school. 

There are even children in these establishments, under the decree of September 
29, 1848, in order that it may not be rendered necessary, by their bad conduct or 
otherwise, to imprisou them again. The authorities of the reform schools, in such 
cases, are to suggest such arrangements as the circumstances shall indicate. 

The pupils at It-aving the schools, are informed by the director what consequen- 
ces will follow their recommitment to the school. 

The committee of inspection of the reform schools returns to the minister of 
justice, at the beginning of each year, a list of those pupils whose term has passed 
the limits fixed above, with the rea.sons of such prolongation. The minister, if 
proper, then orders their dismission. The committee al'^o returns annually to the 
minister a list of the names of those pupils who have arrived at their eighteenth 
year, with any opinions or advice in the premises. 

Among the 18 pupils who left in 1850, there are, 

2 who ran away, one eight days after entering, and the other after a stay of 
about three months. The conduct of this last had been satisfactory, and he ap- 
peared to tiike pleasure in the care bestowed on him. One Sunday he received a 
visit from his parents, and the next day he disappeared. He has not been dis- 
covered up to the present time, although active search was made ; 2 who were 
sent home at the end of eight days, as the civil authority of their respective places 
of settlement was unwilling to consent to their final admission ; 1, who was sent 
to the alms-house at Bruges, on account of serious disease. The following shows 
the length of the abode of 13 others in the school : two for 1 year, 7 months, 15 
days ; two for 1 year, 4 months, 7 days ; one for 1 year, 3 months, 3 days ; two 
for 1 year, 2 months, 16 days ; two for 1 year, 1 month, 20 days ; two for 1 year, 
15 days; one for 11 month^, 15 days ; one for 8 months, 20 days; the average 
time is 1 year, 2^ months. 

At their departure, two were 16 years old; seven were 15 years old; two 
were 13 years old ; two were 10 years old ; two had been sentenced by the com- 
missioner of beggary, and were returned to their parents under the guaranty of 
the local authority of their communes ; the 11 others belong to the class of chil- 
dren detained under the 66th article of the penal code. They were claimed im- 
mediately upon the expiration of their judgment term, by the communes of their 
places of settlement ; 8 were 'taken by their parents, under the supervision of the 
local authority ; the other 3 were placed under the care of the committees of em- 
ployment (comites de patronage) of Gand, of Ninove, and of Audenarde. 

8. Age of the pupils. 

The age of the 269 pupils, January 1, 1851, was as follows : 
21 aged less than 10 years. 
45 " from 10 to 12 years. 

94 " " 12 to 14 " 

80 " " 14 to 16 " 

29 " over 16 years. 

9. Civil and social condition. 

In respect to their civil condition they may be classed as follows : 
28 illegitimate children. 

42 without father or mother. 

43 " father. 
88 " mother. 

64 having both parents. 
8 foundlings. 
1 abandoned child. 
Such is the social position of the unfortunate youths ; most of them deprived of 
family relations ; and the parents of those who have them are, for the most part, to 
be found in the alms-houses or prisons, gg 



562 AGRICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OF RUYSSELEDE, BELGIUM. 

10. Committee of supervision. 

The supervision and inspection of the school are entrusted to a committee of 
three, by the decree of March 8, 1849. These three gentlemen, who have con- 
tributed powerfully from the beginning to the success of the school, by their zeal 
and their efforts, are the Chevalier Ernest Peers-Ducpetiaux, Frederic Van der 
Bruggen, and Henri Kervyn, provincial inspector of primary instruction at Gand. 

11. Persons employed^ salaries^ einoluments. 
These are, 



Francs. Dollars. 

1 director, 4.000 about 800 

1 chaplain 1.200 " 240 

1 treasurer, 1.200 " 240 

1 secretary, 600 '' 120 

1 supernumerary, 

1 physician 600 " 120 

2 teachers, at 600 fr...... 1,200 " 240 

1 chief overseer, , 000 " 120 

3 overseers, at 450 fr., . . 1,330 " 270 
I occasional overseer, . . 40U " 80 
1 head farmer, 600 •' 120 



Francs. Dollars. 

1 gardener, 400 about 80 

1 assistant gardener, . 300 " 60 
4 laborers, for teams, ) 

stables, and farm \ 800 " 160 

work, at 200 fr., . . ^ 

1 cook 200 '• 40 

1 miller and baker, ) 

and 1 housekeeper, > 250 " 50 

both, 



Total, 21 



These officers receive, besides their salaries, the emoluments specified in the 

decree of March 8, 1850, viz. : board, lights, fuel, washing, furniture, and medical 
attendance in sickness, except that tlie dii'eetor, who lieeps house does not receive 
board, washing, or furniture. The overseers have, besides, a uniform valued at 
50 fi'ancs, (10 dollars,) and the laborers, each a suit of clothes valued at 20 francs, 
(4 dollars.) There are two tables for the officers ; one for the officers proper, pre- 
sided over by the chaplain, the other for the farm laborers, at the head of which 
is the farmer. All those employed, except the director, are single; a condition 
rendered necessary by the arrangements of the establishment, and the impossibility 
of accommodating families in it. At some future time it will be proper to exam- 
ine the practicability of preparing some tenements for families. Having started in 
the present footing, (a partir du present exercice,) there will be room for the em- 
ployment of some additional officers, and particularly for an increase in the num- 
ber of overseers, proportionable to that in the number of pupils. These overseers 
should be chosen, by preference, from among practical mechanics, and should have 
the direction of some of the workshops. The remaining shops may be entrusted, 
as at present, to the oversight of paid workmen ; such as those vi'hom the estab- 
lishment lias already engaged as a locksmith and blacksmith, a machinist and 
fireman for the steam-engine, a wheel-vvright, &c. 

The officers, before receiving a definite nomination or engagement, are taken on 
trial, and undergo a sort of noviciate, which test their zeal and their aptitude. 
This plan has succeeded perfectly. 

12. Plan for erecting school of foremen. 

During the investigations pending the establishment of the reform school, it had 
been suggested to connect with it a special school for foremen, like that of Mettray 
and at the Rauhe-Haus at Hamburg ; but it was abandoned as difficult, compli- 
cated, and expensive. But although it has not been thought practicable to gather 
from elsewhere the material for a seminary of capable and faithful workmen, it has 
been understood that the institution would endeavor to educate within itself such 
subordinate agents as it might require. Tliis furnishes an opening to those pupils 
who may be distinguished by good conduct or capacity ; and already, after scarcely 
eighteen months of operations, there took place, at the beginning of the present 
year, the formal emancipation of one of them, a young man of activity and intelli- 
gence, and quick at all kinds of work, who has taken his place among the labor- 
ers upon the farm. Others will surely follow his example, and under its stimulus 
will be ambitious of the honor of serving such an establishment where tliey have 
found (so to speak) a new existence, and the certain prospect of ultimate success. 

13. General dietetics. 

The diet of the pupils has been assimilated as much as possible to tliat of agri' 
cultural laborers. It is simple but abundant ; plain, but healthful. 

14. Provisions. 

The food is furnished according to a bill of fare at the average expense, accord- 
ing to the price current of about 21 centimes (4 cents) a day for each pupil. This 
expense is certainly less than in any other similar establishment, in this or any 



AGRICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OF RUYSSELEDE, BELGIUM. 563 

other country. The pupils nevertheless have meat twice a week ; for which pur- 
pose hogs are killed on the farm, and their flesh served up alternately with beef. 
The bread is rye, unbolted. The grain, potatoes, legumes, milk, and butter, are 
the productions of the establishment, which diminish the amount of actual expen- 
diture. With the extension and improvement of the present cultivation, these 
crops will increase, and ultimately, when there shall be as much land under culti- 
vation as will be required by the full number of pupils, it is to be hoped that the 
establishment will itself furnish all the essentials for its own consumption, 

lo. Clothing. 

Each pupil receives at entering the following articles : 5 shirts, 2 pair panta- 
loons, 2 pair working pantaloons, 1 vest, 2 blouses, 2 neck cloths, 2 pocket hand- 
kerchiefs, 1 btlt, 1 cap, 1 straw hat, 2 pair understockings, 1 pair shoes, 2 pair 
wooden shoes, (sabots,) 2 towels, I comb, and 2 brushes, (1 for clothes, 1 for shoes.) 
The expense of this wardrobe does not exceed from 32 to ?>5 francs, ($6.50 to 
$7.00,) according to size. Most of these articles have hitherto been furnished 
from the workshops in the jail of Gand •, but as soon as the workshops of tiie 
reform school are organized, it will make and finish, as far as possible, all the ne- 
cessary clothing and bedding for its inmates. The tailors' and menders' shop is 
already in operation ; even the youngest of the children make straw hats ; the 
spinning and weaving shops are begun, and will be in action before the end of the 
winter. The shoemakers' shop is i!i a like state of forwardness. The only diffi- 
culty is in finding foremen capable of directing the young operatives ; but the 
activity of the director will undoubtedly soon remedy it. 

16. Sleeping arrangements. 

The bedsteads are of iron, with a press for clothing ; the bedding consists of a 
straw mattress, a pillow, a pair of linen sheets, and one, two, or three cotton cover- 
lids, according to the season. The bedsteads, which are manufactured at the jail 
of Gand, cost only 22 to 23 francs ($4. .50 to $4.75J each, including the press, 
which is also of iron. They are arranged in four rows in the dormitories. These 
are lighted all night, and besides that, the overseer can see from his chamber, at a 
glance, all that passes ; a night watch has been organized. An overseer, attended 
by two pupils, passes through all the premises, and especially through the dormi- 
tories, to see that all is in good order. 

17. Fire and light. 

These are put upon the most economical footing. The entire first story of the 
central building, including the eating room and the schools, is warmed by the 
steam-engine. Lamps are used for lights, and the colewort (colza) cultivated on 
the farm furnishes part of the oil. The temporary wash-room is managed by pupils, 
in anticipation of the organization of the school for girls, who will take charge of 
the washing and laundry departments of both establishments. 

18. Health. 

The healthy conditir)n of the school gives a testimony in favor of the regimen in- 
troduced. Many of the children, at their entrance, were infected with diseases 
more or less severe, with rickets or scrofula. But both diseases and symptoms 
have rapidly disappeared before pure air, field labor, and regular living. This is so 
true, that it is easy at a glance to distinguish by their appearance pupils lately ad- 
mitted from those who have been inmates for a longer time. The latter are gener- 
ally strong and active ; they are rosy, and their whole appearance denotes health. 

In 1849 no infirmary was opened ; in fact, there was no case of distinct disease, 
and cor»|equently no death ; and the medical department, including the visits of the 
inspecting physician, cost only 95fr., 34c.. (about $20.00.) 

In 18.50, from a number of pupils averaging 1 71, there were only 12 admissions 
to the infirmary. The number of days under treatment was 72, giving an aver- 
age of 6 days to each patient. The whole expense for drugs and materia medica 
of all kinds, both for the pupils and for such laborers as were hurt or bruized dur- 
ing the building, was only 48fr. 94c., (about $10.00.) There was no death. 
Children sick with severe or incurable diseases, and consequently unfit for all 
labor, are sent to the infirmary of the alms-house at Bruges, by an arrangement 
made with that institution. The reform school pays for their support and treats 
ment at the rate of 50 centimes (about 10 cents) a day each. 

19. Moral training. 

The moral training has been the object of more paternal care, if possible, than 



564 AGRICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OF RUYSSELEDE, BELGIUM. 

the physical. It has been supposed that the poor children sent to the reform 
' school needed food for the soul, no less than for the body ; that it was designed 
not only to snatch them from misery, disease, and death, but to change their 
habits, to correct their vices, to teach them their duties, to relieve them of their 
almost hereditary degradation, and to elevate them in their own estimation, as 
well as in that of society. Notwithstanding the difficulties inseparable from an 
entirely new organization, and the embarrassments occasioned by building, from 
the first entrance of the first pupils they have been held under a strict but kindly 
supervision ; and up to this time there has occurred no act of insubordination of a 
nature seriously to interfere with the steady discipline of the establishment. 

20. Successive admission of pupils. 

The successive admission of pupils, a few at a time, has contributed much to 
this result, by facilitating the work of the officers ; it has also resulted in the for- 
mation of a class in which the newly arrived pupils are enrolled. 

21. Classification. 

The school is divided, at present, into 5 divisions of from 50 to 60 pupils each, 
arranged as much as possible according to age. There is an overseer to each 
division. Each division is separated into two sections ; over each section is a cap- 
tain (chef) and assistant, (sous-chef,) selected by the director from among such 
pupils as distinguish themselves for good conduct and industry. Each division 
has also a trumpet, (clairon.) 

22. Exercises of the day. 

The division of time is so regulated as to occupy every moment of the pupils, to 
prevent fatigue by variety and frequent succession of exercises, and to prevent 
them from escaping supervision. It varies somewhat, according to the season ; 
and is at present arranged as follows, for summer and winter, Sundays and feast- 
days : 

1. Summer. 



HOURS. 


HOURS. 




5 Rise. 


I to 


5.i Working hours. 


5 to 5J Prayers, washing, (soins de pro- 


4J " 


5i 


Catechism for children not having 


pretre,) bed-making, roll-call. 






received their first communion. 


5^ " 6J Exercise and maneuvres. 


5J " 


5J Supper. 


6| " 6J Breakfast. 


51 " 


7i 


School instruction. 


6| " 7 Arrangement of labor. 


7i" 


SJ Gymnastics. 


7 "11 Workina; hours. 


8J" 


9 


Roll-call, reports. 


11 "12 Singingclass, practice by the band, 


9 




Prayers, bed-time. 


(repetition pour la fanfare.) 






Saturday, 5 to 8, cleaning work- 


12 " 12:J Dinner. 






shops, baths, &c. 


12i " 1 Play. 








2. W 


inter. 






HOURS. 


HOURS. 




5 Rise, 


1 to 


2 


Gymnastics and military exer- 


5 to 5J Prayers, washing, &c., bed-mak- 






cises. 


ing, roll-call. 


2 " 


^ 


Working hours. 


5| " 6J Singing class. 


4i '• 


5| 


Catechism for children not having 


6J " 7 Breakfast. 






received their first communion. 


7 " 7^ Arrangement of labor 


5J " 


6 


Supper 


7i " 12 Working hours. 


6 " 


8 


School instruction. 


11 " 12 Practice by the band, (rgpgtition 
pour la ianfare.) 


8 " 


8i 


Roll-call, report. 


8i 




Prayer, bed time. 

Saturday, 1 to 4^, cleamng work- 


12 " 12i Dinner. 






124 " 1 Play. 






shops, baths, &c. 



3. Sundays and feast-days all the year. 



5 
54 

I' 
8? 
9] 

11 

12 

13i 



to 5i 
" 7J 



Rise, prayer, washing, <fec. 

Clothes inspection, bed, dsc., do. 

Breakfast. 

Play. 

Mass, sermon 

Singing class. 

Play, games, (recreation, jeux.) 

Dinner. 

Play, games. 



4 Catechism and religious instruc- 
tion. 

5J Gymnastics, military exercises, or 
walk. 

6 Supper. 

8 School instruction. 

8J Roll-call, report. 
Prayers, bed-time. 



AGRICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OF RUYSSELEDE, BELGIUM. 565 

The results of this arrangement may be stated as follows ; 



Labor, 84 8i 

School instruction, IJ 2 

Music, Vocal and instrumental, 1 1 

Gymnastics, manoeuvres and military exercises , 2i 1 

Meals J i 

Play,. J i 

Rising, retiring, virashing, roll-call, &c 1 IJ 

Sleep, 8 Si 

An hour's catechism for pupils not having received their first 
communion, which is subtracted from working hours 

2.3. Physical training, gymnastics, military mancevvres, and exercises. 

It will be observed that gymnastics, manceuvres, and military e-xercises, espe- 
cially in the summer, occupy a considerable portion of the day. To understand 
the necessity and good effect of these exercises, it would be necessary to see the 
deplorable condition of the majority of the children at their entrance, and the fa- 
vorable change which appears in their appearance and health, after staying some 
time in the institution. Rickets, scrofula, want of elasticity in the limbs, difficulty 
of walking, all rapidly disappear under the drill of the manoeuvres ; which tend not 
only to confirm the health and to increase the strength and activity of the children, 
but also to accustom them to discipline, to awaken their power of attention, and to 
furnish them an agreeable variety of employment, while preparing them for dif- 
ferent useful occupations. The fatigue of these exercises, while not amounting to 
exhaustion, predisposes the pupils to sleep, and may perhaps be considered a 
most effective safeguard against the shameful habits and secret vices induced by 
sedentary life, which are only too frequent in public and educational institutions, 
but which are fortunately being destroyed in the beginning at Ruysselede. 

Under the very zealous and skillful direction of the director of gymnastics, the 
exercises are performed with very remarkable interest and accuracy. The school 
battiilion manoeuvres with almost as much precision as the best battalions of the 
army ; a platoon, armed with condemned carbines, marches at the head and 
marks time ; the bayonet exercise and skirmishing are as good as play to the 
children ; and those among them who shall go into military service will have 
already passed through all the drill of the conscripts. 

24. School of naval apprentices. 

To complete this department of instruction, of which we presume no one will 
deny the utility, it is sought to connect with the gymnasiutn a school of naval ap- 
prentices, for the war and merchant marine. Such an establishment, which the 
minister of the interior lately mentioned as promising materially to alleviate the 
distress in Flanders, by opening a new occupation to the laboring population, 
might be advantageously and economically attached to an existing institution, 
whose inmates, consisting principally of abandoned children, beggars, and va- 
grants, seem well adapted to become sailors. In several pauper schools in Eng- 
land, and recently in France also, at the school of Mettray, there have been es- 
tablished classes of naval apprentices, several of the graduates of which have im- 
mediately found employment in the sea-port towns. Imitation of this example 
would doubtless produce a similar result. For this purpose it would be sufficient, 
as at Mettray and at Norwood, near London, to add to the gymnastic apparatus 
the masts and spars of a brig, with their sails and rigging, and to procure the at- 
tendance of a seaman twice a week, to direct the manceuvres. According to the 
estimates which have been made, the necessary apparatus would cost about 
$2,000, which would be reduced to $1,200 or $1,600 if it could be procured at 
second hand. 

25. Provision made for intellectual., moral, and religious education as devel- 
oped in the following articles. 

26. School organization. 

The course of study, which was only outlined in 1849, has been completely or- 
ganized during 1850. The pupils are divided into two classes, each subdivided 
into sections. Over each class is a teacher, assisted by a certain number of moni- 
tors chosen from among the pupils, for whom is arranged a special daily course, 
to prepare them for their business. Among these monitors are some who exhibit 



566 AGRICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OF RUYSSELEDE, BELGIUM. 



dispositions and skill quite remarkable ; and who may probably become distin- 
guished instructors. 

27. Course of study. 

The studies, pursued alternately in French and Flemish, are reading, writing, 
grammar, dictation, intuition, exercise of memory, arithmetic, mental and written, 
the legal system of weights and measures, general geography, the history of the 
country, the rudiments of linear drawing, and vocal and instrumental music. This 
course can hereafter be extended, according to the progress of the pupils, so as to 
embrace all the knowledge useful to a workman, and which can contribute to his 
intellectual, moral, and professional accomplishment. At the beginning it was 
necessary to limit the course to the most elementary rudiments. 

28. Method of teaching. 

The method followed is that of M. Braiin, professor of pedagogy in the normal 
school at Nivelles, (intuitive method.) To acquaint the instructors of the school 
at Ruysselede with this method, they were sent for several months to the normal 
school at Nivelles, where they studied with success the course in methodology. 
In consequence of these preparatory studies, these officers are thorough masters 
of their business ; they display both zeal and perseverance ; and fiom this time 
forward the schools at Ruysselede will rank among the first institutions of the 
kind in the country. 



29. Older of exercises. Winter. 



Week Days. Hours, P. M. 2nd Class (beginners.) 

fS to 6i Articulation and writing. 

I 6i '• 7 Reaiiiiig. 

I 7 '• 7J Weights and measures. 

17^ " 8 Do. practically applied. 

(6 " 6i Articulation and writing. 

1 6A " 7" Reading. 

I 7 " 7J Anttimetic, mental. 

I 74 •' 8 " written. 

f6 " 6i Articulation and writing. 

J 6i " 7 Reading. 

I 7 ''74 Reading, (intuition.) 

1.74 " 8" Exercises in memory. 

(6 " 6^ Articulation and writing. 

! 64 " 7 Reading. 

j 7 "74 Arithmetic, mental. 

(_7A " 8 •' written. 



SlTNDAY 



MOND. 



TWBS. 



Wbd. 



Week Days. Hours, P. M. 2n(l Class (beginners.) 

6 to 6i iVrticulat ion and writing. 
" 7 Reading. 

" 74 Weight.s and measures. 
" 8 Same, applied. 

64 Articulation and writing. 

7 Reading. 
74 Arithmetic, mental. 

8 '• written. 
64 Articulation and writing. 
7 Reading. 
74 Arithmetic, mental, 

" written. 



Thurs. 



Friday 



Sathr. 



17 

r^ 

164 

7 

7,i 
6" 



Sunday 



MON. 



Tubs. 



Wed. 



7 

7* 

6 

<6i 

(7" 
6 



Week Days. Hours, P. M. 1st Class (beginners.) 
("6 to 64 Geography. 



fv! 7 History of the country 
7" " 7k Arithmetic, mental. 
74 " 8" " written. 

64 Weights and measures. 
7" Written application of do. 
8 Reading. French. 
1 6 "7 Grammar. 
• 7 "8 Drawing from a model. 



(6 ■- 
(7 " 



Week Days. Hours, P. M. 1st Class (beginners.) 
;6 to 7 Writing. 

74 Arithmetic, mental. 
8 '• written. 

64 Dictation. Flemish. 

7 (-'orrection of do., spelling. 

8 Reading, Flemish. 
64 Dictation, French. 

7 Correction of above. 

8 Reading, French, 
6V E.vplanations of forms of 

letters. 
7 Letters written in blank 

book. 
74 Oral translation. 
8" Writing phrases dictated. 

30. Instruction m Singing. 

A solfeggio lesson is given every morning from six to seven to the second class, 
and one in singing at the same time to the first class. The method used is that 
of Galin-Paris-Cheve, partly combined with the ordinary method by notes. Some 
of the more advanced scholars are also learning church music, and can already 
sing the service of the mass. 

31. Instrumental music ; military hand. 

In March 1850, a military band was organized of fifteen instruments of copper, 
(on the plan of Sax,) namely : 1 small bugle in c flat, 3 tenor bugles in 6, 2 alto 
bugles in e, 2 cornets a piston, 1 small key trumpet, 2 cylinder trumpets, 2 cylin- 
der trombones, 1 tuba in h flat, 1 base tuba in /. A master attends twice a week 
from Bruges, and notwith.standing that none of the children knew a single note, a 
few months since, he has trained thirty young musicians who are equal to most of 
those of the regimental bands. The band plays at exercises, and marches at the 



AGRICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OF RUYSSELEDE, BELGinitf. 567 

head of the scholars when they walk in the neighborhood ; it amuses them on 
Sunday, and tigures in all the solemnities of the establishment. There are, 
besides, 8 trumpets, which sound for roll-call, and fill the place of bells in the 
public offices. Tile instruction of the pupils in the use of wind instruments will 
doubtless furnish some of them with useful and lucrative occupation ; all those 
who are capable of it will be admitted to the musical corps of the army, on their 
dismissal. 

32. Apparatus and furniture ; library. 

The school-rooms are spacious, well lighted, and provided with all the neces- 
sary furniture and apparatus ; desks, seats, platforms, tables, maps, weights and 
measures, models, &c. A library of the best books, moral, instructive, and 
amusing, is in process of formation for the use of the officers and pupils. 

33. Mental acquirements of pupils at entrance. 

Of 245 pupils, January 1, 1851, at their entrance were: 42 knew how 
to read and write ; 22 knew the alphabet ; 181 completely ignorant. Those 
children who had acquired some degree of instruction, had received it at the 
school of the penitentiary at Sai nt- Hubert ; those from the alms-house of Cambre 
and Bruges, were mostly quite as ignorant as the young beggars and vagrants who 
entered the school from time to time. 

34. Instruction actually given to the pupils. 

35. Religious department. 

The want of accommodations and the small number of pupils did not allow, at 
first, of the appointment of a chaplain to the school ; all that could be done was to 
erect a temporary altar in a sufficiently large room, and by the kindness of the 
curate of Ruysselede, every Sunday and feast-day, one of the vicars of the com- 
mune attended to say mass and to give religious instruction. This temporary ar- 
rangement lasted until June, 1850. At that time, the appointment of the Abbe 
Bruson to the place of chaplain, caused the school as it were to enter upon a 
new phase of existence. The all-powerful influence of religion has united with 
that of the discipline and supervision, to realize the work of reformation to which 
all the efforts of the faculty are directed. The worthy ecclesiastic to whom hiis 
been confided the work of instructing these poor children, has become their 
friend and father ; they all love and respect him. Constantly among them, he 
studies their characters, inquires their wants, and does not spare good advice. 

36. Religious condition of the children at their entrance and after their stay 
at the school ; report of the chaplain. 

The result of the inquiries made at their entrance, and of the examination made 
by the chaplain, shows that the great majority of the children sent to the reform 
school, are ignorant of the essential truths of religion. Of 245 pupils present at 
the end of 1850, 142 had, it is true, received their first communion ; but of this 
number only 13 knew the whole catechism, and only 11 of these answered satis- 
factorily. The others had only begun the principal lessons, and had almost en- 
tirely forgotten them. But let us hear the chaplain himself, who, in a report ad- 
dressed to the committee of inspection at the close of 1850, reviews all the relig- 
ious condition of the institution. 

" As to the children who have not partiiken of their first communion, some on" 
account of their youth, and some on account of the sadly neglected condition in 
which they have vegetated, it would be fortunate, so far as these last are con- 
cerned, if they knew their prayers and the most important religious truths. 
There are among them 35 from 13 to 16 years of age, of whom 1 1 scarcely know 
their prayers, and 12 have only begun to learn two or three lessons in the cate- 
chism. All the pupils are obliged to attend mass on Sundays and feast-days, 
during which they receive a short lesson. So far as circumstances permits, divine 
service is performed with singing and music ; and when the new chapel shall be 
finished, I see no reason why there should not be, as in parish churches, the sol- 
emn celebration, by singing, of matins, high mass, vespers and benediction. Pray- 
ers are said at rising and going to bed, and before and after meals. I think it 
would also be useful if the teachers should see that the recitations are begun 
and ended with a short prayer, or at least with the sign of the cross. 

The pupils who have not yet received their first communion, recite daily for an 
houf in the catechism. They learn the letter of the book simultaneously, and the 



668 AGRICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OP RUYSSELEDE, BELGIUM. 

sense is afterward explained to them. Every day are added new questions and 
answers, and the former ones are repeated. Thus they make rapid progress. 

The religious instruetion is given in Flemish, whieh is the language of the great 
majority of the pupils. By their continual intercourse with each other, they 
learn both French and Flemish rapidly enough ; but as a precaution, and not to 
give any excuse for wrong doing, care is taken to repeat, to the Walloons espe- 
cially, in French, the instruction which has already been given in Flemish. 

I desire here to express my hopes for the future of all these poor children, whom 
a judicious charity has lifted from a miserable, ignorant, and brutish degradation. 
The regularity of their conduct, the excellent spirit which animates them, the 
good order existing continually and every where, the good examples which they 
furnish to one another, the good habits which they acquire, the willing regularity 
with which they perform their religious duties, the aid, support, and advice which 
they continually receive from instructors interested in and devoted to their work, 
and above all the excellent character of the principal authority of the school, 
which is the soul of the whole institution, and which is above all praise, are not 
only presages of a better future, and foundations for hope ; they give convincing 
assurances that from the reform schools of Ruysselede shall come laborious, hon- 
est, moral, religious, and therefore happy men." 

38. Order and discipline. 

In the absence of any other set of rules, the inspector-general of charitable in- 
stitutions, who has special supervision of the organization of reform schools, in 
conjunction with the committee of supervision and inspection, and the director, has 
made the necessaiy regulations to insure the discipline and good order of the 
establishment. 

39. Moral accountability. 

A system of moral accountability has been established upon a basis at once sim- 
ple and complete. For each pupil there is a file of papers, in whieh are preserved 
the examination at his entrance, the statement of his condition before entrance, 
his conduct and progress during his stay, his condition at leaving and afterwards. 
This file contains also other documents concerning the pupil ; judgments, certifi- 
cates, letters, and all information which may inform the authority of the school as 
to his standing and as to the results of his education in the reform school. These 
papers will furnish invaluable information for the exercise of judicious patronage. 

40. Book of conduct. 

The head overseer has charge of a book, in which he enters regularly the com- 
munications daily made him as to the standing of the pupils, by the overseers, 
foremen of the workshops, captains of sections, &c. At the end of each month 
tlie director reviews these entries, and makes out the good and bad marks, for 1. 
general conduct ; 2. order and neatness ; 3. school studies ; 4. religious duties ; 

5. work. 

41. Class and register of honor. 

Those pupils who have received no punishment during three consecutive months, 
and have during each of those months received a fixed maximum of good marks, 
are admitted into a class of honor, from which the director selects the captains 
and assistants of sections. The names of those in this class are written upon a 
register which hangs in one of the principal rooms. 

42. Rewards. 

The distribution of rewards is the duty of the director. They are entered in 
the running account with each pupil, in the reports of moral accountability which 
are submitted to the inspector-general and to the members of the committee 
of inspection, at each of their visits. The rewards are, 1. honorable mention; 
2. public eulogy ; 3. admission to certain confidential employments ; 4. appoint- 
ment as captain or assistant of section; 5. registration in the register of honor ; 

6. permission to learn to play some instrument, and to become a member of the 
band ; 7. walks, short journeys, visits home, &c. 

43. Names on the register of honor, January 1, 1851. 

The register of honor was made up for the first time, January 1 , 1 850. At 
the end of that year, it contained the names of 164 pupils, of whom 58 were re- 
gistered once ; 39 twice ; 50 three times ; 17 four times. 

44. Erasures from the register of honor in 1850. 

No favors are granted except accordingly as the name of the pupil appears on 



For stealing; fruit, eegs, cnrrols, ic 5 

•• aiding anti ahcttmg the above, 1 

" running away 1 

Total, 23 



AGRICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OF RUYSSELEDE, BELGIUM. 569 

the register of honor. A single fault or bad mark is sufficient to cause the era- 
sure of a name. The number erased during the year is 23, namely : 

For insubordination, 7 

" dirtiness, 4 

" iillentiss 2 

" indecent proposals, 1 

" false accusation, 1 

" gluttony, 1 

4.5. Punishments. 

While good conduct and praiseworthy actions are rewarded, crimes and faults 
are punished with more or less severity. The punishments used are the follow- 
ing : 1. reprimand; 2. detention during play-hours; 3. forced marching, with 
or without hand-cuffs, and with or without diet on bread and water ; 4. loss of 
place of captain, or assistant of section ; 5. dismission from certain confidential 
employments ; 6. deprivation of musical instrument and dismission from band ; 
6. erasure of name from register of honor ; 7. the prison. 

No punishment is inflicted except by decision of the director. The captains of 
sections report to the overseers of divisions, they to the chief overseer, he to the 
director. Overseers may give a reprimand, and may put the pupils uuder deten- 
tion from play-hours. 

46. Punishments inficted in 1850. 

The punishments are entered in a book, and carried to the account of the pupils 
who have incurred thtm. Their number, and the causes, are as foTlows : 

Blasphemy, 3 

Indecent proposals, 2 

False accusation, 1 

Theft of carrots, fruit, eggs, <fec., 13 

Assisting in above, 4 



Quarrels, 4 

Violent assaults, 5 

Laziness, 27 

Dirtiness 35 

Insubordination, 25 

Negligence, 14 

Turbu lence 15 

Refusing to work, 3 

Gluttony, 5 



Trying to run away, 8 

Running away, 4 

Total 163 



It has generally been sufficient to administer a public reprimand. In other 
cases, recourse has been had to the condemned squad, sometimes with hand-euffs, 
rarely with diet on bread and water. There has been no use, hitherto, of the 
prison. One captain of section has been degraded. All the others have felt the 
honor of their position, have been justly proud of their distinction, and have de- 
served to retain it. 

47. Preservation of morals and manners. 

As we have already observed, the preservation of the morals and manners of 
the pupils is the object of daily and hourly care ; among the means used for this 
purpose, are the following : uninterrupted supervision ; the nature of the work, 
which is performed mostly in the open air ; gymnastic and military exercises ; 
correction of habits of position — -as, hands on tables in school, in dining room, cfcc. ; 
inspection and lighting of sleep-rooms— there is a watchman in each room, and 
the overseer on guard makes frequent rounds ; education, intellectual and relig- 
ious ; warnings and advice of the chaplain and director ; provisions for special 
supervision. 

48. Meetings and conferences of pupils and officers. 

On the first Sunday of each month, after mass, the officers and pupils all gather 
to a general assembly, under the presidency of the director. He then addresses 
eulogiuins and admonitions to those deserving them, publishes rewards and pun- 
ishments, appoints the captains and assistants of sections, and discourses upon the 
proceedings of the past month, with the purpose of keeping the pupils within their 
duty, of stimulating their zeal, and of rousing within them good sentiments and 
noble thoughts. These meetings, which hitherto have had a most salutary influ- 
ence, will hereafter take place every week. 

Further, the director proposes every Saturday afternoon to meet the principal 
officers for the purpose of advising with them upon any necessary matter, and to 
discuss the interests of the pupils, and the measures necessary to the continued 
and increased success of the establishment. There will also be kept a book of 
regulations and a journal of events at the school. 

49. Slate of feeling in Ike school; results of syste?n. 

The state of feeling in the school is at present excellent. The children are 



570 AGRICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OF RUYSSELEDE, BELGIUM. 

obedient, respectful to their superiors, polite and obliging to each other ; disputes 
are rare ; the brotherly feeling prevailing among them is continually strengthened. 
They are attached to the inst.tution ; they have its reputation at heart, and when 
one of them does any thing wrong, his severest penalty is the disapprobation of his 
companions, and the solitude in which they leave him. This interdict, put by the 
good upon the bad, is remarkable ; it is a powerful assistance to discipline ; and 
more than one child upon whom the warnings and counsels of the officers had 
taken no hold, has yielded to the moral pressure and salutaiy power of the public 
opinion of the school. 

During the year now closing, there have been several opportunities to estimate 
the influence of the system of education introduced in the establishment. The 
agricultural and industi'ial exhibition at Bruges, September, 1850, where the 
retbrm school attended with its car, bearing the symbols of agriculture, the band, 
and the armed company ; the distribution of medals for the same exhibition, 
which took place a little after, at the commune of Ruysselede, and where the 
pupds attended to receive the premiums given to their collective labor ; the agri- 
cultural decoration granted to the head farmer for his good and faithful services ; 
the ceremonies of the jubilee at Bruges, in which those pupils took part whose 
names are in the register of honor ; all these have been powerful incitements of 
encouragement and emulation. By coming thus in contact with society, by see- 
ing themselves surrounded with the evidence of so much care, the pupils have 
seen that their reinstatement therein was commenced. The wretched little beg- 
gar, the young vagabond without home or country, begins to experience the rec- 
ognition, the love, and the understanding of the dignity, of humanity. The proofs 
of this transformation are numerous; we will cite a few at hazard. 

During the past summer the chiefs of sections, with an overseer, went to Bruges 
to bring a number of children from the alms-house there ; they were busy all the 
forenoon m washing them, changing their clothes, and preparing them to depart ; 
at dinner-time, being invited to take their meal with the others, they all, without 
concerted agreement for one reason or another, refused. On coming liome at 
evening, fetigued with their journey, the director asked them the reason of that 
refusal. " We were hungry enough," said they, " but we had rather fast than 
eat beggars' soup." During the festivals at Bruges, several persons, pleased 
with the good appearance of the pupils, offered them money ; they all refused but 
one, who accepted a five frane piece ($1.00) which he placed in a box containing 
aid for children leaving the school. At the distribution of medals at Ruysselede, 
the burgomaster who presided, offered to one of the pupils a piece of silver. 
" Thank you, sir," said he, " we have all that we need ; we should not know 
what to do with the money ; please give it to some one more unfortunate than 
we." During December last, the chaplain, at divine service, delivered a sermon, 
taking for h's text the two first words of the Lord's prayer ; Our Father. This 
touching address made a deep impression upon the pupils, wlio spontaneously 
waited for the chaplain to come out from the chapel, saluted him with unanimous 
acclamations, and testified their gratitude and affection by an actual ovation. At the 
New Year it was the director's turn ; the pupils had prepared an agreeable sur- 
prise for him. At the moment when the clock struck the expiration of the old 
year, and the coming in of the new, the whole school came together to present to 
him their congratulations and regards, and to give him a serenade. Some days 
afterwards there happened the formal emancipation of one of the best pupils, who 
was placed among the laboi'ers on the farm. On this occasion the director pro- 
nounced a feeling discourse, which was heard with religious attention, and which 
doubtless left useful impressions on their minds. We mention these things, 
because they appear to us to be the symptoms, we might even say the certain evi- 
dence, of a true reform. TVHien we compare the present condition of the pupils 
with that in which they were at their arrival, we may measure with justifiable 
pride the distance between those periods, and the progress made in less than 
eighteen months. 

The preceding details will show that the establishment at Ruysselede is not a 
prison — a place of penitence — but actually a true reform school, as its title indi- 
cates. The pupils enjoy a liberty limited only by rules to which they submit 
almost spontaneously, and with good will ; all idea of constraint is avoided ; there 
are neither walls, barriers, grates, nor bolts ; so that if the children remain in the 



AGRICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OF RUYSSELEDE, BELGIUM. 57 1 

institution, it is because they are contented and choose to. The small number of 
escapes wh.ch have taken place, demonstrates the advantage of a sj^stein based 
upon confidence and parsuasion. The officers do not hc'sitate when a pupil 
behaves well, if he belongs to a respecttible family, to allow him to visit his parents, 
if in the neighborhood ; these permissions have never been abused, and the pupils 
to whom they- have been given have always returned at the hour prescribed. 
They can also grant other diversions by way of favor, as a reward of good con- 
duct, and an incentive to more ; on certain festival days the most meritorious pu- 
pils may be allowed to sit at table with the officers ; during winter evenings they 
may be allowed to put oft' going to bed, and to employ themselves in such study 
or reading as they please, or to take part in familiar conversations upon instruc- 
tive and amusing subjects. Games may be played, such as shooting with bow 
and arrow, bosvl.ng, skittles, &c. The institution, lastly, of annual festivals, as in 
the German schools, and especially the anniversary of the scliool, contribute to 
give variety and animation to the daily life of the pupils, to rivet the bonds of grati- 
tude and affection between them and their benefactors, and to furnish agreeable 
reminiscences of their stay in the school. 

50. Agricultural organization ; employment of the pupils on the farm. 

The reform school of Ruysseledc, according to the plan on which it was founded, 
is especially an agricultural establishment. The whole organization of labor is 
based upon agricultural and kindred occupations, such as may be performed in 
the fields. The pupils work in the earth, sow and plant ; the younger hoe or 
pull weeds ; the older and stronger are employed in harvesting and thrashing. 
One brigade is specially attached to the farm, where its members in regular rota- 
tion are employed at the stables, the hog-pens, the poultry-yard, the manure 
heaps, the dairy, &c. Another brigade is employed in the kitchen-garden, under 
the direction and supervision of the gardener and his assistant. During these 
two first years, it has been necessary to employ laborers from without the school, 
to assist the inexperience of the children, and to perform some work too difficult 
for them ; but after this year, the establishment can undoubtedly supply all its 
own labor. 

51. Combination and alternation of agricultural and mechanical labor. 

During the season of cultivation, it is estimated that the farm work will regu- 
larly occupy from 250 to 300 children ; these are sel.jcted in preference from 
among the country pupils, orphans, and abandoned children •, the town children, 
who at their dismission are to return to their families, will find employment in the 
workshops already organized, or shortly to be so; these same workshops will also 
furnish occupation for the farm-laborers during the winter, and whenever out-door 
work is necessarily suspended. 

52. Choice and nature of occupation., according to the circumstances of the 
children. 

In the selection of occupations it has been requisite to harmonize the interests 
of the two classes of pupils, town and country children, so as to give them equal 
advantages for whatever situation they may take on leaving the school. This 
object has been carefully considered by the instructors, who, without coming to 
any very definite resolution on this point, have considered the following occupa- 
tions as satisfying more or less the conditions required. 

Blacksmithing, locksmithing, making and repairing farming tools, edge-tool 
making, trellis making, machinist's work. The erection of the steam-engine \\\\\ 
allow of instructing pupils in managing it, and in the duty of fireman, &c. 

Carpentry, joiner-work, wheel-wrighting, cooperage, wooden-shoe making, turn- 
ing, carving in wood ; saddle and harness making ; snoe-making and repairing; 
tailoring and mending; painting, glazing, masonry, hod-carrying, brick-making, 
plastering, &c. ; basket-making, straw-plaiting, hat, mat, and broom-making, &c. ; 
nail-making, brush-making ; making toys and chains ; making various woven 
articles ; carpets, slippers, &c. ; manufacture of fla.x ; breaking, hatcheling, spin- 
ning, winding, weaving, &c. ; milling, baking, cooking ; domestic labor; educa- 
tion as musicians, soldiers, sailors, &c. 

53. Occupations already introduced into the reform school. 

Some of the above-named employments are already introduced into the school. 
The workshops of the blacksmith and locksmiths, carpenters, wheelwrights, coop- 
ers, tailors, basket- makers, and straw-weavers, are already in operation ; the 



572 AGRICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OF RUYSSELEDE, BELGIUM. 

spinning and weaving shop is entirely fitted up, and contains 60 spinning-wheels, 
6 twisting machines, 9 bobbin machines, 1 reel, and 1 warp machme. It is wait- 
ing for a foreman, to be put in operation. The tailors' shop is directed by an over- 
seer ; over the others are placed good workmen, paid by the day or the month, 
who work themselves while directing the pupds under them. It has been the 
practice to choose overseers from among workmen skillful enough to direct the 
principal workshops of the school. By thus combining supervision and direction of 
work, strict economy will be conjoined with strict disciphne. There are already 
among the overseers a laborer, a gardener, and a tailor, exercising these duplicate 
functions. 

54. Number of pupils in different occupations. 

The 245 pupils present at the beginning of 1851, were occupied as follows : 

A. — Farm, and garden. 

1. Kitchen-sarden, 30 1 4. Stables 4 

2 Thrashing 12 5. Farm, various operations, 20—70 

3. Teams, 4 | — 

B. — Workshops. 

6. TaDors and menrler.o, 30 l 12. Plumber's apprentices, 1 

7. Ji>iiitr.< and carpenters 13 | 13. Strawplaiters, hat and basket 

8. Blacksmiths and locksmiths, 8| weavers 40 

9. Wheelwright's apprentices 2 14. Mending roads with gravel, break- 

10 Coopers " 2 ing stone, 28—125 

11. Machinist's " l| 

C— -Domestic service. 



15. Baker's assistants, 2 

16. Washernui 11 

17. Oo(]ks and pickers, 12 

18. Monitors of neatness, 15 

19. Waiting on officers, 2 

20. Cooking lor officers, 3 



21. In Infirmary, 1 

22. Acting as porter 1 

23. Trumpeter on guard, 1— 

24. Sick in infirmary, 

Total, 2 



It will be seen that all the pupils are occupied, notwithstanding the winter • 
there is no want of work ; and if the number of arms were greater, it would not 
be difficult to use them. About sixty of the children are under 12 years old. 
These are employed in the easiest and least fatiguing work ; they plait straw and 
make hats for the whole school. The older and stronger are set at work requir- 
ing more strength and intelligence. But whenever weather permits, or an emer- 
gency demands, they all leave the workshops for the fields, where they render 
whatever assistance they are able. There are several advantages in this change 
of occupations ; the succession and variety satisfy the curiosity of the children, 
sustain their activity, and preserve them from the inevitable fatigue of monoto- 
nous and uniform labor; allow of consulting their preferences and aptitudes, and 
will have the general effect of giving them simultaneous practice in different occu- 
pations, which will be of assistance to them hereafter. 

55. Inducements to labor ; absence of pay. 

The pupils receive no wages ; before being paid for their work, they should 
make up the expense of their maintenance, education, and apprenticeship. Be- 
sides, an alms chest has sufficed to supply the necessary outfits at their depar- 
ture. For pecuniary emolument have been substituted elevation to higher classes ; 
emulation ; moral encouragements ; praises bestowed upon industry and progress. 
The plan has perfectly succeeded. The pupils labor with gaiety and good will, and 
they do not even dream of money, which indeed they would not know what to do 
with while remaining in the establishment. 

56. Condition of property at occupation ; extension of clearing and cultiva- 
tion ; kitchen-garden., nursery, and orchard. 

■The agricultural operations have gone on as usual during the past year. At 
the occupation of the land, in the end of 1848, the fields presented a most de- 
plorable aspect. Neglected, exhausted, overgrown with weeds, and with couch- 
grass, which still persists in growing, in spite of care and repeated hoeings, they 
seemed to defy the most persevering eff"orts. During 1849, nevertheless, about 
63 hectares (1 60 acres) were put under cultivation. In 1850, the clearing has 
been continued, and cultivation extended, in the whole, over about 98 liectares 
(245 acres.) A kitchen-garden has been laid out, occupying about 4| hectares 



AGRICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OP RUYSSELEDE, BELGIUM. 573 



(10 acres,) arranged in the best manner; the walks are bordered with fruit trees, 
and it is surrounded with a hedge of gooseberry and raspberry bushes, and mul- 
berry trees. One side of the kitchen-garden is a small nursery of fruit, forest, and 
ornamental trees, intended to furnish material for plantations and for the instruc- 
tion of the pupils. For the same purpose there has been laid out an experimen- 
tal field, where grain and seeds of dift'erent sorts and of the best varieties are 
planted. Thus will be discovered those best adapted to the soil of the establish- 
ment, and whose cultivation will present most chances of success. The orchard 
was infected with an unhealthy blight ; and contained only a few mangy and 
withering apple trees. It has been renovated, and now serves for a pasture for 
young cattle. 

57. Manure. 

(Method of procuring manure, during early part of farming operations.) 

58. Rotation of crops. 

(Area in diftVrent crops ; rotation used.) 

59. Lost harvest ; estimate of value of property. 

(Items of calculation in estimating totals of ^ming expenses.) 

60. Agricultural accounts. 
(Reference to appendix for details.) 

61. Balance of receipts and expenses. 

(Summary of expenses and returns from farming operations.) 

62. Average product per hectare. 

(Names, quantities per hectare, and value of crops.) 

63. Experiments in cultivation ; necessity of proportioning cultivated land 
to amount of labor and of required provisions. 

(Outline of experiments made ; need of enlarging cultivated area stated.) 

64. Number of cattle. 
(Names and number of stock.) 

65. Farm apparatus. 

(Names and number of vehicles and hnplemeuts.) 

66. Inventory of provisions in store. 
(Value of provisions on hand.) 

67. Revenue of property in 1848 and 1850, compared, 
(Condition of establishment, and revenue, at those dates.) 

68. Medals received by the reform school at the agricultural exhibitions of 
Ghent and Bruges. 

Notwithstanding its recent organization, the reform school sent specimens of its 
productions to the exhibition opened at Ghent, September, 1849, where it received 
a silver medal for its flax, which was remarkably good. In 1850, at the agricul- 
tural exhibition of Bruges, it took seven new medals, besides the agricultural 
decoration of the second class, bestowed upon the head farmer. These remuner- 
ations compensated labor ; and the remembrance of them will not fail to stimulate 
the zeal and activity of both pupils and officers. 

69. During the three years, 1848, 49, and 50, there have been made to the school 
appropriations amounting in all to 602,500 francs (120,500 dollars,) as follows: 

Francs. Dollars. 

1848, 4,000 = 800 

1848, 171,500 = 34.300 

1849, 195,000 = 39,000 

1850, 232,000 = 46,400 

Total, 602,500 = 120,500 

70. Summary and classification of expenses. 



Preparation, maintenance, clearing, building, &c., $2,900.00 

Price of property ; building, &c., 61,936.77 

Agricultural expenses, 4,780.07 

Workshop expenses, 18.61 

Salaries and paid wages, 4,464.55 



Total. 



74,100.00 



27,656.90 

6,170.08 

485.96 

12,087.06 

46,400.00 



$2,900.00 
89,593.66 
10,950.16 
504.57 
16,551.61 

120,500.00 



5*74 AGRICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OF RUYSSELEDE, BELGIUM. 

71. Receipts. 

During the last two years, the receipts of the establishment have amounted to 
118,152 francs, 25 cents. (.$23,630.45 ;) of which $11,210.67 has been paid into 
the trea.sury for board of pupils and from sales of produce, and $12,419.77 were 
in kind, bein^ value of produce raised and consumed in the establishment. 

72. General financial results. 

The result of the financial summary, omitting the expenditures for farming and 
for workshops, which are more than balanced by existing values of property, cat- 
tle, machinery, tools, raw material, and provisions in store, is as follows : 

1. There has been expended from the sum of 600,000 francs, ($120,000,) ap- 
propriated to the reform school by the law of April 3, 1848, 447,968 fr., 34 cts., 
($89,593.67,) in the organization of the school for boys. 

2. There therefore remains, available for establishing the school for girls, 
152,032 fr., ($30,406.40.) 

3. The expense of management and support of the boys' school for 1849 and 
1850, was 82,758 fr., ($16,551.60.) The number of days' maintenance of pupils 
for the same time, vvas 89,508 ; the average expense per day was therefore 90 
centimes, (18 cents.) But in this estimate are included the expenses of furniture, 
(fcc, bedding and clothes for 500 children ; which are in fact advances, not prop- 
erly charged to the account of ordinary expenses for the two seasons for which 
the estimate is made. After deducting these extraordinary expenses from the ex- 
penditure for 1850, as well as personal expenses carried to the farming account, 
the actual expense for the year, of the boys' school is as follows : 

Francs, c. Dollars. 

1. Board of officers, 9,483.32 = 1,896.66 

2. Other housekeeping expenses of officers, ... . 6,172.81 = 1,034.56 

3. Sleeping expenses of officers, 177.00 = 35.40 

4. Uniforms of overseers, 119. 06 == 23.81 

5. Board of pupils, 13,676.65 = 2,735.33 

6. Wardrobes of pupils, 2,025.00 = 405.00 

7. Sleeping expenses of pupils, 640.00 = 128.00 

8. Heating of establishment, 287.21 = 57.44 

9. Lights for establishment, 1,403.76 ^ 280.75 

10. Apparatus for personal neatness, 198.59 = 39.72 

11. Wa.shing, 651.74 = 130.35 

12. Office expenses, 188.77 = 37.75 

13. School expenses, 731.60 = 146.32 

14. Religious expenses, 200.40 = 40.08 

15. Infirmary expenses, 48.94 = 9.78 

Total, 35,004.85 = 7,000.97 

The number of days' maintenance being 62,462, there follows : 

fr. c, $. cts. 

Dailly expense per head for board, 0.21.89 = 0.04.38 

" " « " other .0.34.15 = 0.06.83 



Giving daily expense of support, 0.56.04 = 0.1 1.21 

The expense of board and maintenance of the officers may be stated as follows j 

francs, o. Dollars. 

1. Board, 4,560.88 = 912.17 

2. Cook's wages, 206.50 = 41.30 

3. Washing, 355.59 = 71.12 

4. Fuel for cooking, 49.84 = 9.97 

Total, 5.172.81 =■ 1.034.56 

Number of days' maintenance, including cook's, 4,667 ; consequently, 

Fr. c. $. cu. 

Daily expense of board, per head, 0.97.72 = 0.19.54 

" " other " " 0.10.56 = 0.02.11 

Whole daily expense of board and housekeeping, . 1.08.28 = 0.21.65 



AGRICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OF RUVSSELEDE, BELGIUM. 5^5 

Lastly, the farm household has cost as follows : 

Francs, c. Dollars, cu. 

1. Board, 2,424.19 = 484.84 

2. Lights, 70.00 = 14.00 

3. Heating, 35.00 = 7.00 

4. Washing, 246.18 = 49.23 

5. Clothing for laborers, 27.36 = 5.47 

Total, 2,802.73 = 560.54 

The number of days' maintenance is 3,301 5 consequently, 

Fr. c. $. CIS. 

Daily expense per head, of board, 0.73.43 = 0.14.69 

" " " « " other, 0.11.47 ^ 0.02.29 

Daily expenses per head, of all, 0.84.90 = 0.16.98 

If it has been possible, dm-ing 1850, to reduce the daily expense each of the 
pupils to 56 centimes (11 cts.,) it may be hoped that this rate will be reduced yet 
more when the school shall be enlarged to its full extent, and when the general 
expenses of officers and government shall be apportioned upon a greater number. 

The high rate of expenses for the former years resulted from the necessity of 
buying in market or in trade the greater portion of the provisions, fodder, and 
manure, used in the establishment. The production of these articles will not be 
upon its true economic footing, until the school shall provide for all its essential 
needs from the produce of its own cultivation and its own workshops. To accom- 
plish this purpose, we repeat, that it is indispensable to put at least 200 hectares, 
(500 acres) under cultivation ; that is, at the rate of one hectare (2-| acres) to five 
souls, of a total population of about 1,000. It will otherwise be difficult or im- 
possible to reduce the expenses to the amount to be paid by the communes, and 
much more to 20 or 25 centimes (4 or 5 cts.) a day, as desired. 

73. Expenses for 1851. 

74. Estimate for 1S52. 

75. Erection of school for girls. 

76. Filling of complement of hoys'' school. 

77. Insufficiency of the school, necessity of an auxiliary establishment. 
According to the statements of the alms-houses, the number of boys from 6 to 

18 years old, in those establishments, January 1, 1848, had arisen to 542. Since 
that time there has been a slight decrease, but there are now nearly 500, includ- 
ing the young beggars who have been transferred from the alms-houses of Bruges 
and Cambre to Ruysselede. Besides, this last institution is destined to receive 
certain classes of children who have not heretofore been sent to the alms-houses. 
If now we consider that the period of remaining at Ruysselede is longer than that 
usually passed in the alms-houses, it is evident that the reform school is altogether 
incompetent to receive all that class of population for whom it was intended. 

Hence the necessity of attaching to the school at Ruysselede an auxiliary school 
capable of containing from 100 to 150 children. The reason of recommending 
such a subordinate school is the considerable expense necessary for a new sepa- 
rate establishment ; while an auxiliary school, like the detached farms at Mettray, 
would cause only comparatively a small one. This auxiliary, situated as near as 
possible to the principal school, would be under the same government with it. It 
would be sufficient to erect upon the farm leased or bought, a building large enough 
for sleeping-room, sitting-room, refectory and school-room, with two or three 
apartments for the overseers. The housekeeping could be done at the farm-house. 
In matters of religion, the pupils might be associated with the people of the village. 
Perhaps an an'angement could be made with the village schoolmaster to give a 
daily lesson. Before being sent to the branch school, the pupils should stay long 
enough at the central school to acquire the necessary discipline and education. 
Every Sunday, if the distance be not too great, they might go to that establish- 
ment, and engage in the ordinary exercises there. 

This arrangement is evidently as simple as economical. Under good direction, 
with land enough (60 to 80 hectares— 150 to 200 acres,) the auxiliary school, in- 
stead of causing extra expense, would cause an actual saving to the principal 
Bchool. 



5*76 AGRICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OF RUYSSELEDE, BELGIUM. 

78. Conclusion. 

To judge of the reform school at Ruysselede, and to appreciate the results ob- 
tained there up to this time, it is necessary not to lose sight of the date of its es- 
tablishment, and the short time since the entrance of the first pupils. Its experi- 
ence is hardly begun ; the foundations are laid, but they are yet to be submitted 
to the test of daily practice. If the expectations of government have hitherto 
been realized and even surpassed, in some respects, this result must chiefly be 
attributed to the devotion and zeal of the committee, the director, of the officers 
generally ; but it is far from this point to definitive success ; and to attain this 
v^'ithout miscarjiage, requires a steady perseverance which nothing can discourage, 
and the firm resolve to overcome the difficulties and obstacles which can not fail 
to present themselves. 

When the agricultural department shall be on a thorough footing, it will be 
proper to extend and perfect it so as to bring the amount of production up to the 
demands of the population. The stable, the dairy, the piggery, the poultry-yard, 
should furnish regular profits. The inexperience of the young beggars w^ho had 
never handled a tool before in their lives, their idleness, which great pains were 
necessary to overcome, their vicious and enfeebled constitutions which had to be 
built up, were so many obstacles which must be taken into account. But now 
that these embarrassments are in great part removed, that the school and the farm 
have a definite organization, that the pupils have acquired, with the habit of dis- 
cipline, a degree of strength and skill, undoubtedly the attention of the authorities 
can be more particularly directed to financial matterSj and can take cognizance of 
many details hitherto necessarily neglected. 

The workshops in process of organization will also help to lessen the expense of 
the establishment. The combination of mechanical and agricultural labor will 
afford opportunity to vary occupation and to distribute them accordingly to the 
fitness and future intei-ests of the pupils. Each of these should learn at least one 
trade completely, and the rotative method at present introduced in the farm-work 
is accommodated to this design of the apprenticeships. 

The department of insti'uction should be completed. The children should do 
no work without having it explained to them. A purely mechanical and entirely 
uniform occupation brutifies the workman, while varied and intelligent labor in- 
creases his power and elevates his mind. Already, during the past spring, the 
head gardener has held classes at which he has explained to the pupils under his 
charge the theory of the operations which they are called to practice in the ground ; 
these might be arranged likewise for other departments of labor. There will be 
also a permanent course of linear di'awing, for the benefit of carpenters, lock- 
smiths, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, &c. All the pupils will be taught the funda- 
mental rules of arithmetic ; which will enable them to make the calculations con- 
nected with their work, and to keep the simple accounts required in it. 

After providing for present exigencies, it is necessary to care for those of the 
future. The extension of assistance to the pupils at leaving the reform school, 
may be very advantageously used in prescribing certain conditions of apprentice- 
ship or hire. Among these conditions will be a stipulation for the sending back 
to the school, in certain cases of pupils guilty of misconduct, or not possessing the 
qualifications requisite for the business they have undertaken. This arrangement 
will have the double advantage of facilitating the finding of places, and of preserv- 
ing over the pupils, after their dismission, a guardianship, the want of which is 
now felt as a defect. It will also be proper that the authorities of the school 
should have the privilege of putting out the children, on proper occasions, without 
waiting for the prescribed time of dismission, as well as that of prolonging their 
stay, when there is no opportunity of finding places for them. Later, when the 
reform school shall have come into complete operation, and shall have been fully 
developed, the means may be sought of favoring the emigration of those pupils 
who are not bound to their country by family ties, and who may find abroad, 
means of occupation and of success in life unattainable in Belgium. To this class 
belong foundlings, abandoned children, orphans, children of those condemned to 
infamous punishments, &c. But it should be clearly understood that the patron- 
age and protection of government will follow these young emigrants to their new 
country, and that a return is always open to them if their hopes abroad should fail. 
The reform school will thus become a sort of nursery of material for colonization, 



AGRICULTURAL REFORM SCHOOL OF RUYSSELEDE, BELGIUM. 



511 



both at home and abroad. Thus prepared, pursued by young and vigorous men, 
animated with a lol'ty sentiment of devotion, the work of colonization, which would 
surely fail if intrusted to a few miserable artizans, men generally weakened by 
privations, idleness and vice, would, we are confident, be crowned with full success. 
The pupils sent from our preparatory schools would accomplisli a mission analo- 
gous to that of the hardy pioneers who patiently laid the foundations of the gran- 
deur of the United States, by opening to the population which followed in their 
footsteps abundant sources of labor and of gain. 

One of the greatest difficulties in tlie organization of reform schools is undoubt- 
edly the finding of capable and devoted officers, willing to associate in the reform 
undertaken by government. To overcome this difficulty it has already been con- 
templated, as has been mentioned above, to estiiblish at Ruysselede a school of 
foremen and overseers, like the institutes of Mettray and of Horn, and the nor- 
mal schools of Switzerland. Economical consideration caused the postponement 
of this plan, which however might sliortly be resumed by the help of the advanta- 
ges of this institution, \yithout additional expense. The captains and assistants of 
sections, and the monitors of the workshops and schools, already form a sort of 
preparatory class of all necessary classes of officers ; whose members might be 
employed not only at Ruysselede, but also at any auxiliary or similar establish- 
ments hereafter to be created. To assist and encourage this arrangement, the 
most capable and deserving members of this class might be admitted to attend the 
course of instruction in the normal schools, or in the agricultural, arboricultural, 
or horticultural schools recently erected under the patronage and with the assis- 
tance of government. This would prove a valuable stimulant and reward of emu- 
lation, and one from wliich the reform school would reap a rich return. This 
object, held out to legitimate ambition, would be the crowning feature of the sys- 
tem which we are seeking to apply ; a system which aims at the reformation and 
reinstatement in society of the numerous population of young pariahs who have 
scarcely any other prospect in life than an alms-house, a prison, or an early death. 

The arrangement for prolonging the stay of the children in the reform schools 
will not only tend to insure their reformation, but will also secure the return, by 
their labor, of part at least of the expenses of their education and apprenticeship. 
Its result will be that these expenses will be strictly limited within the amount of 
the public appropriations. We have already seen that in 1852, the finances of 
the school had been established upon a footing so economical as to require the ad- 
ministration of the institution to use its own income to cover its expenses. If, as 
we hope, this requirement has been satisfied, the economical problem of the es- 
tablishment of reform schools may be considered solved. Henceforward these in- 
stitutions may be established upon a satisfactorily stable foundation, and there 
need be no hesitation in aUowing them all the development of which they are 
capable. 

3V 



REFORM SCHOOL AND FARM 



JUVENILE CRIMINALS, AT RED HILL, NEAR REIGATE. 



The Reformatory School and Farm, at Red Hill, near Reigate, in 
the county of Surrey, was established in 1849, by the Philanthropic So- 
ciety, the oldest association in England, and one of the earliest of its 
class m Europe, having been founded at London in 1788, to provide a 
refuge, and the means of industrial, moral, and intellectual instruction 
for juvenile criminals, and the destitute offspring of convicted felons. 
The first step taken by the society was to collect in a hired house, in the 
neighborhood of London, known as St. George's Fields, some dozen chil- 
dren, under a master-workman and his wife, whose duty it was to over- 
seer their labor in some simple branch of handicraft industry. Gradu- 
ally the plan was enlarged so as to embrace three houses, under the 
charge of a master^workman — one devoted to shoemaking, the second 
to tailoring, and the third to carpentry, until the whole was merged into 
one great establishment, surrounded by a high wall, with a chapel, resi- 
dences for tiie officers, and workshops for tailors, shoemakers, brush^ 
makers, basket-makers, printers, carpenters, &c. The destitute and 
criminal youth — at first of both sexes, but afterwards the girls were ex- 
cluded — were here received and instructed in some useful trade, as well 
as in the elementary branches of education, and then bound out as ap- 
prentices to master-workmen in the city. The institution, by its meas- 
ure of success, demonstrated the practicability of making a favorable 
change in the personal, industrial, and moral habits of neglected and 
criminal children, but it did not adopt from time to time modifications of its 
system, and especially, did not supply the deficiencies of family discipline 
and influence, in which the worst habits of this class of children have 
their origin. As the population of the city spread to and around the 
premises, its location became unhealthy, and objectionable on other 
grounds. 

In 1846, Mr. Sidney Turner, now the resident chaplain, and mana- 
ger, came into the active management of the institution, and gradually 
effected a change in its plan of operation. In company with Mr. 
Paynter, a police magistrate, and Mr. William Gladstone, the treasurer 
of the society, he visited the Mettray colony near Tours, as well as other 
industrial schools on the same general model ; and on their return, a plan 
was devised for a reformatory school, in which farm-labor should be the 
principal, and the trades and handicrafts the secondary occupations of 
the inmates. After some difficulty in procuring an eligible situation, an 
estate of about 140 acres, known as the Red Hill farm, near Reigate, in 



REFORM SCHOOL ANP FARM. AT RED HILL 579 

the county of Surrey, on the Brighton Railway, was obtained on a lease 
of 150 years, with the privilege of purchase at any time, on speci- 
fied terms. Buildings werfe erected for a dwelling-house for the director. 
a farm-house and appurtenances, a chapel, school-room, and two lodg- 
ing houses, each capable of accommodating fifty-six children and their 
overseers. 

The school at Red Hill was commenced in April, 1849, by the admis- 
sion of three lads ; and in the course of two months of fifteen more, mostly 
above fourteen years of age, and from country districts. At the close of 
the year there had been admitted sixty-five boys, including those which 
were at the institution in London. The following sketch of a visit to 
Red Hill within a year after it was opened, which was originally pub- 
lished in Chambers' Journal, will throw light on the organization and 
practical working of the institution. 

On alighting at the Red Hill station, we were received by a neat young groom, 
who drove us in a small vehicle, very carefully and well, over a mile and a-half 
of rougliish road to the chaplain's residence, into which we were politely ushered 
by another youth, who announced us to our host. 

'• Surely," I said when that gentleman arrived, " neither of those lads were ever 
convicts ?" 

" Yes," was the reply ; " one was convicted once — the other, who is from Park- 
hurst, twice ; but they are both so thoroughly reformed, that we trust them as 
fully as we do any of our other servants — some times with money to pa\' small 
bills." 

On advancing to a sort of balcony to look around, we found ourselves on the 
top of one of that low range of eminences known as the Surrey Hills, with, if not 
an extensive, a cheerful and picturesque landscape to look upon. Immediately to 
the left stood a pretty group of buildings, comprising the chapel, a school-7-oom, 
and two houses, each to contain sixty boys ; the foundation-stone of the first hav- 
ing been laid by Prince Albert no longer ago than the 30th of April. These un- 
pretending but tasteful Gothic edifices, relieved, as they were, by a back-gi-ound 
of thick foliage, which stretched away at intervals to the boundaries of the estate, 
gave a sylvan, old-English character to the scene, vi'hieh will doubtless be en- 
deared to the memory of many an emigrant when laboring out his niission in the 
Antipodes. In front, in a dell, beyond a cuttiner through which the South- Eastern 
Railway passes, and half-hidden by tall trees, the farm-house in which the boys, now 
on the farm, are accommodated, partially revealed itself; while beyond, a cottage, 
in which the bailiff of the estate lives, was more plainly seen. 

Dotted about the farm — of which our terraced point of view afforded a perfect 
supervision — were groups of juvenile laborers steadily plying their tasks. One 
small part}' were grubbing a hedge, their captain or monitor constructing a fire- 
heap of the refuse ; a detachment of two was setting up a gate, under the direc- 
tion of a carpenter ; a third group was digging a field of what we afterwards 
found to be extremely hard clay ; and a fourth was wheeling manure. We could 
also see flitting to and fro, immediately about the farm-house and offices, several 
small figures, employed in those little odd jobs that the *" minding " of poultrj', the 
feeding of pigs, the grooming of horses, and the stalling of oxen, entail upon the 
denizens of a farm-steading. The systematic activity which pervaded the whole 
estate, and the good order in which every thing appeared, bespoke rather an old-- 
established than a recently-entered farm. 

Having been gratified with this scene, we descended, under the guidance of our 
reverend host, to take a nearer view of the operations. On our way, he informed 
us that the extent of the farm is no more than 140 acres; but that, small as it is, 
he hoped, with some additions readily obtainable, that as many as 500 boys would 
be eventually trained upon it. It appears to have been admirably chosen for the 
purpose. These acr.es include every variety of soil, from light sand to the stifFest 
of clay, the generality of it consisting of ferruginous marl, the color of which 



o80 REFORM SCHOOL AND FARM, AT RED HILL. 

doubtless gave the name to the hill over which it is chiefly spread. The more 
stubborn part of the estate will not only supply what is chiefly required — labor — 
but will also be th^^ means of instructing the pupils in the proper method of culti- 
vating consolidated soils ; while tlu modes of dealing with lighter land will be 
exemplified in the more f.iible sandy earths. 

While approaching the nearest knot of young laborers, it happened that the 
recollection of a visit I had paid some years ago to the town-house of the society 
arose vividly in my mind. I rememb.'red well, that although generally heathy, 
some of the boys seemed pale, and when you addressed them, answered furtively, 
and did not look straight into your face. But the ruddy, smiling countenance 
which was now turned up to return the pastor's greeting, formed a striking con- 
trast to what I had noticed on the previous occasion. It beamed with health and 
pleasure : the first due to a free life in the country, changed from a pent-up ex- 
istence in town; and the latter to the aftable kindness of his treatment. The boy 
was '' puddling'' (ramming earth round the foundation of) a gate-post, and replied 
to certain suggestions respecting his mode of doing his task in a frank, fearless, 
but perfectly respectful manner. We passed on to the hedge-grubbing. Th.s is 
hard work, and the boys were plying away manfully. Will lent force to every 
stroke of the pick, and every incision of the ax. The moment the director came 
in sight, a smile rose to every face. A large, spreading, obstinate root was giving 
a couple of the young grubbers a vast deal of trouble, and the superior, supposing 
the boys were not going about their task in the best manner, suggested an altera- 
tion in their plan. It was pleasing to see, instead of a servile or a dogged acqui- 
escence in this hint, that the elder lad at once gave his reasons for the mode he 
had chosen for unearthing the root. A short argument ensued between the mas- 
ter and pupil, which ended in the decision that the latter was right. This showed 
the terms on which these two individuals — who might be described as antipodes 
in station, in morals, and in intellect^ — stood towards each other. The law of 
kindness (the only code practiced here) had brought both into perfect rapport. 
No restraint existed, exc'pt that imposed by pi'opriety and respect. The monitor 
or captain of this group was also " drawn out" by oui' cicerone to explain the 
means by which he kept up ventilation in the burning heap which he was repkn- 
ishing with refuse. This he did not manage very scientifically, but in a manner 
which showed he thoroughly understood the principles of combustion, and that 
his mind, as well as his hands, were engaged in the task. 

At Red Hill free intercourse is cultivated and courted. No discipline is en- 
forced which involves punishment so severe as to be much dreaded, and not the 
slightest restraint upon personal liberty is imposed. Any boy is free to leave the 
farm if he chooses to make his escape ; there is neither wall, nor bolt, nor bar to 
hinder him. Five instances only of desertion have occurred since the school has 
been in actual operation. Of these misguided youths, who were all of the young- 
est class of inmates, three have i-etui-ned of their own accord, begging to be again 
admitted ; two others were sent back by their friends, the desire of seeing whom 
was the motive of their elopement. Although the labor is severe, the clerical 
chief has managed to instill into those under his charge a patient endurance, if 
not a love of it, and a tolerance of the restraints it imposes, far superior to the 
templat ons of the miserable lawless liberty of their previous careei' of crime. It 
shoull, however, be remarked, that the lads in the Farm School have all suffered 
for th 'ir ofF>ns:;s, by imprisonment, or some other penalty, b.-fore their admission 
to it, and come mostly as volunteers under the impulse of repentance, and a de- 
sire to do better for themselves. The " colons" of Mettray, on the contrary, are 
all " detenus" — are literally convicts still under the sentence and restraint of law. 

" Those boys whom we have left," I remarked, " are possibly the best-disposed 
m the school, and never were deeply dyed in crime ?" 

" On the contrary," was the reply, " among them are youths who have not only 
been frequently convicted and imprisoned for felonies, but were, before coming 
here, hab tually addicted to faults which the laws do not punish. They seldom 
spoke without an imprecation, were frequently intoxicated, and were guilty of 
other vices, which one would imagine their youth precluded them from indulging 
in. Yet you now find them expressing themselves with propriety, and conduct- 
ing themselves quite as well as most of the farm-boys in this parish." 

At the extremity of the estate, beyond the bailiff's house, was a party of 



REFORM SCHOOL AND FARM, AT RED HILL. ggl 

younger boys digging a field of obstinate clay nearly as hard as unbaked brick. 
The superintendent, who directed their operations, gave them a good character 
for perseverance, and added, that he was some times surprised at the aptitude 
displayed by the boys wlien farm-tools were first put into their hands. Although 
their previous mode»of life proved they could never before have been used to 
delving, draining, trimming hedgerows, etc., yet the intelligence many of them 
displayed when set about such work for the first time caused their instructor — 
whose former experience had lain among country parish apprentices — to marvel 
greatly. The truth is, the schemes and contrivances — criminal though they 
were — in which these lads were forced to engage to relieve the miseries of their 
old mode of life, have a tendency to sharpen their wits and brighten their intel- 
lects. As the most hardened metal takes the highest polish, so these youths, when 
thoroughly reformed and trained, are most often the brightest workmen. 

To each their benignant pastor gave a kind word, even if it were one expres- 
sive of disapprobation for some fault ; of which he pointed out the evil consequen- 
ces with such plain and convincing reasoning, that the delinquent expressed con- 
trition either in words or by a more expressive, because more spontaneous, look. 
He had manifestly tried to study each character, and adapted his alignments to 
suit its peculiarities, using such means of cure as were most efficacious for the 
special moral diseases under which the patient happened to labor. 

In this lies the true secret of all reformatory efforts undertaken for the j'oung. 
As in medicine, so in morals nuieh depends upon adapting the remedies to the 
character and kind of disease. To bring every sort of mental obliquity under one 
mode of treatment, or one set of rules, is as irrational as if a physician were to 
treat his patients in classes, and administer to each class the same physic. Noth- 
ing can be more plain, than that, to cure immorality, the moral sentiments must 
be addressed ; and this is impossible, or at most ineffectual, where the peculiari- 
ties of each moral ailment is not studied, and where any system of general routine 
is followed. 

Conversing on this topic, we arrived at the farm-house, where we saw the 
scholars engaged in a variety of home duties — from baking and storing bread to 
mending stockings, in which useful avocation we detected two juniors in an out- 
house. 

In the evening, at six, the boys were assembled in the school-room for instruc- 
tion and prayers. An additional interest was occasioned by the circumstance of 
the resident chaplain having only the day before returned from a second visit to 
Mettray. After a prayer, and the reading and exposition of an appropriate chapter 
from the Testament, he gave the assembly an account of what he had seen, and 
read the answer to an address he had taken over to the Mettray boys from them- 
selves, which we translate as follows : 

" The Boys of the Agricultural Colony at Mettray to the youths of the 
Philanthropic Farm-School. 

" Dear Friends and Brothers in the Lord : Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Turner, 
your respected directors, have come to visit our colony, and we can hardly tell 
you how much pleasure we felt when Mr. Gladstone, after speaking to us about 
the farm-school, read to us your address. 

"Thanks, dear friends, for this generous impulse of your hearts. You have 
well understood our feelings. Yes, we are — we shall always be — your brothers. 
The same love, of what is good animates us both. 

'' Tears of joy and thankfulness glistened in our eyes as we heard your kind 
wishes for us; and our honored and excellent directors, the Viscount de Cour- 
teilles and M. Demetz, have been equally moved by them. Your sentiments are 
indeed noble and Christiali. 

" Dear brothers, we all owe much to God, who has directed the honored friends 
by whom both we and you are superintended. Do you pray — let us pray — for 
the founders of both our schools. Let us pray for their happiness, and for the 
welfare of the asylums which they have opened. When you kneel down each 
night before God, think of us in France, who, on our part, will add to our peti- 
tions a prayer for you in England. 

" Like us, you say you have erred — you have known trouble. But like us, too, 
you have resolved to have done with your past life of disorder. You will suooeed 



582 REFORM SCHOOL AND FARM, AT RED HILL 

in this, dear friends, for the providence of God has sent you enlightened and 
Christian friends. You have found in Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Turner what we 
have found in our worthy founders and directors. Let us follow their lessons. 
So shall we march among the foremost in the path of honor and virtue in which 
they lead us. • 

" Dear friends, we form this day an affectionate alliance with you— one that shall 
last. The ring which our directors send will be the substantial symbol of this 
union of our hearts with yours. You will see these words engraved on it, ' God, 
honor, union, recollection'— words which are our motto. Let them be also 
yours. Let us be grateful. Let us join together in strife against what is evil. 
Let us support one another in what is good. Let us love each other to the end. 

'• Dear friends and brothers, health and happiness to you all. 
(Signed by the elder brothers and monitors,) 

'' Lanos, Bellonet, Angey, Mauchin, Guy, Josset. 
Mari, Collot, Souvigne, Hebert, Chevalier." 

This was, the bearers of it were assured, the veritable composition of the sub- 
scribing boys. It was read on this occasion amidst the most profound attention. 
When the assembly broke up, the lads separated to their play-ground in an or- 
derly manner. The young groom, however, departed for the sUible to prepare 
the vehicle for our departure ; for our most interesting visit was nearly over. 

In a parting conversation with the resident chaplain, he told us that thirty-six 
reformed boys had already been sent to Algoa Bay ; and that, despite the storm 
of disaft'ection raised in Cape Colony against the introduction of convicts, the lads 
were well received. They had scarcely stepped on shore, before every one of 
them was engaged, and the accounts since received of them were highly favor- 
able. 

Although the important results which will assuredly flow from this experiment 
can only be carried out by the extension of its plans, yet large numbers of pupils 
in such estiiblishments would, for the reasons we have given, be an evil. Cen- 
tralization and generalization would be as inevitable as they are much to be 
dreaded. To do any good, the mind of each boy must be influenced separately; 
and in a large school, this would be impossible for one superintendent to accom- 
plish. The Philanthropic School is now within manageable bounds, and the chap- 
lain knows each lad almost as intimately as he does his own children ; but when 
the establishment is extended to 500 pupils, as is contemplated, much of his influ- 
ence over individuals will cease. To obviate this, it is intended to make each 
" family" consist of sixty individuals, guided by a master (with an assistant) and 
his wife. The softening restraint instinctively imposed by the mere presence of 
a woman — setting aside her higher influences — will be most beneficial. Much — 
all, we may venture to say — will, however, depend upon the taet, temper, de- 
meanor, and patience of these most important functionaries. It is here, indeed, 
that the point of diflnculty in etFecting the reformation of vicious habits and im- 
pulses in the young presents itself Jf early all reformatory systems have failed 
from the unskilfulness, from the want of long-suftering forbearance, and of prompt 
but kindly firmness, on the part of those to whom the task of reformation has been 
confided. It is the possession of these qualities by the reverend principal, in an 
eminent degree, which has brought about the pleasing state of things we have 
described at the Red Hill Farm, and we look with some anxiety to the time when, 
notwithstanding his general supervision, the smallest of his functions will have to 
be delegated. 

As we arrived at the Red Hill railway station for our return journey some time 
before the train stai'ted, we employed the interval in making inquiries as to the 
character the Philanthropic boys bore among their neighbors, who, we were pre- 
viously informed, had at first looked upon the new colony with dread.* Every 
account we received was, we are happy to find, favorable : the ex-criminals had 
not occasioned a single complaint. 

* A bargain bad nearly been concluded at one time for a farm to the north of the metropo- 
lis ; but so ^reat was the horror of the contiguous gentry, that one of them actually presented 
the society with a donation ot JEIOOO, on condition that the scene of reformatory operations 
should be removed ; and accordingly it was shifted to Surrey. 



BELGIUM. 



In the educational history of Belgium, the advocates of the right and 
duty of the Stale to interpose its authority to aid parents, neighbor-* 
hoods, and municipal bodies in establishing schools of different grades, 
and subjecting them to constant, vigilant, and intelligent supervision, 
and thus protecting itself against incompetent teachers and the conse- 
quences of parental and municipal neglect, can find abundant, if not 
wholly conclusive arguments against the claims of the church on the one 
hand, and of the unabridged and unaided liberty of parents in the educa- 
tion of children on the other. Certain it is, that at no period of the his- 
tory of Belgium, has education been made at once so comprehensive 
and universal as while under governmental organization and inspection. 
During the undisputed supremacy of the Catholic church — and no coun- 
try in Europe has remained so firm to its traditional faith and the 
authority of the church of Rome — while itf njoyed the advantages which 
result from the doctrine and example of a learned and pious clergy, and 
from numerous monastic and other religious institutions — there was a 
large body of the people uninstructed. On the union of the territory 
which now constitutes the kingdom of Belgium, with Holland, under the 
designation of the kingdom of the Netherlands, the king undertook to 
e^rtend over it the system of public education which was commenced 
in Holland under the auspices of the '• Society for the Public GoocV 
in 1784, and adopted by the government in 1806, and which had re- 
sulted in diffusing over the whole country a high degree of popular 
intelligence. 

The new system of public schools began to operate in the Belgic pro- 
vinces in 1817, when a Normal school was established at Liege, and 
during the twelve years from that time to 1829, the progress and quality 
of popular education was greater than at any former period, and greater 
than in the twelve years following, during which the system was broken 
up, and the church and the voluntary system again prevailed. The 
number of children who attended the elementary schools in the winter 
of 1817, was 152,898; and in the winter of 1828, they amounted to 247.496, 
being an increase of 94,589. In 1817 the salaries paid by the govern- 
ment to teachers in the rural communes, was 157,580 francs; in 1828, 
488,150 francs, showing an increase of 330,570 francs During this 



5g4 PUBLIC maxRUCTioN in Belgium. 

period, 1,146 school-rooms, and 668 houses for teachers were erected, or 
thoroughly repaired and fitted up. Well organized schools, under coni- 
petent teachers, were established in nearly every commune, and the 
whole were subjected to a vigilant and intelligent inspection, and im- 
provement was rapidly and universally extending. Antiquated and 
awkward routine was replaced by rational and pleasing methods of teach- 
ing; uniformity of class-books was introduced; normal classes and 
associations of teachers were established for the professional training 
of all who applied to teach in the popular schools ; in short, the whole 
plan of proceeding was regular, thorough, and responsible, through a 
system of inspection, examination, reports, and full publicity. 

The popularity of the system of elementary schools was destroyed by 
the efforts of the government to control the institutions of secondary and 
superior education, and especially by the measures adopted to enforce a 
Protestant influence from Holland into institutions supported by the 
Catholics, who constituted a large majority of these provinces. 

In 1816 the king issued a decree for the organization of the upper 
branches of public instruction. By this decree three universities were 
created — at Louvain, at Ghent, and. Liege — each to possess the five 
faculties, of theology, jurisprudence, medicine, mathematical and phys- 
ical sciences, philosophy and letters. 

In 1822, an edict was published forbidding all persons to exercise the 
functions of schoolmaster in the higher branches of education who had 
not been authorized by the central board of instruction ; and by a decree 
of 1822, this edict was extended to all associations, civil and religious, 
and all persons were forbidden to take vows in any religious fraternity, 
without permission of the government. 

In 1825 all independent schools and seminaries were suppressed, and 
a philosophical college was established at Louvain, in which all who 
were destined for the ecclesiastical state were required to pass two 
years in study as a necessary condition for admission into any episcopal 
seminary. 

This movement was followed by a loud demand for liberty of instruc- 
tion, of the press, and of worship on the part of the Catholics, and finally 
a concordat was concluded with the court of Rome and the government 
of Holland, in virtue of which the episcopal theological seminaries were 
again opened, and the bishops left at liberty to provide at their own dis- 
cretion for the instruction of the pupils. 

In 1830 the Nassau dynasty was banished from Belgium, and a con- 
stitutional monarchy was formed, under which the equal liberty of all 
creeds and religious communities was guarranteed, and the entire lib- 
erty of instruction proclaimed. 

The practical adoption of this principal was productive of great im- 
mediate injury to primary education. The best schools in all the large 
cities, which had grown up under the fostering care of the government, 
and the stimulus of constant and intelligent inspection, and the exclusion 
of incompetent teachers, were broken up. and their places supplied by a 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN BELGIUM. 585 

large number of private and parochial schools, too small in the attend- 
ance of pupils to admit of a thorough system of classification as to age 
and proficiency, and too limited in resources to command the services 
of well qualified teachers. The societies of teachers and friends of ed- 
ucation which had sprung up for the encouragement and improvement 
of the profession, and for the production and use of good books, were 
discontinued, and a period of public apathy succeeded, in which broken 
down tradesmen, and men who had proved their unfitness for otlier 
work requiring activity and culture of mind, found employment as 
teachers, and especially in sciiools where there was no longer any or- 
ganization enforced by the local authorities as a test of qualificattSn for 
the business of instruction. '' In ten years," said one of the most intelli- 
gent school officers in Brussels in 1840, "education has gone back in 
this country one hundred years." ''The contrast between Holland, as 
it now is, and Belgium, in educational matters is striking " remarks an 
intelligent traveller in 1842. "Nothing can be more deplorable than 
the mockery of education, which the people in the rural districts are sat- 
isfied to let teachers, or those who profess to be teachers, practice." 

So rapidly was Belgium sinking below its former position, and in the 
scale of European nations, in the condition of popular education, ihat the 
attention of government was arrested, and the well-directed eflbrts of 
individuals were enlisted to apply the remedy. The public mind was 
used by a series of popular tracts '"on the condition of primary instruction 
and the necessity of improvement," from the pen of M. Ducpetiau.x, who 
also published in 1838 an elaborate work on primary instruction in which 
the schools of Belgium were contrasted with those of Prussia, Saxony, 
Holland, France, and Switzerland. A course of normal instruction was 
provided in connection with a private seminary of M. Vandermaelon in 
1839, and societies of teachers were again formed to assist in establishing 
a system of public schools. So thoroughly were a portion of the Cath- 
olic bishops satisfieil that the contest which had arisen between the 
ultra liberal and the ultra church party — the one excluding all religious 
instruction and all clerical officials from the schools, and the other not 
only making religion an element in family and school education, but 
making every teacher an ecclesiastic, and subjecting the schools entirely 
to clerical inspection and control as a part of the organization of the 
church, was highly detrimental both to the cause of religion and edu- 
cation — that in 1842 tiiey gave in their adhesion to an orgatiic law, which, 
while it secures to the whole people a sound secular education, provides 
for religious instruction, and guarrantees to the clergy a high degree 
of Influence in the schools. 

The system of public instruction in Belgium embraces, 

1. Primary schools, including day schools for children of the usual 
school age in other countries, infant schools or asylums, and Sunday 
schools and evening classes for adults, whose early instruction has been 
neglected. , 

2. Superior primary or high schools in all the large towns. 



586 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN BELGIUM. 



3. Secondary or intermediate schools, called athenaea, preparatory to 
the university. 

4. Normal schools, to qualify teachers both for elementary and second- 
ary schools. 

5. Superior schools or universities, with faculties, of theology, law, 
medicine, and philosophy. 

6. Special schools for industrial education, and particular classes. 

1. Primary Instruction. 

The system of primary instruction established in 1842, embraces three 
classes of schools — primary, superior, and normal. Every commune (the 
smallest territorial and civil subdivision of the State) must have at least 
one public elementary school, unless the instruction of all the children is 
provided for to the satisfaction of the government, in private endowed, 
or denominational schools. These schools^must be free to the poor, and 
can be made free to all, by vote of the communal council. 

The studies in the primary or elementary school, includes religion 
and morals, reading, writing, the scheme of weights and measures as 
defined by law, the elements of arithmetic, geography, and the French, 
German, or Flemish language, according to the locality of the school. 
Instruction in religion and morality is placed under the direction of min- 
isters of the sect to which the majority of the pupils belong. Children 
belonging to other communions need not attend during such instruction 
if their parents object. 

The schools are establi.shed and managed by the communal council, 
or administrative authorities of the villages and cities, subject to the 
supervision of the government, through cantonal and provincial in.^ 
spectors. 

An inspector is appointed by the king, through the minister of public 
instruction for each canton or judicial district, on the nomination of the 
provincial council, whose duty it is to visit at least twice in every year 
all the schools in the district, and furnish a detailed account of them to 
the provincial inspector. The cantonal inspector holds his office for 
three years, and is paid a per diem sum for his services. He must keep 
a regular journal of his visits, in which he must enter the results of his 
observation. He must also hold a conference of all the teachers in his 
district once in three months, for examination and discussion of their 
methods of teaching, and text-books used. 

An inspector is also appointed for each of the nine provinces, whose 
duty it is to visit all the schools of the province once in the year, preside 
at the c*antonal conferences of teachers, make an abstract of the journal 
or register of the cantonal inspectors, and submit a complete report 
of the condition of primary instruction in the province to the minister 
of the interior at Brussels. The provincial inspectors assemble once a 
year as a central commission, under the presidency of the minister of the 
department. 

The teachers must be chosen from among candidates, who have for 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN BELGIUM. 587 

two years at least, and with approval, pursued the studies of a normal 
school, either of the State or, ii" private, of one that has submitted to the 
inspection provided for in the law. Every teacher must receive a cer- 
tificate of quahfication from a board consisting of a lay and clerical 
member, the former appointed by the State, and the latter by the eccle- 
siastical authorities. He may be dismissed by the provincial inspector 
on consultation with the communal council. 

The cost of the primary schools is borne by the communes, and in- 
cluded in their taxation. The provinces only interfere when the appro- 
priation made by the commune is equal to the product of two centimes 
per cent, of the sum paid in direct taxes. The grants of money by 
the legislature are specially designed for establishing infant, Sunday, 
evening, and apprentices' schools. When the government is satisfied 
through the provincial inspector, that tlie instruction given by endowed, 
or private schools, is adequate to the wants of tiie commune, it may 
relieve the commune from the obligation of supporting a public school. 

2. Superior Primary Schools. 

The law of 1842 provides for a superior elementary school in every 
large city, which, by the act of 1850, were connected directly with the 
next higher grade of schools in the system of public instruction. In 
1846 there were twenty-six of these schools; in one of the best in each 
province, a normal course was provided for teachers of the schools 
below. 

3. Secondary, or Intermediate Schools. 

Prior to 1850, in most of the cities and large towns, there were one or 
more institutions, known as athenaeum. Latin school, gymnasium, &c., 
some of them public and some private, some under lay and others 
under ecclesiastical control, some for day and others for boarding pupils, 
and all designed to supply a middle course of instruction between the 
primary school and the university. In 1850 a law was passed to pro- 
vide a class of public schools under the name of atheneeum and second- 
ary schools, to meet the double purpose, of preparation for higher literary 
studies, and for the practical pursuits of life. The schools are of two 
grades, higher and lower intermediate schools. The higher grade, 
known as athenaeum, includes two sections, one for classical and the 
other for industrial instruction. Pupils, destined for collegiate studies, 
have a course of six years, in which prominence is given to the ancient 
and modern languages, and studies wliich are preliminary to the lec- 
tures and professional studies of the university. This course is similar to 
that of the gymnasia of Germany. Pupils destined for either of the four 
special schools of arts, engineering, mines, or war, have a course of four 
years, which include, in the lower grade, linear and mechanical draw- 
ing, surveying, and other applications of geometry; and in the higher, 
mathematics, mechanics, chemistry, and the elements of industrial 
economy. This course resembles that of the real schools of Germany, 



588 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN BELGIUM. 

4. Superior Instruction. 

Higher instruction is dispensed by four universities; two supported 
by tiie Slate, ai Ghent and Liege; two being free of all governmental 
control, one at Louvain, avowedly and intensely Catholic in its tone and 
management, and the other at Brussels, founded by an association, and 
professedly free from all denominational bias — the religious instruction 
of the pupils being left to parents, and the ministry of the several de- 
nominations, with which the pupils are connected. Each university is 
composed of four faculties — law, medicine, science, philosophy and let- 
ters; to these, at Louvain. there is a faculty of theology and canonical 
law. In 1850 there were about 1,400 students in the several departments 
of ihe four universities. 

There are two academical degrees — that of candidate and doctor^ 
which are bestowed, not by the university, but by a board of exam- 
iners, composed of men eminent for learning and science; eacii faculty 
or department having its separate sub-board, which is appointed by the 
king annually, two being nominated by the senate, two by the lower 
house, and iliree by the ministers of the government. This board hold 
its session at Brussels, and awards after a public examination, [concour) 
certificates and titles to those who are possessed of the greatest scien- 
tific and literary knowledge, without reference to the place, institution, 
or teachers, when this knowledge and ability has been acquired. The 
degree of doctor is accessible only to those who pursue the professional 
studies of law, medicine, or theology, and can not be conferred on any 
one who has not received the degree o\' cqndidate. 

5. Inuubtrial and Special Instruction. 

Industrial instruction is given in institutions of three grades; higher 
instruction in the special schools of arts and manutiictures and mines, 
attached to the university of Liege, those of civil engineering and 
of arts and manufactures annexed to the university of Ghent, and the 
superior institute of commerce at Antwerp ; intermediate instruction in 
the industrial departments attached to all the athenaja and high schools ; 
primary instruction in the industrial schools for workmen. 

The preparatory school at Liege is intended to qualify pupils for the 
special schools for public service. The course of study, occupj'ing two 
years, includes all the studies necessary for preparing mining engin- 
eers, practical chemists, and mechanics. The course in the special 
mining school, occupying three years, inclqdes courses in applied me- 
chanics, mineralogy and geology, industrial inorganic chemistry, indus- 
trial natural philosophy, exploration and working of mines, assaying, 
metullurgy, industrial architecture, mining, legislation and industrial 
economy. A diploma of mining engineer is delivered to those who pass 
the requisite examinations, and the pupils of the school are first exam- 
ined for vacant places in the corps of engineers. The special sciiool 
of arts arid manufactures is divided into two sections, one for instruction 
in tlie applications of science to chemistry and mineralogy, and the other 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN BELGIUM. g89 

for the construction of machines. The course of study in the former 
occupies four years, and in the latter, three. Pupils pass^ing the re- 
quired examination receive the diploma of civil engineer of arts and 
manufactures, or of engineer and machinist. The number of pupils in 
all these schools, lor the academic year 1852-3, is 84; there being 42 in 
the preparatory school, 11 in the mining school, 16 in the school of arts 
and manufactures, 15 others, pursuing different courses. 

The special school of arts and manufactures at Ghent is organized 
similarly to that at Liege, but is not yet in operation. 

The superior institute of commerce at Antwerp, is also not yet in 
operation. It is intended to teach the science and art of commercial 
business. 

Youth are prepared for the higher special instruction in the indus- 
trial department of the higher intermediate schools, or in the lower in- 
termediate schools; with which two grades, the Ibllowing institutions 
may also be classed, namely: the industrial schools of Ghent, Liege, 
Verviers and Huy ; the provincial special school of commerce, industry, 
and mines, of Hainault; the provincial special school for master miners, 
attached to the college of Charleroi ; the industrial and literary school 
of Verviers; the State veterinary and agricultural school alCureghem- 
lez-Bruxelles, and the schools of navigation at Antwerp and Ostend. 
Here may also be classed the intermediate agricultural and horticul- 
tural schools established by government in 1849 and 1850, either by 
arrangements with municipal authorities for connecting special depart- 
ments with the existing schools, or by agreements with private persons 
to convert farms or gardens into special schools. These are of two 
classes ; 1, those designed to instruct the sons of land-owners, farmers, 
&c., in agricultural science ; and 2, those designed to train good master- 
workmen. 

Of the first class, are 

Number of pupils. 

The, agricultural department of the school at Tirlemont, ... 15 
" ' " " " " « " Chimay, ... 27 

" " " " " industrial school at Leuze, . 39 

« « « « <( u u u Verviers, 16 

" « " " la Trapperie, 22 

" " " " Bergen-op-Zoom, 30 

" " " " the school at Oostacker, .... 25 

" horticultural school at Genelbrugge-lez-Gand, 27 

Of the second class, are 

The practical horticultural school at Vilvorde, 29 

" " agricultural " " Ostin 22 

" " " " « Rolle, 25 

" school for making farm tools at Hain-Saint-Pierre, ... 12 
Whole number of pupils, . . . 289 
The total expense of these schools is $24 923.31, of which they receive 

from the State, $21,445.33. 



590 



PUBLIC INCSTRUTION IN BELGIUM. 



Primary industrial instruction is given in the following schools: 

1. The school of arts and trades at Tournay, to which children are 
admitted to the number of about 80, at 12 years of age and upwards, 
and where they are taught reading, writing, and arithmetic, and at the 
same time the beginning of a trade. There are for this purpose five 
workshops ; of carpentry, weaving, construction, founding, and hose- 
making. 

2. The manufacturing or working schools, 740 in number. Lace- 
making alone is taught in 586 schools; lace-making, knitting, and sew- 
ing, in 135, and other trades in 19. In 479 of them, the pupils receive 
primary literary instruction, with the industrial training, 

3. The apprentice schools, numbering 78. Their design is either to 
introduce new improvements into ihe trades of weaving and spinning, 
or to introduce new branches of industry, and thus to obviate the diffi- 
culties arising from the introduction of spinning machinery into the 
country, where a large portion of the population were accustomed to 
support themselves by spinning by hand. 

The military school is one of the most important military establish' 
ments in Belgium, and is for the purpose of training officers of all arms. 
The instruction is given by a corps of not less than 18 professors, 14 
tutors, and 6 masters. The pupils, whose number varies from 100 to 
125, are divided into several sections, as follows: 1. Infantry and cav- 
alry sections, (course two years.) composed of subalterns and young 
men admitted on public examination. 2. School proper, (course two 
years,) composed of pupils admitted by the minister of war, after exam- 
ination. 3. School of application, (course two years.) of sub-lieutenants 
of engineers or artillery, wlio have been through a two years' course 'in 
the school. 4. Section of artillery and engineer officers, (course two 
years,) of lieutenants of artillery and engineers not having studied in 
the school, and placed there to complete their studies. 5. Section 
of Turkish pupils, comprises young officers of ditferent arms of the 
Turkish army. 

The military school corresponds with the three schools in France, 
called the school of Saint-Cyr, the polytechnic school, and the school 
of application (at Metz.) 

Military schools of lower grade are: 1, the school for soldiers' chil- 
dren at Lierre, (course occupying five years, besides preparatory class,) 
composed of legitimate children of officers, subalterns, soldiers, and 
assistants in the war department, intended to furnish graduates fitted to 
become subalterns in the army; 2, regimental schools organized from 
the staft-officers, and forming part of the regimental battalion of reserve. 
These schools are of two grades, and are for the instruction of ignorant 
soldiers. There also exist regimental evening schools, for subalterns, 
corporals, and soldiers. 

Thus the Belgian army has a social organization, quite as fit for 
peace as for war. The officers who leave their military employment 
easily find civil occupations. Veteran subalterns, on account of their 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN BELGIIM. eQj 

habits of order and discipline, are in request, as policemen, on railroads, 
as postmasters, and town tax-gatherers; the countrymen who return 
home after two years of service, carry with them the benefits of the 
primary course of instruction. Thus the army, a means of security in 
war, becomes an element of improvement in peace. 

There are two veterinary schools, one at Brussels and the other at 
Liege. The school at Brussels embraces a complete course of instruc- 
tion in agriculture. 

The government supports three " conservatories" of music, the oldest 
at Liege, with an average attendance of 250 pupils; a second at Ghent, 
with 300 pupils; and the largest at Brussels, with 400 pupils. Every 
third year a concour is held for competition in musical composition, in 
which the successful competitor receives 10,000 francs for the purpose 
of a four years' tour in other countries. Besides these national schools, 
there are several local schools of music, by which a taste for this de- 
lightlAil art is made general. 

There are over fifty schools and halls of drawing, painting, sculpture, 
and architecture, supported or aided by the government, with over 
7,000 pupils. A national exhibition is held every three years, at which 
numerous prizes and premiums are offered for competition. 

A national observatory is maintained at Brussels, and learned socie- 
ties for the cultivation of science, literature, and the arts, are hberally 
patronized by the government. The geographical institute of M. Van- 
dermaden has largely contributed to the advancement of this branch 
of useful knowledge. 

In 1848 there were (burteen public libraries, each having over 10,000 
volumes, and all comprising 509,100 volumes. 

The government supports two schools for deaf mutes, one for the 
blind, six for orphans, and three for young criminals. 

Normal Instruction. 

Normal in.struction commands much and increasing attention from 
the Belgian government. Besides two normal schools for teachers and 
professors in the secondary and superior schools, there exist for primary 
teachers the following public normal schools, so called because entirely 
or partly supervised and supported by the government : 

Two government normal schools, established and supported by the 
State. 

Seven normal departments annexed to higher primary schools, estab- 
lished and assisted by government. 

Seven episcopal normal schools, established and maintained by the 
Catholic bishops, but which have been placed under government super- 
vision and regulation.?, and are assisted by its funds. Besides these 
public normal schools, there are others not officially recognized as pub^ 
lie schools, viz. : the remaining episcopal normal schools, and private 
establishments. 

There are also periodical meetings ol' public primary teachers, which 



292 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN BELGIUM. 

resemble the teachers' institutes of the United States, and which are 
called conferences. They are conducted by government officials, and 
partly at its expense, except a few which have been established by the 
teachers themselves. 

Teachers' Conferences. — These are held quarterly during vacations, 
and conducted by the provincial or cantonal inspectors. Their sessions 
are short, generally occupying only one day, and never more than three. 
They are held within and tor certain specified districts, the public pri- 
mary teachers within which are legally bound to attend them. Instruc- 
tion is given by the presiding officers, and by the teachers themselves, 
on various educational subjects; the inspectors usually presenting theo- 
retical and scientific matter, and the teachers explaining their various 
methods. tSc-c. The subjects to be discussed at each conference are 
announced at the close of the preceding one, and each teacher is ex- 
pected to prepare himself on them at home. Private teachers and non- 
professional persons are not allowed to attend the meetings, unless for 
special reasons. An allowance of from twenty to thirty cents a day is 
paid to each member. 

Each teacher is required, after his return home, to prepare an account 
of the proceedings of the meeting, and to forward it to the inspector, 
who selects the best for registration, as the public record of the meeting. 
Libraries for the use of the teachers belong to each conference, furn- 
isiied generally in the first instance by the government, and sometimes 
increased by the contributions ol" teachers and other friends of education. 
The number of works in these libraries in 1848, was 5,908, in 9,352 vol- 
umes, estimated to be worth about $2,700. 

The number of teachers' conferences held in Belgium was, in 1846, 
349 ; in 1847, 460 ; and in 1848, 635. The average length of their busi- 
ness sessions was five or five and a half hours. 

The exercises at one of these conferences were as follows, according 
to the record made by one of the teachers present: 

The session commenced at 10 A. M., with the signing an attendance-roll by 
the teachers, and a short prayer by th§ religious inspector. The civil inspector, 
who with his ecclesiastical brother presided over the meeting, proceeded to com- 
plain that sundry teachers had failed to present their reports of the previous 
meeting, and caused them to promise to do it. Several reports of that meeting 
were then read. 

At this point the provincial inspector, M. Courtois, arrived, and assumed the 
direction of the business. 

The order of the day being the best methods of teaching writing, M. Daulie 
gave an account of his method. His first lessons are for the position of the body 
and of the pen, and then follows the tracing of straight lines, curves, and ovals, 
from copies upon the blackboard. 

M. Chevalier d'Herchies exhibited his method at the board ; it consists in 
drawing various ovals, from which he forms the different letters. 

M. Courtois, the inspector, recommended the use of pasteboard slates for young 
pupils, as a means of teaching them early to write, and of keeping them occupied 
and still. He further remarked that instruction in writing might be divided into 
three parts; 1, formation of straight lines, curves, and ovals; 2, formation of 
letters, and of words in large and half text ; 3, writing fine hand, and formation 
of different characters and forms of letters. 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN BELGIUM. 593 

The session was suspended at twelve, and recommenced at half-past two. 

The provincial inspector notified the teachers that they must keep school all 
the year ; and it would become his duty to take rigorous measures with those who 
should not fulfill this obligation. In reply to M. JDeltombe, who said that some- 
times there were no scholars, he said that he could not admit that there was a 
total want of scholars, that such a case was impossible. 

M. Miissou explained his nietliod of teaching the catechism. He uses the sim- 
ultaneous and individual methods, with explanations from time to time. 

The ecclesiastical cantonal inspector, M. Brohez, said that these explanations 
should be prepared under the direction of the priest. He also directed the atten- 
tion of the teachers to the pronunciation of the catechism and of the prayers. 

An exercise followed in teaching French, and another in grammar, the latter 
being a method of distinguishing between the verbal adjective and the present 
participle, illustrated upon the board. 

Cantonal inspector Dubois gave instructions in agi'iculture and gardening, and 
recommended the teachers to communicate such instruction to their pupils. 

The provincial inspector .stated a curious fact with regard to transplanting the 
beet. It has two rows of roots, always pointing to the east and west, which in 
transplanting must be set in the same direction, otherwise the growth of the plant " 
is much retarded. 

Inspector Dubois informed the meeting that the next conference would take 
place October 19, 1848, and that the subjects for discussion would be methods 
of teaching arithmetic, and the first three centuries of Belgian history. 

Normal Schools. 

The inspection, management, and instruction of the State normal 
6chools, the normal departments annexed to the higher primary schools, 
and the episcopal normal schools, are substantially alike in the three 
classes of institutions. 

All candidates for entrance are examined by a "jury," composed 
partly of government inspectors and partly of the instructors. The 
courses of study occupy three years. The pupils are usually required 
to board and lodge upon the school premises. The regular graduates 
have the first right of examination for vacant situations as public teach- 
ers; and government, besides the assistance given to the normal schools 
by erecting buildings and bearing part of the current expenses, appro- 
priates about $12,500 annually in sums usually of about $40 each, to 
the assistance of a number of the more meritorious pupils. 

Schools of application are annexed to all the normal schools, being 
the primary schools of the neighborhood. The following account of the 
government normal school at Lierre will give a fair general representa- 
tion of these schools. 

Normal School at Lierre. 

Candidates for admission to the normal school at Lierre, are first exam- 
ined by the provincial inspectors of primary instruction, who are charged 
in particular to see that none are admitted who are inflicted with any 
deformity or infirmity incompatible with the occupation of teaching. 
If suitable, they are then examined by a committee or "jury" of two 
inspectors and three of the faculty of the school, in reading, writing, 
religion, and morals, the grammar of their own and of the French lan- 
guage, the four fundamental rules of arithmetic, the legal system 
of weights and measures, the elements of geography, particularly 
of Belgian geography, and the principal facts of Belgian history. 

S8 



594 PUBLIC INSTRUCnON IN BELGIUM. 

The course of study at Lierre, occupying three years, embraces the 
following subjects, viz: religion and morals; sacred and church history; 
reading, writing, and book-keeping; grammar and composition; geogra- 
pliy and hislory, especially of Belgium; arithmelic. and its business 
applications ; elements of theoretical geometry, and of mapping, land 
measuring, and leveling; elementary algebra; portions of the natural 
sciences applicable toevery-dayhfe; agriculture and horticulture, graft- 
ing and pruning; theory of education, pedagogy and methodology; hy- 
giene, !is applicable to children and schools; elements of constitutional 
law ; knowledge of the constitution and laws of Belgium, and of the 
most usual forms under them, church and school laws ; singing and plain 
chant, playing the organ, harmony and accompaniment ; drawing, 
linear, ornamenal, and architectural. During the third year of the 
course, the pupils are required to teach the different classes in the 
schools of application or practice annexed to the normal schools, under 
the direction of the professors of pedagogy and methodology. 

The instructors are a director and sub-director, who are ecclesiastics, 
nine professors, an adjunct professor, and a gardener-demonstrator; the 
full complement of pupils being 150. 

The pupils board and lodge within the institution, and the entire ap- 
portionment of their time, occupations, and recreations, is under the con- 
trol of the school authorities. The whole establishment is under the 
hygienie supervision of a physician, who directs any measures necessary 
for the health of the inmates. 

There is a library of educational works, which receives a co])y of every 
■work published by government, or by its assistance, and some philo- 
sophical and chemical apparatus, maps, and models for drawing. 

The entire expense of the school at Lierre, for 1848, was $6,943.22, 
of which S5,395.33 was paid for salaries. 

There is an examination at graduation, according to the result of 
which three grades of diplomas are given. At present (1848) all the 
graduates of the normal schools are employed in teaching. The gov- 
ernment continues the bounty above mentioned, for three years after 
graduation, to such recipients of it as do not find their salaries, as public 
teachers, sufficient for their support. 

Femalk Normal Education. 
There are fifteen religious establishments and boarding-schools for 
females designated by government, to a certain number of pupils in 
which a bounty is paid similar to that given to male normal pupils. 
These institutions are under government inspection, and the beneficia- 
ries in them are employed as public teachers after their graduation. 
The course of study is substantially similar to that of the normal schools 
for males, some studies, as geometry, agriculture, horticulture, and con- 
stitutional law, being omitted, and needlework and the application of 
drawing to the cutting and fitting of dresses being added. 



HOLLAND. 



The first impulse to improved primary instruction in Holland was 
given by some benevolent citizens of Groningen, who, in 1784, founded 
the " Society for the Public Good." They were encouraged and 
supported b)^ the government, in their efforts to prepare school books, 
train schoolmasters, and excite attention to tiie state of schools. In 1806 
the various edicts and regulations, published from time to time, were 
digested into a law, by M. Van der Ende, and were generalized for the 
guidance of the country at large. The French invasion curtailed the 
means applied to education ; still the Dutch system was, as early as 1812, 
thought worthy of a special inquiry by Commissioners deputed from the 
University of Paris, at the head of which was M. Cuvier, who reported 
with no small admiration respecting it. On the restoration of peace in 
1814. the first care of the king was directed to the state of public educa- 
tion, which by the law of that year was restored to the footing of 1806. 
Every province was divided into educational districts, and- a school in- 
spector was appointed to each district. A provincial School Commis- 
sion was named from among the leading inhabitants of each province to 
co-operate with the inspectors, and a sum was charged on the budget for 
the educational outlay, from which the traveling expenses of the commis- 
sioners were to be defrayed. 

The governments of the towns and provinces were charged with the 
cost of maintaining the schools, for which they provide in their local bud- 
gets. Teachers were classified into four ranks, according to their qualifi. 
cations and acquirements, and received their appointments from Govern- 
ment. A sum was also destined for the encouragement of associations of 
teachers, who were to meet to confer on school management, to visit each 
other's schools, and to study in common the duties incumbent on their 
profession. 

The best known methods of instruction were sought and tried, and a 
catalogue of the best school books was prepared and pubhshed in the 
course of the year 1814. 

In 1825. a prize was offered by the " Society for the Public Good," for the 
best essay on the advantages and disadvantages of the monitorial sys- 
tem, and the simultaneons or class system of instruction. The prize was 
awarded to a dissertation by M. Visser, Inspector of Primary Schools in 
Fries-land. In this essay, the system of monitorial instruction is analyzed. 



596 PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN HOLLAND. 

and proved to be unsound on every point which bears upon education in 
the best sense of that term. This essay was published and widely distrib- 
uted by the society, and contributed to form and strengthen the opinion 
which prevails in Holland, against the method of mutual instruction. 

In 1S16 the Normal School at Haarlem was established, to supply a 
deficiency which was felt for the training of teachers, through the influ- 
ence of M. Van der Ende, who is esteemed, the fither of education in 
Holland. A similar institution had previously been commenced on a 
small scale at Groningen, by the Society of Public Good. Up to the es- 
tablishment of the Normal School at Groningen, teachers had been trained 
in Holland, by serving a sort of apprenticeship from the age of 14 to 16 or 
IS, as assistants in the larger schools, during the day, and receiving a 
course of special instruction, for one hour every evening. This, as far as 
it goes, is a cheap and excellent mode of professional training. But the 
experience of fifteen years satisfied her statesmen and educators, that 
this was not sufficient. It made good schoolmasters, but not inquiring and 
creative teachers. It produced rather routine than intelligent teaching, 
and arrested the progress of improvement, by perpetuating only the meth- 
ods of those schools in which the young teachers had been practiced as as- 
sistants. To obviate this tendency, and to give to teachers a broader 
and firmer basis of attainments and principles, Normal Schools were es- 
tablished. The two modes are now continued together,* and in connec- 
tion with the stimulus of the severe examination through which all teach- 
ers must pass, and of the direct and constant inspection to which all schol- 
ars are subjected, they have made the elementary schools of Holland 
inferior to none other in Europe. President Bache, in his Report on Edu- 
cation in Europe, pronounces them superior to those of the same class in 
any of the European states. 

The attendance of children is not made compulsory on parents, but, 
what is equivalent to such an enactment, it is provided by law, that out- 
door relief shall not be administered to any family, where children are al- 
lowed to run wild in the streets, or grow up as vagrants, or are employed 
in any factory without a previous elementary training. 

The schools are not made free to parents by governmental contribu- 
tion or local taxation, although both of these modes of supporting schools 
are resorted to. The schools are in the first place made good, by pro- 
viding for the employment of only well-qualified teachers, and then the 
schools, thus made good, are open to all parents without exception or dis- 
tinction, and all are required to pay a tuition fee, which the government 
provides shall not be large in any case. The result is universal educa- 
tion throughout Holland. In Haarlem, with a population of 21,000 in 
1840. there was not a child of ten years of a,ge, and of sound intellect, who 
could not both read and write, and this is true throughout Holland, accord- 
ing to the testimony of intelligent travelers, and is borne out by the fol- 
lowing official table, (page 60S,) as to the school attendance in 1846. 

• Spp page S44 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS IX HOIXAND. ggY 

The superiority of public elementary instruction in Holland, is attribu- 
ted, by her own edQcators, and by intelligent foreigners, who have visited 
her schools in the rural districts, as well as in the large towns, to that 
system of special inspection, combined with specific and enforced prepa- 
ration of all candidates for the office of teacher, and subsequent gradation 
of rank and pay, according to character and skill, which has now been in 
operation nearly half a century, ever since the first school law of the Ba- 
tavian Republic, in 1806, drawn up by that wise statesman, M. Van der 
Palm. The following extracts will give at once this testimony, and an 
intelligent account of the system of inspection. 

Baron Cuvier, in his •' Report to the French Government on the estab- 
lishment of Public Instruction in Holland,''^ in 1811, after speaking with 
special commendation of the system of inspection, remarks : 

" The government is authorized to grant to each province a certain 
sum to meet the compensation, and the expenses of travel, and meetino- 
of the inspectors. The mode of choosing them is excellent; they are 
taken from clergymen, or laymen of education, who have signalized them- 
selves by their interest in the education of children, and skill in the local 
management of schools ; from the teachers who have distinguished them- 
selves in their vocation ; and in the large towns, from the professors of the 
Universities and higher grade of schools." 

Mr. W. E. Hickson, now Principal of the Mechanics Institute in Liver- 
pool, in an "Account of the Dutch and German >ScAooZs," published in 
1840, remarks : 

"In Holland, education is, on the whole, more faithfully carried out 
than in most of the German States, and we may add that, notwithstand- 
ing the numerous Normal Schools of Prussia, (institutions in which Hol- 
land, although possessing two. is still deficient.) the Dutch schoolmasters 
are decidedly superior to the Prussian, and the schools of primary instruc- 
tion consequently in a more efficient state. This superiority weattribute 
entirely to a better system of inspection. In Prussia, the inspectors of 
schools are neither sufficiently numerous, nor are their powers sufficiently 
extensive. JNIr. Streiz, the inspector for the province of Posen, coniessed 
to us the impossibility of personally visiting everyone of the 1.635 schools 
in his district, and admitted that he was obliged, in his returns, to depend 
to a great extent upon the reports of local school committees. In Hol- 
land, inspection is the basis upon which the whole fabric of popular in- 
struction rests. 

The constitution of the Board is well worthy of attention ; there can be 
no judges of the qualifications of teachers equal to those whose daily em- 
ployment consists in visiting schools, and comparing the merits of differ- 
ent plans of instruction. But the power given to the inspector does not 
end here: by virtue of his office he is a member of every local board, and 
when vacant situations in schools are to be filled up, a new examination 
is instituted before him into the merits of the different candidates. It is 
upon his motion that the appointment is made, and upon his report to the 
higher authorities a master is suspended or dismissed for misconduct. 
Through his influence children of more than ordinary capacity in the 
schools he visits, are transferred, as pupils, to the Normal Schools, in or- 
der to be trained for masters; and througli his active agency all improved 
plans or methods of instruction are diffused throughout the various insti- 
tutions of the country." ' 



598 PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN HOLLAND. 

M. Cousin, in a Report to the minister of Public Instruction in France, 
in 1836, " on the state of Education in Holland," wliiie giving a prefer- 
ence to the school law of Prussia, in its provision for Normal Schools, and 
the classification of pubhc schools, and especially for the support of the 
higher class of primary schools, assigns the palm to Holland, in the mat- 
ter of school inspection. 

" The provincial boards of primary instruction, with their great and various 
powers, constitute, in my mind, the chief superiority of the Dutch over ihe Prus- 
sian law. They resemble the Sckid-collegium, which I'onns a part of every pro- 
vincial consistory in Prussia; but they are far better, for the Schtd-rolkginm is 
not composed of inspectors. It sends out some of its members to inspect, as 
occasion requires, but inspection is not its function. It judges from written 
documents, and not from ocular proof, and is generally obliged to rely upon 
the sole testimony of the member sent to inspect; whereas in Holland, the 
board, being both inspsctors and judges of inspections, are on the one hand 
better judges, in consequence of the experience they have acquired in a con- 
stant routine of inspection ; and, on the other hand, they are better inspectors, 
by what they learn at the board, when acting as judges and governors, a com- 
bination eminently practical, and uniting what is almost every where sepa- 
rated. ***** 

Every inspector resides in his own district, and he is bound to inspect every 
school at least twice a year, and he has jurisdiction over the primary schools of 
every grade within the district. Without his approval no one can either be a 
public or a private teacher ; and no public or pi ivate teacher can retain his situa- 
tion, or he promoted, or receive any gratuity ; for no commissioner has any 
power in his absence, and he is either the chairman or the influential member 
of all meetings that are held. He is thus at the head of the whole of the pri- 
mary instruction in his particular district. He is required to repair three 
times a year to the chief town of the province, to meet the other district inspec- 
tors of the province, and a conference is held, the governor of the province 
presiding, which lasts for a fortnight or three weeks, during which time each 
inspector reads a report upon the state of his district, and brings before the 
meeting all such questions as belong to them. As each province has its own 
particular code of regulations for its primary schools, tbunded upon the law 
and its general regulations, the provincial board examines whether all the pro- 
ceedings of the several inspectors have been conlbrmable to that particular code; 
they look to the strict and unilbrm execution of the code ; they pass such 
measures as belong to them to originate, and they draw up the annual report 
which is to be presented to the central administration, and submit such amend- 
ments as appear to them necessary or useful, and of which the central adminis- 
tration is constituted the judge. Under the Minister of the Interior there is a 
high functionary, the Inspector-general of Primary Instruction ; and from time 
to time a general meeting is summoned by the government, to be held at the 
Hague, to which each provincial board sends a deputy ; and thus, from the In- 
spector-general of the Hague, down to the local inspector of the smallest dis- 
trict, the whole of the primary instruction is under the direction of inspectors. 
Each inspector has charge of his own district, each provincial board has charge 
of its province; and the general meeting, which may be called the assembly 
of the states-general of primary instruction, has charge of the whole king- 
dom. All these authorities are, in their several degrees, analogous in their 
nature; for all are public functionaries, all are paid and responsible officers. 
The district-inspector is responsible to the provincial Board of Commissioners ; 
and they are responsible to the Inspector-general and the Minister of the In- 
terior. In this learned and very simple hierarchy the powers of every member 
are clearly defined and limited." 

Mr. George Nicholls, in a " Report on the condition of the Laboring 
Poor in Holland and Belgium" to the Poor Law Commissioners of 
England, in 1838, remarks: 

"The measures adopted in Holland to promote the education of all classes, 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN HOLLAND 599 

have apparently resuited from the conviction that the moral and social charac- 
ter of the people, their intelligence, and their capacity lor increasing the resour- 
ces of tlie country, must in a great measure depend upon the mani.er in which 
they are trained for the fulfillment of their several duties. The state has not 
rendered education actually obligatory upon the municipalities, neither has it 
required evidence of the education of the children of the j:ojrer classes by any 
educational test; for a sense of the importance of education pervades the entire 
community — it is sought by the poor for their children, with an earnestness simi- 
lar to that observed in the more wealthy classes in other countries; and in 
Holland, the direct interference of government is confined to regulating the 
mode of instruction, by means of an organized system of inspection. 

This system, however much it may interfere with the liberty of the subject, 
has certainly some advantages. The poor, who have no means of judging for 
themselves, have, in the ceitificale given 10 e\'ery schoolmaster, some sort of 
guarantee that the person to whom they send their children is not an ignorant 
charlatan, professing to teach what he has never learned, and in the next place 
it secures to those who devote themselves to the profession a much higher rate 
of remuneration than they would receive if, as with us, every broken-down 
tradesman could open a school when able to do nothing else. This exclusion 
of absolute incapacity is also a means, and a verj' powerful one, of raising the 
character uf the profession in popular estimation. With us, any man can be- 
come a schoolmaster, as easily as he can a coal-merchant, by simply putting a 
brass plate on his door; but in Holland, (and the same .system is very general 
in Germany,) .some degree of study is rendered indispensable, and the whole 
class, therefore, stand out from the rei't of the communit}' as men of superior at- 
tainments, and enjoy that consideration which men of cultivated minds every- 
where command, when not surrounded by coadjutors below rather than above 
the common level. 

In Holland, there is no profession that ranks higher than that of a school- 
master, and a nobleman would scarcely, if at all, command more respect 
than is paid to many of those who devote their lives to the instruction of youth. 
The same personal consideration is extended to the assistant teacher or usher. 
We were much struck with the difference in the position of persons of this class 
abroad, from their lot at home, when we were visiting a school for the middle 
classes at Hesse-Cassel. The school contained 200 children, and was supported 
partly by the town and the government, and partly by the payments of the schol- 
ars. The charge for daily instruction was from Is. 8d. to 5s. per month. The 
children were distributed in six classess — to each class a separate master or as 
sistant teacher. We were conducted over the establishment by the head mastei 
or director of the school, and the first thing which drew our attention was the ex 
treme ceremony with whfch we were introduced to each of the assistant mas- 
ters, and the magy apologies made by the professor for interrupting them, although 
but for a moment, in their important labors. We saw those treated as equals, 
■who are in England often estimated as only on a rank with grooms or upper 
servants. 

The most important branch of administration, as connected with education, 
is that which relates to school inspection. All who have ever been anxious either 
to maintain the eihciency of a school, or to improve its character, vvill appre- 
ciate the importance of the frequent periodical visits of persons having a knowl- 
edge of what education is, and who are therefore able to estimate correctlv the 
amount and kind of instruction given. Let a school established by voluntary 
subscriptions be placed to-day upon the best possible footing, if no vigilance be 
exercised by its founders, and if the master be neither encouraged nor stimula- 
ted to exertion by their presence, his salary will speedily be converted into a 
sinecure, and the school will degenerate to the lowest point of utility." 

Professor Bache, in his " Report on Education in EuropeP in 18(38, to 
the Trustees of Girard College, remarks: 

" The system of primary instruction in Holland is particularly interestingr to 
an American, from its organization in an ascending series; beginning with the 
local school authorities, and terminating, after progressive degrees of represen- 
tation, as it were, in the highest authority; instead of emanating, as in the cen- 
tralized systems, from that authority. A fair trial has been given to a system 



600 PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN HOLLAND. 

of inspection which is almost entirely applicable to our country, and which has 
succeeded with them." 

The school .system of Holland consists of a brief law, of only twenty-three 
articles, drawn up by M. Van der Palm, the distinguished Oriental schol- 
lar, in ISOl, and modified by M. Van der Ende, in 1806, and a series of 
Regulations drawn up by the slate department having charge of this sub- 
ject, to carry out the provisions of the laAV. The law was so Avisely framed, 
and was so well adapted to the spirit, customs and habits of the people, 
that it has survived three great revolutions : first, that which converted the 
Batavian Republic into a kingdom, at first independent, but afterward 
incorporated with the French empire ; next, that which dethroned Louis, 
restored the house of Orange, and united Holland and Belgium in one 
monarchy ; and lastly, the revolution which again separated the two 
countries, and restricted the kingdom of the Netherlands to its former lim- 
its. During these thirty years, the law of 1806 was never interfered 
with ; it could only be altered by another law, and when the government, 
in 1829, in order to please the Belgian liberal party, brought forward a 
new general law. which made some very objectionable changes in that of 
1806, the chambers resisted, and the government were obliged to with- 
draw the bill. 

The following provisions will show the spirit and scope of the law, and 
general regulations. 

IX. ' The school inspector of the district is authorized, in concert with the 
local authorities, to intrust one or more known and respectable persons with a 
local inspection, subordinate to his own, over the school or scliools, and also 
over all the teachers of both sexes in the place, whether village, hamlet, or oth- 
erwise, and lor each separately. 

X. In all the more considerable towns and places, the parochial authorities, 
in concert with the school inspector of the district, shall establish a local su- 
perintendence of the primary schools, which shall consist of one or more per- 
sons, according to local circumstances, but so as each member shall have a 
particular division, and all the schools in that division shall be confided to him 
individually. These persons shall collectively constitute, with the school in- 
spector of the district, the local school board. 

XVII. No one shall be allowed to become a candidate for a vacant school, or 
to establish a new one, or to give private lessons, without having first obtained 
a certificate of general admission. In like manner, no one shall be allowed to 
teach any other branch than that for which he shall have received a certificate 
of general admission. 

XXII. The instruction shall be conducted in such a manner, that the study 
of suitable and useful branches of knowledge shall be accompanied by an exer- 
cise of the intellectual powers, and in such a manner that the pupils shall be 
prepared for the practice of all social and Christian virtues. 

XXIII. Measures shall be taken that the scholars be not left without instruc- 
tion in the doctrinal creed of the religious community to which they belong; 
but that part of the instruction shall not be exacted from the schoolmaster. 

XXX. The provincial* and parochial authorities are recommended to take 
the necessary steps : 

* The constitution of Holland is somewhat singular, and would seem at first sight to be founded 
upon what perhaps may one day be recognized as the true theory of representative government, that 
of progressive, intermediate elections. The rate-payers elect the Kiczers, the Kiciers elect the Hand 
or town council, the town council elect a certain proportion of the members of the provincial govern- 
ments, and the provincial governments elect the lower chamber of the fitates General, or House of 
Commons. 

The States-General consist of two chnmliprs. The upper chamber is somewhat of a House of 
Lords, but not ljereilit;,iy. 'J'lic niemlier^ fifty in number, receive 250i. per ammm for traveling ex- 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN HOLLAND. 601 

1. That the emolnmentsof the teacher (principally in rural parishes) be set- 
lied in such a way that his duties, when creditably performed, may obtain for 
him a sufficient livelihood, and that he be rendered as little dependent as possi- 
ble, bv direct aid, upon the parents of the children who frequent his school. 

2. That attendance at the schools be strictly enforced, and that they be kept 
open throughout the year." 

REGUL.4TI0NS RESPECTING THE EXAMINATION OP THOSE WHO DESIRE TO BECOME 
TEACHERS OF PRIMARY SCHOOLS. 

I. The teachers shall be divided into four classes, or grades, according to the 
amount of knowledge required, and according to the examination which they 
shall have passed. 

VII. In ihese examinations, the object shall be to ascertain not only the ex- 
tent of knowledge of the candidate in the branches he is proposing to leach, but 
also his power of communicating that knowledge to others, and especialh^ to 
children. 

VIII. Before proceeding to the examination properly so called, the examin- 
ers shall endeavor to ascertain, in conversation with the candidate, his opin- 
ions on morals and religion ; the sphere of his attainments, both with regard to 
the most indispensable parts of primar}^ instruction, and to foreign languages 
and other branches which he proposes to teach; together with his aptitude to 
direct, instruct, and Ibrrn the character of youth. 

IX. The subjects of examination shall be as follows : 

1. Reading from different printed and written characters; and whether with 
a good pronunciation and a proper and natural accent, and with a knowledge 
of punctuation. 

2. Some words and phrases designedly wrong shall be shown to the candi- 
date, to ascertain his knowledge of orthography. 

3. To ascertain his acquaint.'ince with the grammatical structure of the Dutch 
language, a sentence shall be dictated to him, which he shall analj^ze, and point 
out the parts of speech; and he must give proofs of a familiar acquaintance 
with the declensions snd conjugations. 

4. The candidate shall write some lines in large, middle, and small hand, 
and shall make his own pens. 

5. Soine questions in arithmetic shall be proposed to him, confinin? this 
especially to such as are of common occurrence, and which shall be sufficient 
to show the dexterity of the candidate in calculations, both in whole numbers 
and in fractions. Questions shall be ]nil to him on the theoretical parts, and 
especially on decimal arithmetic. 

6. Some questions shall be proposed on the theory of singing. 

7. DilTerent questions shall be proposed relative to history, geography, nat- 
ural philosophy, mathematics, and such other branches of knowledge as the 
candidate proposes to teach. 

8. A passage in French, or in any other language in which the candidate 
wishes to be examined, shall be given to him to read and translate. A pas- 
sage in Dutch shall be dictated to him. to be translated by him, either in writ- 
ing or viva voce, into the language which forms the subject of the examination. 
He shall be required to give, de improriso, in the same language, a composition 
in the form of a letter or narrative, (tec, all for the purpose of a.=;certaining 
the degree of acquaintance he possesses with the language in question, in or- 
thography, grammar and punctuation. 

penses. The lower chamber, hefore the Revolution, consisted of 110 members, now but of fifty-five. 

The provincial governments are : 

North Brnbnnt, 42 members. | Friesland .54 members. 

Gnelderlund, 90 " Overvssel 5.T 

Holland 90 " Groningen, 36 

Zenland, 40 " Dreuthe, 24 " 

Utrer.lit 36 " | 

Tlie members of these provincial governments are not elected bv the town ronncils, but by the no- 
bility; the town councils, and Kiezers of the country districts, nearly in equal proportions. " General 
business affecting more than one province, is referred to one or other of tw6 committees, or provincial 
cabinets, elected by the members of the provincial governments. On these committees one member 
sits for each province. 



602 PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN HOLLAND. 

X. The examination upon the acquirements of the candidate havinisr been 

compleied, the ex;nniners shall proceed to inquire inro bis capacity for teach- 
ing; thej' shall question him as t(j the manner of teachins< children to know 
the letieis, figures, and the first principles ; then reading, wrilirg, and arithme- 
tic. The^' sliall then require him to relate .some story or poj'tion of history, in 
order to discover the degree of talent he po?sesses to present things to children 
with clearness and precision ; care shall he taken, if there be a convenient op- 
portunity, and if it he thought advisable, to have some children present, of dif- 
ierent ages, and of different degrees of attainment, in order to ascertain more 
particularly his skill in practical leaching. 

XI. Finally, the examiners shall propose some questions upon the principles 
to be followed in rewards and ptiuishments; as also in general on the best meth- 
ods to be adopted, not only to develop and cultivate the intellectual faculties of 
children, but most especially to bring them up in the exercise of the Christian 
virtues. 

XII. When the examination is concluded, the examiners shall deliver to the 
candidate, who desires to obtain a general admission as a master, and has given 
proof of sufficient ability, a deed of that admission, according to the extent of 
his ability; and in this shall be stated, as distinctly as possible, the extent and 
the nature of the talents and of the acquirements of the candidate, as proved by 
his examination ; and it shall declare the rank he has obtained, if it be in the 
first, second, thiid, or fourth class, and consequently such a. general admis- 
sio.i as shall giVi him a right to apply for the situation of a master, accord- 
ing to the rank which has been assigned to him. .Finally, the said deed shall 
declare the branches of education, and the languages for which he shall have 
obtained the general admission. 

XIII. The schoolmistresses or teachers of languages who shall have passed 
an examination, and have given sufficient proofs of their ability, shall also re- 
ceive a deed which shall contain, besides a declaration of the extent and amount 
of their acquirements and talents- as proved by the examination, a general ad- 
mission either for the oihce of schoolmistress or teacher of languages. That 
deed shall moreover expressly declare the branches of study and the languages 
which the person examined shall be entitled to teach. 

XIV. All the deeds mentioned in the iwo preceding articles shall be alike 
throughout the whole extent of the republic, both in the matter and the foim. 
If they are issued by a provincial board of education, they shall be signed by 
the president and secretary, and the seal of the board shafl he affixed to theni. 
The deeds issued by an inspector, or by a local board, shall be signed by the in- 
spector only, or bv the secietary of the local board. 

XV. The certificates for the first and second class, issued by a provincial 
board, shall entitle those who obtain them to be masters in all primary schools, 
public as well as private, of the two classes', in all places throughout the repub- 
lic, without exception ; whereas the deeds. issued by a local board shall confer 
no privilege beyond that locality. 

XVI. The certificates for the third class, as Avell as those for the fourth or 
lowest class shall confer the privilege of becoming teachers, except in schools 
established in places whose wants are proportioned to the rank and capacity of 
such masters, and which are .situated within the jurisdiction of the provincial 
board. 

XVII. In order that the provisions contained in the two preceding articles 
may be more easily carried into efl^ect, the schools in small towns and less con- 
siderable places, more fully described in Art. 9 of regulation A, shall be classed 
by the different inspectors and by the provincial boards, into higher, middle, 
and lower schools, upon a principle hereafter provided. Tliis classification, 
which shall be submitted to the provincial authorities for approval, shall be 
solely for the purpose of preventing the principal school falling into the hands 
of incompetent masters; while, at the same time, it leaves the power of placing 
a very able master over the smallest school. 

XVIII. In the towns or places of greatest importance, no master of the fourth 
or lowest class shall be eligible to either a public or a private school. The 
local boards are even recommended to take care, as much as possible, that the 
tuition in the schools of their towns shall not be entrusted to any other than 
•maslers of Ihe first or serond clo.ss. 

XXIV. A list containing the name, the rank, the nature, and the extent of 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN HOLLAND. 603 

the abiliiies of each of those who shall have obtained deeds of general admis- 
sion as master, mistress, oi' teacher of languages, shall be published in the peri- 
odical work entitled ' Bydragen tot den btaal,' ifcc, (which is still pub- 
lished./' 

It is impossible not to see that the stimulating effect of a series of ex- 
aminations of this character, before a tribunal composed of qualified 
judges, must produce a class of teachers for the work of primary instruc- 
tion uneciualed in any other part of the world. But the soul of the whole 
system is inspection, or in other words, active and vigilant superintend- 
ence.— ^intelligent direction, and real responsibility, — all of which are in- 
volved in the system of inspection carried out in Holland. Without 
inspection there can he no competent tribunal for the examination of 
teachers ; without inspection, local school committees and conductors of 
schools would be irresponsible to public opinion, inert and negligent ; 
without inspection there would be no person constantly at hand suiiiciently 
informed upon the state of education to suggest the measures required 
ibr the promotion of its objects; without inspection there Would be no dif- 
fusion of new ideas, no benefiting by the experience of others, no rivalry 
in improvement, no progress. Tiie tbllowing extracts will show the man- 
ner in which the duties of inspection are provided for. 

KEOULATIONS FOR SCHOOL INSPECTORS, AND FOR THE BOARDS OF EDUCATION IN 
THE DIFFERENT PROVINCES. 

II. "Each inspector shall make himself acquainted with the number and 
situations of the primary schools, and also with the state of primary instruction 
throughout the whole extent of his district. It shall be his duty tosee that, be- 
sides the necessary number of ordinary schools, there shall be a sutficient num- 
ber of schools for children of tender age. organized in the best possible manner, 
and also schools of industry. Finally, he shall take care, that proper instruc- 
tion in all branches of primary education may be obtained, according to the 
circumstances and wants of the different parishes. 

III. He shall make it his business to become personally acquainted with the 
different masters in his district, and with the extent of their fitness, and shall 
keep a note thereof 

IV. He shall make it his special business to excite and maintain the zeal of 
the masters ; and for that purpose, he shall at fi.xed periods require a certain 
number of them to meet him, either at his own house or in other parts of bis 
district, and as frequently as possible.* 

V. The inspector shall be bound Lo vk't twice, a year all the schools in his 
district, which are directly subject to his supervision. He is hereby e.xhorled 
to repeal those visits at different times, either when a particular case calls for 
it, or for the general good. ., 

VI. In visiting the schools which are under his direct supervision, he shall 
call upon the master to teach the pupils of the ditferent classes in his presence, 
those which are in different stages of progress, in order that he ma v judge as to 
the manner in which the instruction is given and regulated. He shall also in- 
quire if the regulations concerning primary instruction, as M-ell as the regula- 
tion tor the internal order of the school, are duly observed and executed ; and 
he shall pay attention to every thing which he believes to be of any importance. 
At the CLinclusion of the visit, the in.spector shall have a private" conversation 
with the master or mistress, upon all he has observed: and according as the 
case may be, he shall express approbation, give them advice, admonish, orcen- 
sure them, upon what he may have seen or heard. Every school inspector 

* In compliance with the spirit of this nrticle, societies of schoolmasters have been formed, under 
the nusjiices of the inspectors, at different times, in the districts of eiich province, which keep up a 
rivalry of improvement. They meet at stated times, generally every month. 



604 PRIMARY Sf'HOOI.S IN HOLLAND. 

shall keep notes of all remarks and observations which he shall have made in 

the course ofliis visits, to be used in the manner hereinafter provided. 

IX. They shall pay parlicnlar attention to improve the school-rooms; to the 
education of the children of the poor, and esjecially in the villages and ham- 
lets; to regulate and improve the incomes of the masters; and to the schools 
being kept open and attended without interruption, as much as possible, during 
the whole year. 

XVIII. The ordinary meetings of the boards shall be held in the towns where 
the provincial authorities reside, at Ifeast three times a year; the one during 
Easter week, the other two in the second week of .Inly and Oclolier. 

XXIV. At each ordinary meeting, each member shall give in a written re- 
port: — 

1. Of the schools he has visited since the last meeting, staling the time of his 
visit, and the observations he then made regarding the state of the schools, in 
all the ditiererit particulars. 

•2. Of the meetings he has held of the schoolmasters for the purpose of com- 
municating Avith them respecting their duties. 

3. Of the examinations which have taken place before him of masters of the 
lowest class, and of the higher classes. 

4. Of the changes and other events which shall have taken place in his dis- 
trict, relative to any school or sclioolmaster, since the last meeting, and es- 
pecially all vacancies of masterships, the deljvery of deeds of call, nomination, 
or special appointment of every degree and of every class, setting forth the 
most important circumstances connected with them: the appointment of local 
inspectors in jilaces of minor extent; the changes that may have occurred in 
the local schoril boards; the inspection of a new primary school or school of in- 
dustry; the admission of any teacher of languages; the drawing up of any 
rules for the internal order of schools ; the introduction of schiol books, other 
than those contained in the general list of books, in the private schools of both 
classes; the measures that have been taken to regulate and improve the incomes 
of the masters; the measures that have been taken to secure the schools being 
uninterruptedly kept open and attended; any difficulties they may have en- 
countered ; the encouragement or otherwise which the masters may have met 
with ; and the examinations of pupils in the schools. The inspector shall fur- 
ther point out the particular parts which he wishes to have insetted in the 
above mentioned monthly publication, {Bydragen.) 

XXV. From these written documents and other private information, as well 
as from the written reports of the local school boards, (as mentioned in the fol- 
lowing article,) every school inspector shall draw up annually, previous to the 
meeting held in Easter week, a general report on the state of the schools and of 
primary instruction throughout his district. -He shall state therein the reasons 
why he has not visited, or has not visited more than once, any particular school 
in the course of the preceding year. He shall state such proposals as appear 
to him deserving of attention, and which may tend to the improvement ofpri- 
marv instruction. 

XXVI. In order that the school inspectors may not omit to mention, in their 
annual report, any of the particulars stated in the preceding article, the local 
scliool boards, or their individual members, in so far as concerns the schools 
placed under their individual inspection, shall draw up a report in Avriting, simi- 
lar to that required from the school inspectors, before the end of Februarv at 
latest. 

XXIX. At the conclusion of the ordinarj' meeting held in Easter week, each 
board shall forward, or cause to be forwarded within the space of four weeks, to 
the Secretary of State for the Home Department, besides the documents men- 
tioned in the preceding article, 

1. One of the two authentic copies of the annual general summary. 

2. The originals of the general reports of the different members of the 
boards. 

3. The originals' of the annual written reports of the different local boards. 

4. A detailed statement, taken from the report f)f each of the members, of the 
proposals which each board shall be desirous of bringing under the considera- 
tion of the next annual general meeting, or which it has been resolved to lay 
before the provincial authorities." 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN HOLLAND. i]U5 



REGULATIONS RESPECTING THE GENERAL ORDER TO BE OBSERVED IN THE PRIMARY 

SCHOOLS. 

I. " The primary schools shall be open without intermission the whole year, 
except during the times fixed for llie holidays. 

II. During the whole time devoted to the lessons, the master shall be present 
from the beginning to the end ; he shall not be engaged in any thing which is 
unconnected with the teaching, nor absent himself from school, except for rea- 
sons of absolute necessity. 

III. The master shall take care that the pupils do not unnecessarily go out of 
school ; and especially that they be quiet and attentive; and, when in the play- 
ground, that they always conduct themselves in a peaceable, respectable, and 
motlest manner. 

IV. When the number nf pupils shall exceed seventy, measures shall be 
taken for providing a second master or an under master. 

V. The pupils shall be entered, as much as possible, at fixed terms in the 
course of the year. 

VI. At the "opening and at the breaking up of each class, a Christian prayer, 
solemn, short, and suitable to the occasion, shall be said daily or weekly. At 
the same time, a hymn, adapted to the circumstances, may be sung. 

VII. The pupils shall be divided into three classes, each of which shall have 
its distinct place; and on every occasion when the school meets, each shall 
receive the instruction that belongs to it. 

VIII. The instruction shall be communicated simultaneously to all the pu- 
pils in the same class ; and the master shall take care that, during that time, 
the pupils in the two other classes are usefully employed. 

IX. The instruction in the different classes, and in the different branches 
taught, shall be as much as possible conveyed by the use of the black board. 

X. When the master shall think it advisable, he shall reward the most ad- 
vanced pupils l)}^ employing them to leach some parts of the lessons to the 
beginners. 

XI. The master shall take care that the pupils be at all limes clean in their 
dress, well washed and combed, and he shall at the same time pay the strictest 
attention to every thing that may contribute to their health. 

XII. The school-rooms shall be at all times kept in proper order; for that 
purpose they shall be ventilated in the intervals of school hours, and cleaned 
out twice a week. <f 

XIII. An^xamination of each school shall take place at least once a }'ear. 
Upon that occasion the pupils of a lower class shall be passed to a higher; and 
as far as circumstances will allow, rewards shall be given to those M'ho have 
distinguished themselves by their application and good conduct. 

XIV. When a pupil at the end of the course of study shall leave the school, 
if he shall have distinguished himself hy the progress he has made and by his 
good conduct, a certificate of honor shall be presented to him. 

XV. A code of regulations shall be drawn up lor each particular school, and 
this, whether written or printed, shall be pasted on aboard, hung up in the room, 
and from time to time read and explained by the master. 

XVI. The said codes shall be issued by the authorities over each school; 
their object shall be, to regulate the hours of teaching and how these shall be 
divided among the three classes." 

As the masters were prohibited from leaching any particular reh'gious 
doctrine in the schools, the government, through the Secretary of State 
for the Home Department, addressed a circular letter to the ditferent 
ecclesiastical bodies in the country, inviting them to take upon them- 
selves, out of school hours, the whole instruction of the young, either by 
properly-arranged lessons in the catechijmi, or by any other means. An- 
swers were returned from the Synod of the Dutch Reformed church and 
other ecclesiastical bodies, assenting to the separation of doctrinal from 
the other instruction of the schools, and pledging themselves to extend 



606 PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN HOLLAND. 

the former through their ministers of the different rehgious communions. 
On the reception of these answers, the government authorized the pro " 
vincial boards of education : 

" To exhort all schoolmasters to hand a complete list, every six months, 
of the names and residences of their pupils belonging to any religious 
communion to such as should apply for it ; and to take care that their 
pupils attend to the religious instruction provided for them. 

To invite the governors of orphan asylums and workhouses and simi- 
lar establishments, to second the measures which the authorities of the 
communion shall take in reference to religious instruction. 

To exhort the school inspectors, and through them the local school 
boards, to co-operate, as far as possible, with the consistories and minis- 
ters in their efforts to give instruction in the doctrines of their religion, so 
long as they confine themselves to their special province, and do not inter- 
fere with the business of the schools or the authority of the persons in- 
trusted with their management by the government." 

Thus did the Batavian Republic provide that the children should be 
prepared for "i/ie exercise of all the social and Christian virtues ;^' well 
knowing, that if the schools did no more than impart a knowledge of the 
material world, there might be profound ignorance of the good and the 
beautiful, and of the true destiny of human nature. 

On the practical operation of the provisions for religious and moral 
education, we adduce the following testimony. Mr. Kay remarks — 

The law of 1801 proclaims, as the great end of all instruction, the exercise of 
the social and Christian virtues. In this respect it agrees with the law of Prussia 
and France ; but it diiFers from the law of these countries in the way by which it 
attempts to attain this end. In France, and all the German countries, the schools 
are the auxiliaries, so to speak, of the churclies ; foi- whilst the schools are open 
to all sects, yet the teacher is a man trained up in th% particular doctrines of the 
majority of his pupils, and required to teach those doctrines during«ertain hours, 
the cliildren who differ from him in religious belief, being permitted to absent 
themselves from the religious lessons, on condition that their parents provided 
elsewhere for their religious instruction. But, in Holland, the teachers are re- 
quired to give religious instruction to all the children, and to avoid most carefully 
touching on any of the grounds of controversy between the different sects. 

Mr. Nieholls says: "As i-espects religion, the population of Holland is divided, 
in about equal proportions, into Catholic, Lutheran, and Protestants of the re- 
formed Calvinislic Church ; and the ministers of each are supported by the state. 
The schools contain, without distinction, the children of every sect of Christians. 
The religious and moral instruction afforded to the children is taken from the 
pages of Holy Writ, and the whole course of education is mingled with a frequent 
reference to the great general evidences of revelation. Biblical history is taught, 
not as a dry narration of facts, but as a store-house of truths, calculated to influ- 
ence the affections, to correct and elevate the manners, and to inspire sentiments 
of devotion and virtue. The great principles and truths of Christianity, in which 
all are agreed, are likewise carefully'ineulcaled ; but those points, which are the 
subjects of difference and religious controversy, form no part of the instructions of 
the schools. This department of religious teaching is confided to the ministers of 
each persuasion, who discharge this portion of their duties out of school; but 
within the schools the common ground of instruction is faithfully preserved, and 
they are, consequently, altogether free from the spirit of jealousy or proselytisra. 
We witnessed the exercise of a class of the children of notables of Haarlem, 
(according to the simultaneous method,) respecting the death and resuri-ection of 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN HOLLAND. 607 

our Saviour, by a minister of the Lutheran church. The class contained children 
of Catholics, Calvinists, and other denominations of Christians, as well as Luther- 
ans, and ail disputable doctrinal points were carefully avoided. The Lutherans 
are the smallest in number, the Calvinists the largest, and the Catholics about 
midway between the two ; but all appear to live together in perfect amity, with- 
out the slightest distinction in the common intercourse of life ; and this oircum- 
stance, so extremely interesting in itself, no doubt facilitated the establishment of 
the general system of education here described, the effects of which are so appa- 
rent in the highly moral and intellectual condition of the Dutch people.^'' 

Baron Cuvier, in his report to the French government in 1811, says: 

The means devised for the religious instruction of all persuasions are extremely 
ingenious, and at the same time highly appropriate, without involving them in 
dangerous controversy. The particular doctrines of each communion are taught 
on Sundays, in the several places of worship, and by the clergy. Tlie history 
of the New Testament, the life and doctrines of Jesus Christ, and those doctrines 
in which all Christians agree, are taught in the schools on Saturdays, the day on 
which the Jews do not come to school, on account of their sabbath. But those 
truths which are common to all religions, pervade, are connected with, and are 
intimately mixed up with every branch of instruction, and every thing else may 
be said to be subordinate to them. 

Mr. Chambers, of Edinburgh, in describing a visit to the public 
school of Rotterdam in the Edinburgh Journal, observes : 

Instruction is given in reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, history of Hol- 
land, Bible history, and singing. I made inquiry of the head master, if any relig- 
ious (dogmatic) instruction was given in the school, and he answered there was 
not. The children belong to different religious bodies and attend their respective 
clergj'men on stated occasions, for instruction in the doctrines and principles of 
religion. The Bible history which is taught in the schools comprises only parts, 
in the truth of which all parties agree. The great regularity and silence which 
prevailed, the extent of the gratuitous instruction conferred, and the harmonious 
congregating together in one school of so many children of different religious 
creeds, were circumstances which I could not pass over unmoved ; my only wish 
that the mass of my countrymen could conveniently have been mtroduced to 
enjoy the scene. 

All the children of Holland may not, indeed, be at school at any given time, 
but every one goes to school at some time, and therefore there are none without 
education. This result is sensibly observed in the aspect of the Dutch towns. 
You see no bands of loose and disorderly children in the streets, such as offend 
the eye in the lower parts of almost every laige town in Britain. 

In all of the Dutch schools, habits of propriety, cleanliness, and order, 
are, not only in, but out of doors, strictly enforced, as well as prac- 
tically illustrated in the manners of the teacher. Mr. Chambers quotes 
in a note tlie remark of a correspondent of the London Standard, that 
' in no country is the mass of the people so religious, showing that the 
mode of education has not hurt religion." 



603 



PRIMARY EDUCATION IN HOLLAND. 



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PRIMARY SCHOOL 



THE HAGUE, HOLLAND. 



The following description of a Primary School at the Hague, with 
some remarks on the classification of public schools is copied from 
Bache's '■'■Report on Education in Europe.^'' 

The definition of a primary school, as given in one of the regulations issued to 
complete the law, covers a wide field. According to it, a primary school is one 
in which youth is instructed in the first principles of knowledge, such as reading, 
writing, arithmetic, and the Dutch language, or the more advanced branches, such 
as the French, or other modern languages, or the ancient languages, geography, 
history, and other subjects of that description. There are several different kinds 
of schools, corresponding to different grades of instruction in these branches. 
Infant school instruction is included in the primary department, but it is not yet 
fully developed. 

The lowest schools are those for the poor, (armen-scholen) and which are 
entirely gratuitous. The children enter at from six to seven, and from twelve to 
fourteen. As supplementary to them are evening schools, principally intended 
for revising former courses, and which should be attended until sixteen or 
eighteen years of age. As the attendance in these latter schools is not obligatory, 
the proportion of those who receive instruction in them, varies much in different 
localities. 

The next are called intermediate schools (tusschen-scholen) in which the pupils 
pay a trifling fee.* Both these are, in general, public. Some have been estab- 
lished by the school committees, and after a few years have become self-supporting. 
The grade of instruction is rather higher than in the schools for the poor, but as 
the law does not prescribe any particular programme, it varies much in the dif- 
ferent parts of Holland — a school which would be called intermediate in a small 
town, ranking below one of the gratuitous establishments for the poor, in one of 
the chief cities. The amount taught, depends, other circumstances being the 
same, upon the average age to which the children remain at school, and therefore 
varies also in different parts of the kingdom. 

The next grade, or burgher school, (burger school) is, in general, a private 
establishment. It is distinguished from both the classes just enumerated by a 
larger fee,t and in general, by a higher grade of instruction ; but while, in a 
single town or district, it is easy to perceive this gradation, yet it is scarcely pos- 
sible to observe it on a comparison of the country at large. In some places, the 
last mentioned school is called the Dutch school, to distinguish it from the fol- 
lowing class. 

The school denominated the " French School," is the highest of the primary 
division, and is, in general, a private establishment, though frequently of the kind 
classed by law with private schools, but superintended in reality, by the local 
school committee itself. Besides the branches taught in the other schools, the 
courses of this embrace the French language, of which the pupils acquire a gram- 
matical knowledge, and which they are enabled to speak with considerable 
facility. These schools prepare their pupils for entrance into active life, and serve 
also in some degree as feeders to the grammar or Latin schools. The instruction 



* For example, in an intermediate school at Rotterdam, which I visited, eight cents a 
a week. 
t The school fee at the burgher school at Haarlem is between eix and seven dollars a year. 

39 



610 PRIMARY SCHOOL AT TilK HAGUE. 

in French is not, however, an exclusive mark of this grade of institution, as the 
descendants of the French emigrants, constituting the Walloon congregations, 
continue the teaching of this language in the gratuitous schools for the poor, con- 
nected with their churches. 

While, in point of fact, there is not the regular fourfold division of primary 
instruction which thus appears, it is difficult to draw a separating line. The inter- 
mediate school connects the school for the poor, and the burgher school, while, in 
the burgher schools, the same branches are studied as in the French schools, 
except the French language. The less number of children under the charge 
of one master, the greater age to which the children in general remain at 
school, the generally greater capacity of the master, from the higher salary which 
his talents command, the greater family cultm-e of the children before coming into 
and while in the school, render the average progress in the burgher school of a 
given place, superior to that in the intermediate school, and in this latter higher 
than in the school for the poor. I must say, however, that in more than one 
case, in the same place, I could detect no difference in the school itself, between 
the intermediate and the burgher school, except in the greater comfort of the 
accommodations of the latter ; and I have already remarked that, in comparing 
the establishments of different places, the name is not an accurate guide to the 
grade of the school. 

A sketch of the arrangement of the primary schools themselves would, I have 
thought, be rendered more compendious, without injury to its fidelity, by select- 
ing for particular description one of the schools for the poor, which, as a class, rank 
higher in Holland than in any other of the European States, and engrafting upon 
the account of this, remarks on the methods of other schools ; concluding by a 
brief statement of the particulars in which the intermediate, burgher, or French 
schools differ, in general, from the assumed type, or from each other. 

Before doing so, however, there are some points fixed by the school regula- 
tions, which require notice. The first is, that the system of instruction must be 
that called simultaneous, or in which all the pupils of a class take part at once. 
In practice, this requires to be varied by questions adapted to individuals, and the 
classes, therefore, must not be too large. In the intermediate schools I found, 
more commonly, classes of from thirty to fifty, the lesser number being well 
adapted to the method. With a well trained master, and a class of moderate 
numbers, this kind of instruction is the most lively that can be imagined, and 
when judiciously varied, by questions put to all, but which only one is permitted 
to answer, it is also thorough. 

The method of mutual instruction is not at all favored in Holland. A very 
decided and general opinion against it, appears early to have been brought about 
by the comparison of the English schools with their own. A prize was offered 
for the best dissertation on the subject, by the society for public utility, and taken 
by M. Visser, inspector of primary schools in Freesland. This excellent disser- 
tation, which was published and widely distributed by the society, no doubt con- 
tributed to form or strengthen the opinion which prevails at this day. 

The only approach to the monitorial system in the schools of Holland, is, that 
pupils who have an inclination to teach and who will probably become teachers, 
are put in charge of the lower classes of a school. Thus, also, some of the best 
monitors of the Borough-road School in London, are boys who are likely one day 
to follow the career of teaching. There is, however, a very wide difference 
between the use of a few apprentices to the profession, and that of a large num- 
ber of monitors to give instruction. I had occasion to observe, however, that in 
many cases there was a want of life in the younger classes entrusted to these 
inexperienced teachers. If they are to be used, it would be better to employ 
them in classes which have some training, even though nearer the teacher's age 
and attainments. 

The next point is in regard to religious instruction in the schools. There is 
unbounded toleration of religious creed in Holland, and while the necessity of 
religious instruction in the schools has been strongly felt, it has been made to stop 
short of the point at which, becoming doctrinal, the subjects taught could inter- 
fere with the views of any sect. Bible stories are made the means of moral and 
religious teaching in the school, and the doctrinal instruction is given by the pas- 



PRIMARY SCHOOL AT THE HAGUE. 611 

tors of the different churches on days appointed for the purpose, and usually not 
in the school-room. 

The last point is in regard to the choice of school books. The publication of 
them is not left to open coaipetition. Every book, before it can be used in a pub- 
lic school, must be submitted to the examination of the minister of the interior, 
acting, of course, by deputy, and if approved, is admitted to the list of books 
which may be used in the schools. PYom this list, the provincial board of pri- 
mary schools select those which they consider best to be used in their province, 
and from their list the teachers choose such as they approve. In private schools, 
the teacher selects his own^ books, but he must report a list of them to the 
inspector. 

There are two normal schools for the education of teachers for the primary 
schools, one at Groningen, established by the society for public utility, the other 
at Haarlem,* by the government. Formerly, all instructors were prepared in the 
different primary schools. They began to teach as early as twelve years of age, 
attending the evening school to make up their loss of time during the day. At 
sixteen, they had served their apprenticeship, and were admissible to the fourth 
grade of teachers. This method prevails still to a considerable extent, but as it 
has been found to produce rather routine than intelligent teaching, the two nor- 
mal schools have been established to supply the defect. 

The material of elementary intellectual instruction consists in most countries, 
of reading, writing, arithmetic, and a knowledge of the mother tongue, to which 
the geography of the country, and sometimes general geography, natural his- 
tory, linear drawing, and vocal music are added. Special exercises of the per- 
ceptive and reflective faculties are also included in the more improved intellectual 
systems. While the material is thus nearly the same, nothing can be more dif- 
ferent than the results produced by the schools, according to the use which is 
made of it. In some, the means are mistaken for the end, and if the pupil is 
enabled to read, write, and cipher mechanically, the school is supposed to have 
done its duty. In others, these branches are employed as the means of develop- 
ing the intellect, as well as for the communication of u.seful knowledge ; accord- 
ing as one or the other view is taken, the instruction is arranged in conformity 
with it. In Holland, the intellectual methods of Pestalozzi ■ have taken deep root, 
and the enlightened state of public opinion, in regard to elementary education, 
prevents, in a great degree, a mechanical system of teaching 

The plan of the school for the poor at the Hague, to which I now proceed, will 
justify this remark. To render it clear, I shall, even at the risk of dwelling 
rather long upon it. present first the essential features of the instruction ; next 
show the chief steps in the entire course, from which a just idea of the character 
of the whole of it can be formed, appending to this, some remarks upon the 
methods of teaching, and the text books. Then, by separating the exercises of 
the classes, and attaching to each the number of hours devoted to it per week, I 
shall show that this is no theoretical programme, but one formed for practice ; 
and this will further appear, by stating, in conclusion, some of the results which I 
witnessed at an examination of the pupils. 

This school, I should remark, though ranking with tlie best of those which I 
saw in Holland, is not distinguished above several others of its class, and in its 
intellectual character, seemed to me decidedly below many of the intermediate 
schools, where the pupils are less numerous. It is therefore no exaggerated state- 
ment of what is obtained between the ages of six and twelve or fourteen. The 
subjects of instruction, including intellectual and moral, are — 

Exercise of the perceptive and reflective faculties. Learning to read acccordins to Prin- 
sen's method, inchidinsr the spelling of words and the analysis of words and simple sen- 
tence.s. The composition ofsimple sentences with irinted letters A knowledge of the dif- 
ferent kinds of printed and written letters. Writing from dictation for orthograpny. Cor- 
rect reading of prose and poetry. Grammar of the Dutch language. Geography of Hol- 
land. History of Holland, including its chronology. Writing, beginning and ending with 
writing on th^ blackboard. Linear drawing. Arithmetic by indnction. Mental and written 
arithmetic, with a knowledge of the Roman numerals. Practical Arithmetic, to decimal 
fractions inclusive. The theory of numbers. Moral and religious instruction. Vocal music. 

* Established in 1816. 



612 PRIMARY SCHOOL AT THE HAGUE. 

As natural history does not appear either in this programme or in others of 
primary schools, I was at the pains to ascertain if any thing was taught in relation 
to a branch so eminently calculated to promote early religious impressions, and 
found that incidentally information was given on the habits of animals, and some 
of the phenomena of the physical world. It will be observed that in this school, 
as in general, physical training forms no part of the system. In Holland, the 
gymnastics, so popular in Northern Germany, have never been permanently intro- 
duced, even in the boarding-schools. 

The nature and extent of the instruction in the branches enumerated above 
will be best understood by the folllowing list of progressive exercises : — 

1. Exercises of thought, reason, and inteUigence. 

2. Rkading. Prinsen's Reading Tables. Vowels and consonants from the Jettter-box. 
Composition of words on the reading-board. Explanation of words and simple sentences. 
Spelling from memory. Exercises in reading different printed and written characters. 
Simultaneous reading from a series of books graduated to the capacity of the class. Expla- 
rialion of words met in reading. Composition of sentences on the reading-board. Writmg 
(rom dictation for orthography. Correct reading. Composition of simple sentences. 

3. Grammar practically. Conjugation of verbs, <tc. Parsing. 

4. History of Holland and chronology. 

5. Geography of Holland. 

6. Writing. Elements of writing on the blackboard. Writing on slates. Writing of 
numbers. Linear drawing. Writing on paper. Writing capital letters and large hand. 
Exercises of writing on the blackboard. 

7. Arithmetic by induction Mental arithmetic. Reading Roman numbers. Practical 
Arithmetic. Tables of moneys. Exercises in reading numbers. Decimal fractions. Tables 
of weights and measures. Theory of arithmetic. Elements of form. 

8. Moral and religious instruction. Bible stories, &c. 

9. Singing. 

In giving a short explanation of the exercises just enumerated, I shall not con- 
fine myself to the methods followed in this particular school, with all of which 
indeed I am not acquainted, but give them as in most general use, especially as I 
saw them practiced in the schools of Haarlem, which have the advantage of imme- 
diate contact with the seminary for teachers there, and the use of its pupils as 
sub-teachers. 

The exercises of perception and reflection in frequent use, are those recom- 
mended by Ewald, and consist of a selection from various authors, as vacII as of 
many subjects on which the teacher is expected to be informed. The instruction 
is given orally, according to the following outline : The child is taught to observe 
and to speak correctly, by referring to objects which are about him. Knowledge 
of colors. Of some varieties of form, as round, square, &c. Naming of words 
of similar and contrary significations. Meaning of verbs in common use. Nu- 
merating by cubes. Knowledge of coins of the country, and their relative 
values. Division of time. To tell the time by a watch. To distinguish the true 
from the false. Questions on nature and art. Qualities of resemblance and dis- 
tinction. Compound expressions, as " good day," ''besides," &c. Witty say- 
ings. Points of the compass. Lessons on weights and measures. On different 
metals. Articles of furniture in common use. Different daily occupations. The 
four ages of man. Different ranks of society. Proverbs and phrases. Riddles 
and charades. Fables. Honorable and dubious actions. Explanation of words. 

Systems, in my opinion better than those of Lohr, are in use in Germany, but 
this enumeration shows what in general these exercises are in the Dutch schools. 

The arrangements for teaching reading, according to Prinsen, are a spelling 
and reading-board, to be presently described, reading tables or progressive lessons 
printed and pasted upon boards, and a series of reading books, beginning with the 
simple vowel sounds, and rising to stories for children, who have a facility in read- 
ing. There is a manual also for the teacher to guide his lessons. The reading- 
board consists of a center-piece with horizontal grooves, or raised ledges forming 
grooves between them, into which small wooden prisms, having letters marked, 
or printed letters pasted upon them, may be placed. The vowels are arranged in 
compartments on one side of the center-piece, and the consonants on the other. 
The letter prisms have the same letter in different characters, capitals and small 
letters on four faces of the prism. This reading machine admits of a great 
variety of exercises in the mechanical arrangements concerned, in which the 
pupil takes part, such as composing simple words and sentences, and forming 
words from the letters composing them, which have been purposely disarranged. 



PRIMARY SCHOOL AT THE HAGUE. 6X3 

The reading tables of progressive lessons are for the purposes of varying the 
exercises, of employing a number of children actively at the same time, and for 
habituating themselves to letters of the ordinary size. 1 hey are nine in number, 
beginning with single vowels, and terminating with words containing several com- 
pound sounds. All the combinations of letters used form words, as in i\Ir. 
Wood's plan, and the teacher is careful to require an explanation of every word, 
as it occurs. Prinsen's Primer enables the teacher to exercise the intelligence of 
his pupil, and to give a pleasing variety to his instruction. There are pictures 
attached to each letter, representing some object or action, the word referring to 
which contains the vowel sound to be taught. The teacher draws from the pupil 
a description of the object or action, and when he has obtained the right word, 
makes the child remark the sound of the letters. Of course, these sounds are 
not the arbitrary names of the letters, and hence, this method, to distinguish it 
fi'om the spelling method is called " Phonic," (lautir.) The reading-machine and 
primer are used in conjunction. When the pupil has reached the "first reading- 
book,'' the teacher reads aloud, that the former, by following, may receive ideas 
of emphasis. The reading-books contain stories entirely adapted to the compre- 
hension of children, giving them ideas of common trades and operations, of moral 
sentiments, of nature, of the biographies of the worthies of Holland, familiar 
letters, &c. They contain various forms of printed and written alphabets. 

In learning to write, beginning upon the slate or board, one of the pupils com- 
poses a word upon the reading-board, with written letters ; then, all name the 
sounds, and copy the forms upon their slates. In some schools, elementary 
forms are first taught, and the letters of large hand next written. In others, 
small hand is made the basis ; and in the school for the poor, at the Hague, the 
teacher has ingeniously sifted out the elements of a current small hand, and 
begins with them. From the best examination I could give these methods, it 
appeared to me that the hand begun by small letters was not so good as that 
begun by large ones. 

A specimen of the method of teaching geography will be seen by following 
the outline of Prinsen's description of Haarlem, used as a guide to the teachers 
of that place. It begins with the elementary notions of the manner of repre- 
senting a country on_ a map, the points of the compass, &c. Then follows the 
position of the town, its size, and the character of its environs, number of its 
inhabitants, most remarkable buildings, the divisions ot the town, the gates, prin- 
cipal canals and streams, principal streets, and particulars relating to remarkable 
buildings in them, and minute descriptions of the more important places in the 
several wards, from the first to the sixth. After thus becoming acquainted with 
the geography of the town and its environs, that of Holland follows. In some 
schools, the old method is .still in use. 

Arithmetic is chiefly taught according to Pestalozzi's method, cubical blocks 
being used for numeration. These^have been superseded in some countries, by 
the arithmetical frame spoken of before, which answers the same purpose of 
addressing the eye, while its use is more convenient than that of the cubes. The 
method is by induction. The first lesson teaches to combine three units, vari- 
ously, by addition. The second, to reckon these forward or backvi'ard. The 
tliird, to name them from the middle. Then, ideas of comparison, as of greater 
or less numbers, up to three units. Of differences, of how many times unity 
must be repeated to make two or three, or elementary ideas of snbstr.action, of 
multiplication, and of division. The same course of lessons is repeated, increasing 
the number of cubes (units) up to ten.. Next follow ideas of even and uneven 
numbers, and of the result of their combination, reaching as high as fifteen. 
Counting by units, by twos, by threes, and following the same steps as in the 
earlier lessons, counting by twos and threes, by ones and threes, &c., and always 
repeating the same train. A similar course is followed in reckoning up to twenty, 
adding counting by fours, by threes and fours, by twos and fours, by ones and 
fours, and a similar series by fives. This course is kept up as long as necessary, 
and from the insight it gives, from the very beginning, into the theory of arith- 
metic, a judicious teacher will be amply repaid for the somewhat tedious repeti- 
tion of the earlier steps, by the facility of the latter progress. The various exer- 
cises in arithmetic are fully detailed in the programme of the Hague school, 
already given. The elements of form are also taught according to Pestalozzi. 



614 



PRIMARY SCHOOL AT THE HAGUE. 



The results of the moral and religious instruction, communicated in and out of 
school, are fully shown m the character of the people of Holland ; and these must 
be deemed, satisfactory. Sectarian instruction is carefully kept out of the schools, 
while the historical parts of the Bible and its moral lessons are fully dwelt upon. 
There are various collections of Bible stories for this purpose, which are com- 
mented on by the teacher, and all the incidental instruction, so important in a 
school, has the same tendency. Doctrinal instruction is given, according to an 
arrangement made with the churches of the various denominations when the 
school law was promulgated ; this instruction is imparted out of the school, on 
the half-holidays and Sundays. Sometimes, when, as at the Hague, the pupils 
nearly all belong to one communion, a catechist attends at the school ; but even 
then, only those children whose parents wish it are present at the exercises. 

Music is taught by note, and most of the schools have a blackboard, with the 
ledger lines painted in white or red upon it, to assist the teacher. The songs are 
of very various characters, as moral, religious, patriotic, grave, gay, and loyal ; 
and very considerable attainment is made in vocal music. 

1 return now to the school of the Hague, to give an account of the manner in 
which the various exercises are accomplished, within the si.x or eight years de- 
voted to elementary instruction. As the law requires but three classes in each 
school, these are sub-divided. Each division is, in fact, a separate class, with a 
distinct course of study, and an industrious pupil can pass through one division 
each year. The number of hours marked, are those devoted per week to the 
several subjects. 

FIRST, OR LOWEST CLASS. 



FIRST DIVISION. 



Hours. 

Exercises of thought and reason, 2 

Prinsen's Tiihles, 6 

Vowels and consonants from the letter-box,. . ] 

Composition of words on the reading-board,. 3 

General exercises with the letter-box, 1 

Spelling from memory, 1 

Explanation of words and sentences, 2 

Simultaneous reading from books, 4 



Hours. 

Individual reading, 1 

Reading different printed characters, 1 

Mental arithmetic, 1 

Exercises in arithmetic, 2 

Learning Roman and Arabiac numerals, 1 

Sitting quiet, 1 

Exercises of thought and reason, continued,. . 2 



Vowels and consonants from the letter-box, 

continued, 1 

Spelling from memory, continued, 3 

Explanation of words and sentences, contin- 
ued 3 

Simultaneous reading from books, continued,. 7 
Composition of sentences on the reading- 
board, 1 



SECOND DIVISION. 

Reading written characters, 2 

Writing on the blackboard, 1 

Arithmetic by induction, continued, 1 

Mental arithmetic, continued, 1 

Writing and reading numbers 2 

Reading Roman numerals, 1 

Elements of form, 1 

Sitting quiet, 1 



THIRD DIVISION. 



Exercises of thought and reason, continued,.. 2 

S|)elling from memory, continued 1 

Explanation of words and sentences, con- 
tinued 1 

Simultaneous reading from books, continued,. 7 
Composition of sentences on the reading- 
board, continued 1 

Writing on the blackboard, continued, 1 

Rending written characters, continued, 1 

Grammar, the conjugations, 1 

Writing on slates 1 



Writing out verses to learn hy rote, 1 

Linear drawing ] 

Arithmetic by induction, continued, 1 

Mental arithmetic, continued, 1 

Practical arithmetic, 1 

Writing and reading numbers, continued, 2 

Reading Roman numerals, continued, 1 

Elements of form, continued 1 

Table of coi.ns, 1 

Catech ism 1 



SECOND CLASS. 



FIRST DIVISION. 



Exercises of thought and reason, continued,. . 2 

Analysis of sentences 1 

Explanation of words and sentences, contin- 
ued, 1 

Composition of sentences continued, 1 

Simultaneous reading, continued, 5 

Correct reading 1 

Parsing 1 

Writing on slates, 2 



Writing small hand on paper, 6 

Mental arithmetic, continued, 1 

Practical arithmetic, continued, 2 

THble of coins, continued, 

Elements of form, continued, 

Linear drawing, continued 

Moral and religious instruction, continued,. 
Singing, 



PRIMARY SCHOOL AT THE HAGUE. 



615 



SECOND DIVISION. 



Exercises of thought and renson continued.... 
Simultnneniis reading from books, continued. 

Correct reading, continued 

Composition of sentences, continued, 

Writing on the slate, continued, 

Writing on paper, continued, 

Writing capital letters 

Linear drawing, continued, 

History of Holland, 



Hour*' 

Geography of Holland 1 

Arithmetic by induction, continued 1 

INIental arithmetic, continned, 1 

Practical arithmetic, continued 3 

Rules of arithmetic, 1 

Decimal tractions, 1 

Elements of form, continued, J 

Moral and religious instruction, continued,.. . 1 

Vocal music, continued, 1 



THIRD CLASS. 



Writing on blackboard 1 

Mental arithmetic, continued 1 

Practical do. do. 4 

Rules of do. do 3 

System of weights and measures, 1 

Theory of numbers, 1 

Moral and religious instruction, continued,. . . I 

Catechism, continued, 1 

Vocal music, continued, 1 



Exercises of thought and reason, continued,. . 1 

Simultaneous reading, continued 1 

Correct rending of prose and poetry, 1 

Writing from dictation, for orthography, 2 

Grammar, continued, 1 

History of Holland, continued, ] 

Chronology of Holland 1 

Geography of Holland, 2 

Writing of small hand from copy slips, 2 

Writing capital letters and figures, 1 

The half-yearly examination of the pupils, at which I was present, enabled me 
to hear their progress in arithmetic with the cubes, in reading and spelling, in 
forming words and sentences, in numerating written numbers, making Roman 
numerals, in higher reading, in the elements of form, in higher arithmetic, in 
mental arithmetic, in the geography of Holland, and in vocal music. Their 
attainments in these branches were, in general, quite respectable, and in some 
of them very satisfactory indeed. 

The system of weights and measures is taught in the schools of Holland, not 
only by learning tables, but by reference to the standards themselves, a complete 
set of copies of which is expected to be preserved in every school. The advan- 
tages of this method are very great. 

The branches taught in the schools for the poor, are carried further in the 
burgher schools. Thus the course of grammar is extended, and general history 
and geography are added. The essentials are, however, the same, and there is no 
new train of study. 

The instruction in the so called, French schools, may be illustrated by that in 
the one established by the school committee of Utrecht. This school consists of 
three divisions : two for boys and one for girls. Of those for boys, the first is a 
Dutch elementary school, which takes its pupils at about five years of age, and 
carries them through a course very similar to that already described.* At from 
ten to eleven, they pass to the French school. Here they make further attain- 
ments in the Dutch language, study general geography and history in detail, carry 
their arithmetic further, and begin algebra, continue the course of geometry, make 
greater progress in the theory and practice of music, and above all, study the 
French language grammatically, and by using it as the language of recitation, 
and learning much of the other branches through its medium, acquire a great 
facility in speaking it. In some of these schools, physics and natural history are 
taught, and Latin is begun by those who intend to enter the gi'ammar school. 



* I was much pleased to see the method of teaching geography, by delineating maps on 
the blackboard in use in this school. The master himself must be practiced in the art, in 
order that the pupils may learn by imitation. 



PRIMARY NORMAL SCHOOL* 



AT HAARLEM, IN HOLLAND. 



This school is peculiar in regard to instruction, practice in teaching, and 
discipline. It is intended to prepare for at least the second grade among 
primary teachers, which, it will be remembered, qualifies for the mastership 
of any primary school, the first class being an honorary grade. The age of 
admission, the time of continuance, and the courses of instruction, are regu- 
lated accordingly. 

The director! is the head of the institution, and controls absolutely all its 
arrangements. His principle, that a teacher in such a place should be left 
to study the character and dispositions of his pupils, and to adapt his in- 
struction and discipline to them, dispenses with rules and regulations, or 
constitutes the director the rule.J To carry out this principle, requires that 
the school should not be numerous, and it is accordingly limited to forty 
pupils. There is an assistant to the director, who shares in the general in- 
struction with him, and upon whom the religious teaching of the pupils spe- 
cially devolves. The school is visited periodically by the inspector-general, 
who examines the pupils personally, and notes their general and individual 
proficiency. 

To be admitted, a youth must be over fifteen years of age, and have 
passed an examination upon the studies of the elementary school, satisfactory 
to a district-inspector, who recommends him for admission. He is received 
on probation, and, at the end of three months, if his conduct and proficiency 
are satisfactory to the director, is recommended to the minister of public in- 
struction, who confirms his appointment. 

The course of theory and practice lasts four years in general, though, if a 
pupil have the third lower grade of public mstruction in view, which is at- 
tainable at eighteen years of age, he is not required to remain connected 
with the institution beyond that age, and indeed may leave it, on his own 
responsibility, before the close of the regular course. The second grade is 
only attainable at the age of twenty-two, and hence it is not usual for pupils 
to enter this school as early as the law permits. The theoretical instruction 
is composed of a review and extension of the elementary branches, as the 
Dutch language, geography, arithmetic, elementary geometry, the history of 
the country, natural history, religion, writing, and vocal music, and also of 
general geography and history, natural philosophy, and the science and art 
of teaching. This is communicated in the evenings, the pupils meeting at 
the school for the purpose. During the day they are occupied in receiving 
practical instruction, by teaching under the inspection of the director in the 
elementary school already spoken of, attached to the normal school, and oc- 
cupying its rooms, or in teaching in some other of the elementary schools of 
the town of Haarlem. They pass through different establishments in turn, so 
as to see a variety in the character of instruction. The director, as inspector 
of primary schools in this district, visits frequently those where his pupils 
are employed, and observes their teaching, and also receives a report from 

• From Bache's Education in Europe. 

+ Mr. Prinson, one of a class of teachers who adorn this profession in Holland. 

j When M. Cousin, in his visit to Haarlem, invited Mr. Prinsen to communicate to him the 
regulations of his school, and then to show him how they were carried out, first the rule, thenth« 
results, the director replied, '* I am the rule." 



61 R PRIM VRY NOR>'Ar. PCHOOI. AT If AARI.F.M. 

the misfers. Tiie ob -crvntions nnd ronorts are turned to r.cconiit j , sn^^^f- 
quent meetinnfs with his class. 

The pupils do not board togetiier in the normal school, but are distributed 
throujjli ihe town, in certian f,.miiies selected by the direcior. They form a 
pari of these families during iheir reddenee with them, being respon^dble to 
the he.'d for the time of their absence from the house, their hours, and con- 
duct. They take their meals with the f imilies, and are furnished with Ji 
study and sleeping-room, tire, lights, &c. The director pays the moderate 
sum required for iliis accommodation from the annual stipend allowed by 
government.* The efficiency of such a system depends, of course, upon the 
linl/its of f nuily life of the country, and upon the locality where the school 
is established. In Holland and Haarlem the plan succeeds well, and has the 
adv.intage that the pupils are constantly, in a degree, their own masters, and 
must control themselves, and tliat they are never placed in an artificial state of 
socie.y or kind of life, which is the case when they are collected in one estab- 
lishment. The director m .kes frequent visits to these f nnilies, and is in- 
formed of the home eharicter of his pupils. The discipline of a normal 
school is, of course, one of the easiest tasks connected wish it, for impro- 
prieiies or levities of conduct are inconsistent with the future calling of the 
youth. Admonition by the assistant and by the director are the only coer- 
cive means resorted to, previous, to dismission. The director has authority 
to dismiss a student without consulting the minister, merely reporting the 
fact and case to him. Though this power may be important in increasing 
his influence, yet it has been necessary to exercise it but three tir "s in 
twenty years. There are two vacations of from four to six weeks each, 
duri ig which the pupils, in general, return to their friends. The school has 
a lending library of books relating to teaching, and of miscellaneous works. 
This useful institution supplies for the primary schools, every year, from 
eigh+ to twelve well-prepared masters, who propagate throughout the coun- 
try the excellent methods and principles of teaching here inculcated. 

* This annual stipend is ninety dollars. Puppoaina; that a student has an entire bursary, he 
will reciuire some additional lumis lo support him while at the school; for his board, lodgina;, 
&c., cost iwo dollars per week, which, for the forty-two weeks of term-lime, amounts to eighty- 
four dollars, leaving him but six dollars for incidental expenses. 



DENMARK. 



Public instruction has long received much attention in Denmark. It 
is necessary to be able to read respectably, and to have received some 
religious instruction, in order to be admitted to the communion of the 
Lutheran church : and such admission is substantially indispensable to 
apprenticeship, or other industrial employment, and to marriage, so that 
the people are better instructed than those of most countries in Europe. 

At the time of the reformation, there existed in every town, and in 
connection with the religious houses, a large number of Latin schools, 
containing in some cases from 700 to 900 pupils, in which also were 
classes for elementary instruction. Various royal ordinances were pro- 
mulgated, from 1539 down to the present day, extending or modifying 
the provisions for public education which existed prior to that date. 
The present school system, however, dates from 1814, at which time an 
ordinance was published, reorganizing the system of primary and sec- 
ondary instruction. 

1. Each parish must furnish and maintain sufficient schools and teachers 
for the primary instruction of all children within it, in reading, writing, 
arithmetic, and the Lutheran catechi.sm, to which are often added gram- 
mar, history, and geography. The emoluments of the teachers, although 
small, support them comfortably, as living is cheap. They commonly 
receive from $200 to ^250, a small part of it in money, and the rest in 
provisions, besides the occupancy of a house and several acres of land. 
Similar but larger schools exist in the cities. There are 4,700 primary 
or parochial schools with about 300,000 pupils. 

2. The secondary schools are the high or grammar schools, about 30 
in number, in the cities and large towns. Of these the most eminent is 
the academy at Soro, established in 1536, from the funds of a Cistercian 
monastery, founded about 1150 by Archbishop Absalon. In these 
schools are taught Latin and Greek, French and German, mathematics 
natural sciences, geography, history, and all the branches of a thorough 
high school education. There are also about 30 real schools of a simi- 
lar grade, but giving instruction more adapted to commercial pursuits. 
Here may also be classed the higher burgher schools of the cities. 
Female schools of this grade exist, but they are mostly private ; indeed, 
there are many private schools, both for boys and girls. ^ 



620 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN DKNMARK. 



3. Above these schools are the two universities, for Danish students, 
at Copenhagen, founded in 1479, and for German students, at Kiel, 
founded in 1665. The university of Copenhagen contained, in 1841, 
about 1.260 students, and 40 professors and instructors. Its revenue is 
about $72,000 a year, and its Hbrary contains about 110,000 volumes. 
There is annexed to it a polytechnic institute, or school of arts, in 
which instruction is given in the application of science to industrial 
occupations. The university of Kiel contained at the same time about 
390 students, and about fifty professors and teachers. It receives a 
revenue from the State of about $30,000 a year, and has a library of 
70,000 volumes. Besides the above-mentioned university revenues, the 
students at both pay fees to the professors, whose lectures they attend 
at Copenhagen, after the rate of from two to four dollars for a course 
of lectures, (one a week for six months,) and at Kiel, about a dollar for 
the same. 

4. There are eight normal schools, in which the course of instruction 
occupies three years, and includes Danish, mathematics, natural sci- 
ences, writing, pedagogy, history, geography, gymnastics, and drawing. 

The Lancasterian system of instruction, which was very generally 
tried and rejected in Germany, succeeded much better in Denmark. It 
was permissively introduced in 1822, and actively advocated by M. 
D'Abrahanson, aid-de-camp to the king, and by others, and spread with 
60 much rapidity that in three years it was used in 1,707 schools, and in 
1830 in 2,673, of all' grades. It has, however, been considerably modi- 
fied, and as now used is called the reciprocal or Danish system, to dis- 
tinguish it from the original mutual, or Lancasterian. 

The royal chancery is the highest board of educational inspection. 
The baliff and provosts of each town inspects its schools, and the pastor 
and " school palroons" those of each parish. The school patroons are 
all having a revenue, estimated, to equal or exceed 32 tuns, or 1,520 
bushels of corn. 

The institutions of special instruction, besides those already men- 
tioned, are a medical school, a pharmaceutical school, a foresters' school, 
a military high school, a land-cadets' academy, a sea-cadets' academy, 
(lower schools for sea and land military service,) an academy of fine 
arts, a school for the blind, and one for deaf mutes. 

Considerable funds are used in paying pensions to teachers' widows, 
and to retired or invalid teachers. 

Iceland, an appendage of the Danish crown, with a population of 
70,500, is remarkable for the universality with which elementary in- 
struction is diffused, not by schools, but by the family. The only school 
on the island is a gymnasium for the higher studies at Bessestad, which 
was endowed in 1530. 



SWEDEI. 



The system of Public Instruction in Sweden, consists ol^— I. Two 
Universities; II. Secondary Scliools, Grammar Schools, and Practical 
Schools ; III. Primary Schools, or schools for the people. 

I. There are two universities, Upsula, with an average attendance 
of 1000 students, and Lund, with about 450 students. At the head of 
each university is the Chancellor, who is always a person of rank, 
elected by the professors and confirmed by the king. The present 
Crown Prince holds this otfice in both institutions. The professors em- 
brace the four faculties — theology, law, medicine, and philosophy. To 
each faculty belong a number of stipendiary professors and assistant 
lecturers. Attendance on the lectures is not compulsory on the stu- 
dents, nor are they required to remain for any specified lime. Every 
candidate for any degree conferred by the university, must pass a satis- 
factory exammaiion. 

II. Secondary instruction is given in " Schools of Learning" (Lar- 
dams Skola) and Gymnasia. The former, is a lower grade of Gymna- 
sium. Both are classical schools; and in the two, the pupils are 
instructed m religion, geography, history, writing, mathematics, Latin 
and Greek, the German and French languages, and the elements of 
natural history. Besides these, there is a class of schools, called Apolo- 
gist Schools, in which the course of instruction is as thorough as in the 
Gymnasium, except in the classics. According to an official report in 
1843, there were twelve Gymnasia, tbrty-one Schools of Learnmg, forty 
Apologist Schools, and two Cathedral Schools, connected with the uni- 
versities. All these institutions are almost entirely supported by the 
State ; the government appropriating nearly $100,000 a year for sala- 
ries of teacher's. In these schools the children of the gentry, govern- 
mental officials, and professional families, are educated, but are not 
closed to any child qualified to enter. 

III. T'ne government as early as 1684, in order to make tne lowest 
form of instruction universal, ordered that before any person could be 
admitted to the rite of confirmation, (which was necessary to marriage.) 
the curate should be satisfied of his or her ability to read ; and up to 
1822. the peasantry of Sweden was tnought to be the most intelligent 
in Europe. But in consequence of inquiries instituted about that time 
by a voluntary association, it was found that home and parochial school 



622 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN SWEDEN. 

education had been for a quarter of a century neglected, and in 1825 a 
a general system was introduced; but up to 1842, the establishment 
of schools had gone forward so slowly, that it became necessary to pass 
a law making it compulsory for every district to erect at least one school 
with an a])proved teacher. 

Every parish is divided into districts, and whenever a districts does 
not contain population or wealth enough to maintain a permanent 
teacher, it is visited by an itinerating teacher, who is permanently em- 
ployed by the school board of the parish, to teach at ditferent periods of 
the year in ditierent localities of the parish. 

The school board consists of a chairman and committee elected by 
the district, whose duty it is to provide a school-house, and elect and 
employ teachers. Each teacher is entitled to a minimum salary, con- 
sisting of sixteen barrels of corn, lodging, firewood, pasture, food for one 
cow, and small piece of land to cultivate for a garden. If the district 
can not furnish this, the government makes a grant in aid.. 

The course of instruction comprises religion, geography, Swedish and 
universal history, mathematics, geometry, natural history, music, and 
gymnastics. All children between the ages of nine and fifteen must 
attend school, unless it can be shown that they receive instruction at 
home. The Lancasterian, or mutual method of instruction, is very 
widely adopted. 

The inspection of all the schools, belongs to the bishop and the chap- 
ter of the Cathedral. The school board of each district, makes an an- 
nual report of the state of the schools to the cathedral chapter of the 
diocese, by which body a report is forwarded every three years to the 
government. According to the last triennial report, (July, 1850.) the 
population of Sweden was 3,358,867 ; and of this number, the following 
children of the legal school age (over nine and under fifteen years) 
were receiving instruction as follows: — 

1. In Primary Schools — stationary, . . . boys, . . . 81,422 

" •' " ... girls, . . . 62,104 

2. In Primary Schools — ambulatory, . . boys. . . . 67.120 

•' " " " . . girls, . . . 59.058 

3. Secondary Schools, boys, . . . 6,223 

4. Private Institutions, boys, . . . 7,087 

•' " girls, . . . 10,377 

5. Educated at home, boys, . . . 55,827 

" " " girls, . . . 73,169 

6. In Sunday Schools, boys, . . . 13.177 

" •' " , girls, . . . 12,541 

The number of masters employed by the school board in stationary 
schools, was 2,107 ; and in ambulatory schools 1,351, of whom 218 were 
clergymen, and 690 church organists. 

By the act of 1842, a Normal Scnool or Seminary for the training of 
teachers was instituted. The pupils receive a fixed saiary for their 
support from the government, in consideration of which, they obligate 
themselves to teach for at least three years m the primary schools. 



NORWAY. 



Education is very generally diffused in Norway. The existing 
Bchool system much resembles that of Denmark, and was established 
at the same time with it, in 1814. The parishes are obliged to maintain 
good school-houses. Jind to pay the salaries of the teachers. These sal- 
aries usually afford a comfortable support, and are paid partly in money, 
and partly in produce ; the use of a house being often added. Ability to 
read tlie Bible, and a certain amount of rehgious knowledge, are prere- 
quisites to confirmation. The law, moreover, as in Prussia, enforces 
attendance at school for a certain period. And almost all Norwegians 
possess a competent knowledge of reading, writing, arithmetic, Bible 
hi.slory, and the catechism, to which some acquaintance with geogra- 
phy, grammar, and history, is often added. 

The educational institutions of Norway may be described as follows: 

1. A university at Christiana, founded in 1811. This contains, gen- 
erally, about 28 professors and 700 students. It has a library of 50,000 
volumes, a botanic garden, and a museum. 

2. Colleges preparatory to the university. These exist in Christiana, 
and in most of the large towns, and usually possess libraries and mu- 
seums. There are also in Christiana schools of drawing and archi- 
tecture, and a school of commerce and navigation. 

3. Twenty-one citizens' schools, in the large towns, with 1.079 pupils. 
In these are taught, besides the usual studies before named, mathe- 
matics, English, French, German, and Latin. 

4. Fifty-five schools for laborers, with 6 602 pupils. 

5. One hundred and eighty-three permanent country schools, with 
13,693 pupils. 

6. One thousand six hundred and ten itinerating schools, with 133,362 
pupils. These are taught in the thinly peopled districts, a month or two 
a year each, where the people are too poor to support permanent schools. 

7. An asylum for deaf mutes, at Drontheim. 

8. Sunday schools exist in all the principal towns. 

9. Libraries are maintained in most of the parishes by the Society of 
Public Good. 

In 1837, one seventh of the population were receiving instruction in 
the public schools. 



RUSSIA. 



The first school in Russia was established in 1017, at Kief, by Valde- 
mir the Great, for the instruction of the clergy, and placed under the "care 
of the bishop. A few years later, (1031,) Jaraslaff, the son of Valdemir, 
establislied a school at Novgorod for the education of 300 sons of the 
clergy and nobility. The following directions are handed down as hav- 
ing been given by the bishops of Kief, to the masters of his schools— 
and. whether so given or not, are worthy of the serious attention of 
every teacher. 

Instruct the children in trutli and virtue, in book science, good manners, and 
charity ; in the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom, and in purity 
and humiUty. Instruct them not in anger and severity, but with joj' and art'ec- 
tionate treatment — with sweet precepts and gentle consolation that they may 
neither become weary nor Weak. Teach them diligently and frequently ; and give 
them tasks according to their powers, so that they may not faint and droop ; but 
above all things, instruct them assiduously out of the law of the Lord, for the ad- 
vantage of both soul and body ; and restrain them from foolish and improper 
language. 

Previous to 1700, education in Russia was confined to the clergy and 
a few noble families, and the only seminaries for this purpose existed in 
connection with religious houses, and were taught and managed by the 
clergy. Peter the Great, was the first to establish schools to educate 
youth for the civil and military services of the empire, and by degrees a 
large number of scientific and literary institutioiis, and a well-organized 
system of public instruction, have been established — limited however in 
their benefits to the government, to the higher interests of science and 
literature, and mainly to the children of nobles and official functionarie.«, 
and the higher class of merchants — and all based on the cardinal ideas 
of Russian policy, that all the moral and intellectual forces of society 
must be merged in the will of the Czar. 

Peter I. founded the first naval school, and school for engineers at St. 
Petersburg, and schools in which navigation was taught, at Pskow, Nov- 
gorod, Moscow, Jaraslaw, and Wologda. The number of the cloister 
schools were increased, and the nobles were commanded to send their 
children to school— and the privileges of these schools were extended to 
other cla.sses of people. In 1724, before his death, he projected the 
plan of the imperial academy of sciences, which was opened "by his 

40 



g26 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN RUSSIA. 

successor in the following year. Peter also invited a large number of 
learned men to teach in his schools at St. Petersburg, and particularly 
to instruct Russian youth to take charge of schools in other parts of the 
kingdom — thus introducing the plan of normal instruction. By his pur- 
chases and encouragements to professors, he founded the museum of 
natural history, the museum of fine arts, and the school of mines. 

The Empress Anna, founded the first corps of cadets, a military 
academy for young nobles, at St. Petersburg, and forbade all promotion 
among soldiers, and subordinate officers, who could not read. She also 
ibunded schools at Astrachan for the Calmucks, and at Kasan for the 
Tartars, and directed one of the officers of the government to report to 
her annually on the condition of public instruction. 

The Empress Elizabeth, imposed fine.? on all nobles and public func- 
tionaries, who did not educate their children at home, or in the church, 
or public seminaries. She founded the university of Moscow, in 1755, 
and the academy of arts in 1757. 

Paul III. increased the number of military schools, and educated at 
the e.v'pense of the government in these schools, the sons of the poorer 
nobles. He also fbundeij schools for the orphan children of military men, 
and founded an institute in St. Petersburg for the sons of private sol- 
diers, and subordinate officers, in the garrisons of the city. 

Catharine U., applied her vigorous mind to extending the educational 
policy of the government. During her reign, and at her suggestion, the 
imperial free economical society was founded in 1765, by Count Woron- 
zow, and other noblemen, for promoting scientific and useful knowledge. 
Under the patronage of successive emperors, it has grown up into one 
of the most important educational institutions of Russia. It has estab- 
lished an agricultural school with a model farm ; a collection of draw- 
ings and models of machines, tools and implements used in every depart- 
ment of labor ; instituted and aided experiments to perfect industrial 
methods; held public exhibitions of domestic industry; sent out indi- 
viduals to study the workshops, factories, and farms of other countries; 
published a large number of useful didactic tracts on agriculture, and 
other occupations, and diffused a large amount of information on public 
health, &c. Catharine was instrumental in founding the academy of 
St. Petersburg, for the cultivation of the Russian language and litera- 
ture. She projected in 1783 a system of public schools of two grades, 
styled upper and Lower — the former for the capital of every district, and 
the latter for every family in every large city. In the lower schools 
were to be taught reading, writing, the catechism, and sacred history; 
in the upper, in addition, drawing, mathematics, the history and geogra- 
phy of Russia, natural history and philosophy, and the Latin and. Ger- 
man languages. She commenced her system in St. Peter.«burg, and 
invited Jankevitch de Marievo, an eminent teacher and school officer 
in Austria, to superintend the work. So successful was he, that in 1790 
the system had been introduced in one hundred and seventy towns. 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN RUSSIA. 627 

The inspection over them was confided to the governors of provinces, 
and a regular appropriation of the provincial funds was made towards 
their support. This empress founded the normal gymnasium, which is 
now the imperial normal school of St. Petersburg, two marine schools, a 
school of commerce, and a school of mines, and several female semina- 
ries, one of which still bears her name at the capital. 

Alexander, on assuming the government, declared that he regarded 
public instruction as the first condition of national prosperity. To him 
belongs the credit of the more thorougn organization of the public 
schools, by the appointment of a minister of public instruction in 1802. 
Under the regulations of this olhcer, and by the direction of the Czar, the 
schools were divided into four grades, viz. : 1. Universities. 2. Gov- 
ernment schools, or gymnasia. 3. District schools. 4. Parish schools. 
The whole empire was divided into seven circles or districts, to each of 
which was assigned a university. The oHicers of the univeisily circle 
have the supervision of the schools of tlie three lower grades, viz., a 
gymnasium or classical high school, in the capital of each province or 
government ; the district school, in the capital of each subdivision of a 
province : and the schools in each parish in every city and village. 

The results of this system of public schools in bringing children of dif- 
ferent classes and creeds together, and in stimulating inquiries into the 
organization of society, and the operations of government was thought 
to bode no good to the stability of things as they were, and during the 
reign of the present emperor, as well as during the later period of his 
predecessors, while much attention and large appropriations were be- 
stowed on education— the aim has been to educate children of each class 
in society by themselves, to repress freedom of discussion in the univer- 
sities, and to multiply special schools to train up oificers to fill ditierent 
departments of the public service with an intense national spirit, as will 
be seen in the following summary of educational institutions drawn from 
various recent authorities. 

I. Public schools or iuslitutions, under the ministry of public instruc- 
tion. — There are 6 universities, 1 head normal school at St. Petersburg, 
3 lycea, with a course of instruction almost as extended as that of a uni- 
versity, 77 gymnasia, 433 district schools, 1,068 town, and 592 pensions, 
or boarding-schools established with the permission of the minister, 
besides schools of the above grades in Poland. All of these schools in- 
clude about 200,000 pupils. 

II. Military schools. — These institutions receive the special attention 
of the emperor, and a large portion of the appropriations for educational 
purposes. There are three classes: 1. School of cadets or military col- 
leges, nominally under the direct management of the emperor, which 
he delegates^ to the Grand Duke, heir apparent. The emperor visits 
them frequently in person, and looks into all the details of discipline 
and instruction. There are about 9,000 military cadets. 2. Schools 
under the direction of the navy board — studying to become ollicer.s, 
pilots, and master-workmen in the navy yards. There are about 4,000 



628 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN RUSSIA. 



pupils of this class. 3. Schools for children of soldiers in service, or 
who died in war — under the minister of war. These schools are scat- 
tered throughout the empire, and number 170.000 children. 

III. Ecclesiastical schools. — Several of this class of schools are 
amongst the oldest of the empire, dating back to the introduction of 
Christianity, and were mainly instrumental in maintaining any degree of 
intelligence in the Russian clergy. Peter I. increased their number, 
and improved their condition by degrees ; and they still constitute an 
important educational agency in the State, not only as theological 
schools for educating the clergy, but for elementary instruction gener- 
ally. In respect to management, they are divided into two classes: 
those which belong to the Greek church', under the holy synod and a 
committee of the body, and those which belong to other forms of wor- 
ship, which are under the direction of tlie minister of the interior, and 
the consistory of each denomination. The ecclesiastical schools are of 
two grades. The higher seminaries are strictly theological schools, of 
which there are 21 belonging to the Greek church, 13 to the Catholic, 
14 to the Armenian, 8 to the Lutheran, 11 to the Mohammedan, and 2 
to the Jews, Avith over 4.000 students. Besides these^ there are elemen- 
tary schools for the sons of the clergy, viz.: 407 belonging to the Greek 
church, 275 to other denominations with over 70,000 pupils in attendance. 

IV. Schools under the minister ofjinance, — These comprise, 1. school 
of mines, which are of three grades, inferior, middle, and superior semi- 
naries—the latter only being strictly schools for teaching the art. 
These schools receive mainly the children of miners — thus perpetuating 
the occupation from father to son. There are 5,000 children in the gov- 
ernment schools of mines, and about half the number in schools sup- 
ported by proprietors of private mines. 2. Schools of commerce, a 
practical institute of technology, a forest institute, and a school of land 
surveying and design, numbering in all about 3.000 pupils. The 
schools under the minister of finance, employ 461 teachers, and instruct 
about 8,000 pupils. 

V. Schools under the minister of the interior. — These are schools of 
medicine, surgery, and pharmacy, all independent of the university fac- 
ulties ; rural schools for the cultivation of the vine, and for agriculture 
in general; schools for some of the subaltern officers in the civil service, 
and schools for orphans and poor children. These schools include over 
15,000 pupils. 

VI. Schools under the minister of domains of the crown. — These in- 
clude several agricultural colleges, and 2,696 village schools for children 
of the peasants, giving instruction to 14.064 males and 4,843 females. 

VII. Schools under the general direction of 7'oads and bridges. — These 
include two schools of civil engineering, and one for conductors and 
managers of roads — instructing 665 pupils. 

VIII. Schools under the minister of justice. — These include three law 
schools independent of the faculties of law in the universities, with 600 
students. 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN RUSSIA. 629 

IX. Schools under the minister of the emperor's household. — These in- 
clude the academies of the fine arts at Moscow and St. Petersburg, a 
scliool of arcliitecture, a school of music — containing in all over 1,000 
students. 

X. Schools under the minister of foreign affairs. — These include 
schools of modern languages, and one especially to train interpreters in 
the Asiatic tongues. These schools instruct over 800 students. 

XI. Schools under the reigning empress. — These include the found- 
ling hospitals, the boarding-schools for young ladies in St. Petersburg, 
Moscow, Odessa, and schools for daughters of indigent and invalid offi- 
cers, besides several houses of industry, schools for the deaf and dumb, 
an^ blind. In all of these schools there are over 90,000 children. 

XII. Schools aided by the government, but not including in the above. 
Among these are schools in the German colonies, in Tartary, &c., 
numbering in all over 50,000 pupils. 

The above classes of schools, mainly supported by the government, 
and, to a large extent, devoted to educating young men for different de- 
partments of the public service, are instructing about 600,000 of the 
population. This number is exclusive of the number of children who 
are receiving a home education, which is estimated by M. de Krusens- 
tem at 597,000, making an aggregate of about 1.200,000 of the youthful 
population under instruction, a much larger number than is generally 
conceded. 

Independently of the institutions occupied directly in the education 
of youth, Russia has her academies of science, learned societies, pub- 
lic libraries, museums, and galleries of the fine arts. Her public libra- 
ries include nearly 1,000,000 volumes. 

The following notice of the system of public instruction in Russia, 
appeared in the Annuaire des deux mondes, for 1851-52. 

Two principles seem to preside over the system of instruction in Russia, the 
universities are not open to all, nor liave they the power of teaching in all branches 
of learning. It is mainly since 1848, that the young generation has been re- 
stricted by the measures taken to keep it isolated from contact with the opinions 
that have extended over the other countries of Europe. The Russian government 
makes no secret of this, and the report presented to the Emperor in 1851 upon 
the condition of public instruction in 1 850, does not conceal the intention of the 
supreme power. This official report assumesas basis the emperor's own idea, that 
religious teaching constitutes the only solid foundation of all useful instruction. 
Besides the plans adopted by the Holy Synod and by the Minister of the Interior, 
to carry out this principle, the ministry of public instruction aids it in various ways. 
The chief inspector of religious teaching is aided by an adjunct charged with the 
duty of visiting monthly, and examining the scholars in the schools and " gymna- 
ses" of St. Petersburg, in their religious studies, and every month he must make 
to the minister a report upon the progress and tendencies of this teaching. Eccle- 
siastical inspectors have been established at Kiew, Kharkof, and Kasan, as they 
were at Odessa in 1848. Upon these functionaries devolves the task of supervising 
the teachers and their mode of instruction. In conformity with the will of supreme 
power, the Holy Synod has directed all ecclesiastical schools to frame for religious 
study a plan similar to that of the university, the superior normal schools and the 
Ij'ceums of Richelieu, Demidoff, and Prince Bezboradko. This plan includes 
dogmatic and moral theology, and church history. In that of the universities there 
is also included a course of ecclesiastical jurisprudence. Religious studies in sec- 



g30 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN RUSSIA. 

ondary schools and gymnases are also regulated by a special plan. To complete 
this system, the emperor has ordered the suppression of instruction in philosophical 
learning by lay professors in the universities of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kharkof, 
Kasan and Kiew, in the lycea of St. Petersburg, and the Richelieu lyceum at 
Odessa, and professors of theology have been nominated for these establishments, 
to fill the chairs of logic and experimental psychology. The plan for instruction 
in these branches has been arranged by concert between the Holy Synod and the 
State. In the university of Dorpat, all philosophical teachinff is restricted to this 
course of logic and psyehologj', which has been confided to a theological professor. 
The faculties of philosophy, formerly divided into two sections, have now been re- 
solved into special departments, one of history and philology, the other of physics 
and mathematics. In order to maintain the teachers in the new spirit of this sys- 
tem, there is in each university attached to the department of history and philology, 
a class of normal instruction obligatory upon all the students of that department, 
upon all pensioners of the crown who aspire to the position of teachers in gymna- 
ses, or in district schools, and upon all paying students who are being prepai'ed 
for private teachers. It is also in furtherance of these pi-iiieipals that the emperor 
has, since 1849, limited to 300 the number of paying students, admissible to the 
universities, no exceptions to this restriction being made except for the course of 
medical study, and for that of theology in the universities of Dorpat. " To com- 
plete these meiisures," says the official report, ''his majesty has deigned to per- 
mit that henceforth, among the student candidates for admission, the prefei'ence 
shall be given to those, who being equally with others fitted by preparatory in- 
struction and good conduct, may, by their rank and by existing regulations, have 
the right to enter the civil service." Here we see the prevailing ideas of instruc- 
tion and the mode of its restraint, so injurious to philosophical studies, and how it 
has become a peculiar privilege of the youth who by birth are admissible to em- 
ployment by the State. 

University education is divided into 8 districts or circles ; St. Petersburg, Mos- 
cow, Kharkof, Kiew, Kasan, Dorpat, Odes.si, Wilna, Warsaw. 

The university of St. Petersburg, has now three faculties, each subdivided into 
two sections ; the faculty of history and philology, composed of the sections of 
universal and oriental literature ; that of physics and mathematics, of those of 
mathematical and natural sciences, that of law, divided into the sections, juridicial 
and commercial. In 18.50 this university had fiG professors and employees, with 
386 students, of whom 288 were sons of nobles, ecclesiastics or government func- 
tionaries. The circle of St. Petersburg, embraces the 8 provinces of St. Peters- 
burg, Novgoi-od, Pskow, Vologda, Archangel, Olonetz, Moliilew, and Witepsk. It 
contanied in 1850, 13 gymnases, 64 district schools, (of which 5 ft)r nobles exclu- 
sively,) 96 parish schools, of which 17 belonged to parishes of worship other than 
the Greek ; 2 model boarding-schools for young girls, 9 boarding-schools attached 
to gymnases and 1 to a district school, and 192 private institutions. The whole 
number of pupils of both sexes was 20,162, of whom 11,474 were children of 
nobles, ecclesiastics, " notable" burgesses, and merchants. 

The circle of Moscow embraces the 9 provinces of Moscow, Vladimir, Kalouga, 
Kostroma, Riazau, Smoleusk, Tver, Toula, and Taroslav. The university of Mos- 
cow, has four faculties, history with philolog;^-, physics with mathematics, law and 
medicine. The circle of Kharkof includes the provinces of Kharkof, Koursk, Vo- 
ronega, Orel, Tambof, and the territory of the Don Cossacks. 

The university of Kharkof has the same number of faculties as that of Moscow, 
with like subdivisions. So also is organized the university of Kiew. This circle 
contains the provinces of Kiew, Volhynia, Podolia, Tchernigov and Puttawa. 

The university of Kasan, has 4 faculties, and its circle extends over the provin- 
ces of Kasan, Nijui, Novgorod, Peuza, Astracan, Saratof, Simbirsk, Orembourg, 
Perm, and Viatka. 

The university of Dorpat is one of the most important in the empire, although 
within its circle a smaller extent of territory is embraced, it includes only the three 
provinces, Esthonia, Livonia, and Courland ; but these are the most intelligent and 
enlightened in the Russian empire. This university has 5 faculties, theology, law, 
medicine, history with philology, physics with mathematics. 

The provinces of Ekatherinoslaw, Cehersou, Taurida, Bessarabia, the cities of 
Odessa and Tagauray, with their suburbs and dependencies, constitute the circle of 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN RUSSIA, g31 

the university of Odessa. The Richelieu lyeeuni, which presides over this circle, 
has 3 feeulties — of law, commercial and financial course, and physics with mathe- 
matics, attached to it is an institute for study of Oriental languages. 

The provinces of Wilna, (jrodno, Minsk, and Kowno. have a distinct adminis- 
tration under the name of the circle of Wilna, although that city has in fact no 
university. Wilna was formerly an intellectual center of Poland ; its university 
involved in the final catastrophe of Polish nationality was suppressed in 1832. 
Such also is the position of the circle of Warsaw, it has no university ; it is com- 
posed of the provinces of Warsaw, Radom, Ploek, Lublin, and Augustovo. The 
institutions forming it are of two classes, the first includes the institute for nobles 
at Warsaw ; that of agricultural science at Marimont, the gymnasse of industrial 
scisnce at Warsaw, and the school of fine arts attached to it, the institute for teach- 
ers of elementary schools at Radzimine, 3 liigher professional schools of technology, 
6 district industrial schools, 97 Sunday schools for apprentices and the Rabbinical 
school of Warsaw. In the second class are six gymnases, 18 district classical 
schools, 1,259 elementary, of which 5 are .Jewish. There are also schools main- 
tained by private support ; of these there are -54 higher and 113 primary, some 
for boys or girls separately, and others for both sexes. Public instruction in Poland 
is continually the object of most minute precauticm. In 1850 three classes for 
higher instruction were commenced in the Warsaw gymnase, but under closest 
restrictions. Only pupils who, by force of existing regulations, have the right to 
enter the gymnase, and whose parents live in the city or its environs are admitted 
to these classes. The governor-general of the kingdom can alone make any ex- 
ception. Each class is limited to 50 scholars, who pay each an annual fee of 45 
silver roubles. From the terms of the official report we understand them to be 
subjected to the strictest supervision. Two gymnases were, in 1850, suppressed 
and replaced by district classical schools. The report adds that, *' to prevent an 
unsuitable crowding of pupils at the gymnase of industrial science at Warsavi^ the 
administration has found it necessary to, 1st. Found in tliat capital two separate 
district industrial schools; 2d. To increase to 20 roubles the fee paid by each pupil 
of the gymnase without exception. 3d. To impose upon the candidates a stricter 
examination, and only to admit from among those applying from the provinces 
those in whose favor there may be important reasons for making exceptions. 4th. 
To organize branches attached to the two government elementary schools for the 
purpose of withdrawing from district schools the children of poor parents.'' 

Siberia possesses some educational establishments, yet in their infancy. The 4 
governments of Tobolsk, Torusk, Yeunisseisk, and .Tukoutsk, have 3 gymnases. 
The emperor decided, in 1850, that in those of Tobalsk and Torusk, the study of 
Greek should be replaced by that of Tartar, at the option of pupils. A history 
of the Old and New Testament, translated into IMongolian by IVI. Kovalewski, 
professor of the university of Kasan, has been printed by order of the government 
for distribution among the still heathen population of some regions of Siberia. 

Besides these institutions for Christians of various creeds, Russia has .also a cer- 
tain number of schools for Jews exclusively, they still maintaining in this empire 
their exclusive existence. 

To sum up, the higher institutions comprise the normal schools of St. Petersburg, 
6 universities, 3 lyceums, having in all 3,521 students, (233 less than in 1849.) 
The secondary institutions of the empire number 2,149 with 116,936 pupils, (3,656 
more than in 1849,) and in the kingdom of Poland they are 1,561 with 82,942 
scholars, (1,2T9 more than in 1849.) Private schools do not flounish ; of these 
there are in the empire but 2,260 male and female teachers. 

The censorship belongs to the university of public instruction. It underwent 
on the 19th of July, 1850, a new organization, " more suitable to the requirements 
of the age." By virtue of another decision, sanctioned by the council of the em- 
pire, efficient measures have been adopted to prevent the fraudulent introduction 
of prohibited books from foreign countries. A temporary commission (for two 
years) has been constituted as experimental, to examine all books designed for in- 
struction of youth. Its report states that the whole number of volumes imported in 
1850, is 641,123. In Poland, the censorship authorized the publication of 327 
works; the importation being 58,141 volumes, forming 15,986 works. 

The military schools are under district administration which the emperor long 
a^o took under his personal direction, delegating it to the Grand Duke, Michael 



632 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN RUSSIA. 

Paulovich, who retained it until his decease, (September, 1849,) and it is now 
among the powers of the Grand Duke, heir apparent. The progress and improve- 
"ment in these has been considerable according to the " Abridged statement of the 
conduct and condition of the military schools, during the twenty-five years of the 
reign of his majesty the emperor." The military schools are now divided into three 
circumscriptions, those of St. Petersburg, Moscow, and the West. The circumscrip- 
tion of St. Petersburg includes 12 institutions, the corps of the emperor's pages, the 
school of ensigns of the guard, first and second corps of cadets, that of Paul, of 
Count Araktoheef of Novgorod, of Finland, of Alexander, (childrens,) of Georgia, 
and the regiment of nobles.* The second circumscription, that of Moscow, con- 
tains 11, the first and second corps of Moscow cadets,t that of Alexandria for 
orphans, those of Bakletine at Ords, of Alexander at Toula, of Michael at Voronega, 
of Tambof. of Neplinef at Orenburg, and that of Siberia. The report mentions the 
corps of Kasan as " projected." The corps of cadets of Polotsk, of Peter at 
Pultawa, of Alexander at Brzie.sc-Litevvski, and of Wladimir at Kiew, compose the 
circumscription of the West. The number of schools is 27, of which 23 were in 
complete operation, 3 in process of organization, and one " projected" in 1850, 
they had 9,504 pupils. Numerous and important improvements had been intro- 
duced into military instruction, both in scientific and practical study, and in moral 
instruction. Their administration has by no means lost sight of its guiding princi- 
ple, respect for throne and altar. It is this principle that, since 1849 and 1850, 
governs, more absolutely than ever, the Russian universities. If it is the basis of 
civic order, it is a fortiori the foundation of military discipline which insures the 
repose of Russian society. Thus all the material and military strength developed 
in Russian society, are concentrated in the hands of government. Religion gov- 
erning public instruction, and the Czar in turn goj'erniug the clergy, all the moral 
force of the land obeys a single movement. 

* The higher schools of engineering and artillery " Michael's," are independent of the cir- 
cumscription, 
t To the first corps is attached a branch for children. 



GREECE. 



The modern kingdom of Greece, as created by a convention of the 
governments of France, Great Britain, and Russia, and tiie king of Ba- 
varia, in 1832, occupies a considerable portion of the ancient Greek states, 
formerly the primitive seat of European civilization. Amid the noblest 
ruins of the ancient world, the Greeks had preserved a distinct existence 
as a people, and something of the purity and richness of their beautiful 
language. From 1750 to 1800, many Greek youth resorted to the uni- 
versities of Europe, and returned to establish schools, and diffuse a love 
of learning among their countrymen. About the beginning of the pres- 
ent century, schools were commenced at .Athens, Saloniki, Scio. Rusa, 
Tschesne, Athos, Cydonia, and other large towns, by which a spirit of 
liberty was breathed into the youth of the nation, which resulted in the 
opening of the war of independence, in 1821. Many of these high 
schools were closed adraid the din and devastations of the war — but it 
was one of the leading features in the policy of the provincial govern- 
ment and of the dictatorship of Capo d' Istrias to establish elementary 
schools from 1826 to 1831. During the period of the regency, and before 
the arrival of king Otho, through the efforts of Mr. Maurer, one of the 
regents, a system of national education was commenced. The fol- 
lowing statistics will indicate that the progress already made, is not 
inconsiderable. 

The public educational institutions of Greece and their statistics, for 
1851-2, are as follows : 

University of Athens, 39 professors, 590 students; classed as follows: 
of philosophy (sciences and belles-lettres,) 66; theology, 10; law, 109; 
medicine, 278 ; pharmacy, 37. Of the 590 students, 281 are from the 
kingdom of Greece, and 309 from other Greek provinces. The annual 
expense of this institution is $23,560. 

7 Gynmasia (classical high schools,) with 43 professors and 1,077 
pupils, of whom 847 are from independent Greece. 

79 Secondary schools (called Hellenic, because based upon the study 
of Greek.) with 133 professors and 3,872 pupils ; 4 private institutions 
and three supported by the communes, with 25 professors and 511 pupils j 
I seminary, with 4 professors and 30 students. 



634 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN GREECE 

1 Normal school for training teachers for the cornmunal schools, with 
7 professors and 60 students. 

338 Communal. schools for boys, with 366 teachers and 33 864 pupils. 

31 Communal schools tor girls, with 40 teachers, and 4 380 pupils ; 17 
private schools for girls, with 25 teachers and 1,479 pupils ; the school 
of the Philecpaideutic Society for the higher instruction of girls, with 
13 professors and 464 pupils. 

One agricultural school at Tiryns, with 20 scholars. 

One military scliool, with 20 professors and 64 pupils. 

There are also, at Athens, a school called the polytechnic school, being 
the beginning of a school of arts and trades, a library of about 70.000 
volumes, a rich cabinet of natural philosophy, a museum of natural his- 
tory, an anatomical museum, a museum of pathological anatomy, an 
observatory, a medical society, a society of natural history, an archeol- 
ogical society, a society of the fine arts, and a botanic garden. 

According to statistical returns of the kingdom of Greece for 1853, the 
population is 1.002,112. Of this number, from 700 to 750 are teachers 
or professors, and about 47,000 pupils, of whom about 6 250 are females. 
The number of young Greeks studying in the universities of France, 
Germany, and Italy, is from 350 to 400. Of these, 31 having finished 
courses of study in Greece, are maintained at the expense of the Greek 
government ; 11 of them are studying medicine, 6 fine arts, 6 literature, 
1 law, 1 physical and mathematical science, and 6 theology. 



Ionian Islands. 
By the treaty of Paris in 1816, the seven islands — Corfu, Cephalonia, 
Zante, Santa Maura, Ceeigo, Ithaca, and Paxo, having in 1840 a popula- 
tion of 200.000, were declared "a single, free, and independent state," 
under the protectorate of the sovereign of Great Britain, who is repre- 
sented by an officer, called the Lord High Commissioner. Under the 
direction of the government, a system of public schools exists, consist- 
ing of, 

1 University at Corfu, with .... 

2 Gymnasia with 

6 Superior district schools with . 

1 Agricultural School and Model Farm, with, 

100 District schools with, .... 



78 


pupils 


140 


C( 


300 


(( 


80 


(( 


. 6,000 


(( 



ITALY. 



Italy comprises, 

1. The kingdom of Lombardy and Venice, with 5,068,000 inhabitants. 

2. Tlie kingdom of Sadinia, .... 5.292,000 " 

3. The Duchy of Parma, .... 479,900 " 

4. The DucliyofModena, .... 490,000 " 

5. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany, . . . 1,752,000 " 

6. Tlie Republic of San Marino, . . . 8,200 " 

7. The State ofthe Cliurch, .... 2,970.000 " 

8. Tlie kingdom of Naples, .... 8,373,000 " 

In all of these States there is legal provision made for public education, 
besides a large number of schools connected with religious houses and 
charitable institutions. The institutions and endowments for charitable 
purposes exceed in number and amount those of any other portion of 
Europe. 

I. Lombardy and Venice. 

The system of public instruction in the Austrian dominions in Italy, is 
substantially the same as in Austria proper. It embraces, 1. elementary 
schools of two grades ; 2. technical schools; 3. gymnasiums ; 4. lyceums; 
and 5. universities. The following caccount of the system and the schools, 
is taken from a valuable work on " Italy and the Italians, by Frederic 
Von Raumer. 

According to the principal law on the subject of schools of an inferior order, 
there are two gradations of elementary schools, from those with one class to those 
with three or four. To these are added what are called technical schools. In the 
lower elementary schools the first principles of religion are taught, together with 
reading, writing, and ai'ithmetic. The higher elementary schools are intended for 
those who purpose devoting themselves to the arts or sciences. The teclini((al 
schools are chiefly intended to prepare youth for commerce and agriculture. The 
law compels parents to send their children to school between the ages of six and 
twelve, and a fine of half a lira per month is incurred by those who neglect to do 
so; but is not enforced in Lombardy. Mlierever circumstances allow of its being 
done, the education of boys is separate from that of girls. x\. building for school, 
and the necessary supply of desks, forms, &c., must be provided by the commune. 
In the cold and mountainous districts only are the school-rooms warmed in winter. 
The books prescribed for these schools vary in price from forty-two centesimi to a 
florin. In the higher elementary schools, religion, orthography, Italian grammar, 
the elements of Latin, mathematics, natural philosophy, geography, and natural 
history, are taught. In the technical schools instruction is given in modern Ian- 



g36 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN ITALY. 

guages, — English, German, and French. The clergy are recommended, not 
merely to give religious instruction; but also to take charge of some other of the 
lessons. The general superintendence of religious instruction, is committed to the 
bishcips. For opening a private school, an express permission must be obtained 
from government. 

The elementary schools in Lombardy* amounted 

In number, in 1835 1836 1837 

to 4,422 4,470 4,531 

including private schools, 701 995 726 

In 1837, there remained only 66 communes without an elementary school for 
boys, so that, if the education be not general among children, the fault must arise less 
from the want of public institutions than from the want of good-will. The outlay 
for elementary schools amounted, in 1837, to 507,000 florins. Of this 21,000 
florins were derived from endowments, 423,000 were contributed by the com- 
munes, and 63,000 wei-e defrayed by the State. Of every 100 schools, 84 were 
public, and of every 100 pupils, 59 were boys and 41 girls. About three-fifths of 
the children of a suitable age attend school ; and of those that do so, 91 per cent, 
attend public, and 9 per cent, private schools. The teachers (including 2,226 
clei'gymen, directoi's, and school authorities) amount in number to 6,284. The 
infant schools are attended by 2,026 children, and directed by 93 teachers ; their 
yearly revenues amount to about 16,000 florins. Thus we every where perceive 
the cause of education advancing, and the several communes n)anifest their praise- 
worthy sympathy by constantly increasing votes for the support of schools. 

In immediate connection with the higher order of elementary schools are the 
gymnasiums, of which some are public, some communal, some in immediate de- 
pendence on the bishops, and other private institutions. In Lombardy, in 1837, 
there were 10 imperial gymnasiums, with 96 teachers and 2,865 pupils; 8 com- 
munal, with 1,291 pupils. The private gymnasiums were attended by about 1,168 
pupils. None but teachers who have been strictly examined are allowed to give 
lessnns in a private gymnasium, the pupils must all be entered on the list of a pub- 
lic school, to which they are bound to pay a yearly contribution of two florins, and 
at which they nmst submit to periodical examinations. Private gymnasiums must 
adopt the course of study prescribed for public institutions, and must not allow 
their pupils to remain less than the regulated period in each class. Those in- 
tended for the church, for the medical profession, or for that of architecture, must 
be educated at a public school, and those intended for the law are subject to a 
variety of stringent rules. 

All the elementary schools of Lombardy are placed under an inspector, and an- 
other officer has the gymnasium under his control. All vacancies for teachers 
are thrown open to public competition, and it is only after examination that they are 
confirmed in their appointments by a government order. To every gymnasium 
are in general attached a rector, a religious teacher, four professors of grammar, 
and two of humanity, {d^ vmanitd.) To limit the number of those who crowd into 
the learned professions, it has of late years been prescribed that no pupil shall be 
received at a gymnasium before his tenth or after his fourteenth year. From this 
regulation, however, constant exceptions are made, as it has been found that a rigid 
enforcement would have the effect of excluding the cleverest and most industrious 
childi'cn. 

Corporal punishments have every where been abolished. On Sundays all the 
pupils of a gymnasium attend church. Not more than 80 pupils must be included 
in the same class. Thursday is always a holiday. On eacli of the other five days 
there are only four school hours. The holidays, in addition to those on occasion 
of the church festivals, last from the 9th of September to the 1st of November. 

The regular couse of study in each gymnasium last six years, during which the 
pupil has to pass through four classes of grammar and two of humanity. In the 
first grammatical class are tauoht : Italian, the rudiments of Latin, arithmetic, 
geography, and religion. In Jhe second class, the same course is continued, but 
Roman antiquity, and the geography and history of the Austrian monarchy, are 
added. In the third grammatical class, Greek is added ; and in the fourth, Latin 

* In 1834. there were in the Venetian part of the kingdom 1,438 schools, with 81,372 pupils, 
and 1,676 male and female teachers. 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN ITALY. gSY 

prosody. In the first humanity class are taught rhetoric, poetry, algebra, geogra- 
phy, history, and religion ; in the second, the same subjects continue to employ the 
pupil. A pupil who does not intend to study medicine, or to go into the church, 
may obtain a dispensation from Greek. 

Ill every branch of study, the school-books are prescribed by the higher au- 
thorities. Latin and Greek are taught exclusively through the medium of anthol- 
ogies and selections, in which there are difhcult extracts intended for the more 
advanced pupils. 

A new law was promulgated in 1838 on the subject of technical or commercial 
schools. These are intended to prepare the future trader and mechanic, and are 
therefore to give a practical direction to their studies, always keeping in view the 
interests of the Austrian monarchy and those of the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom. 
The towns in which these schools are established must furnish a suitable building 
and all the requsite furniture, &c. \ the rest of the charge is defrayed by govern- 
ment. Each teacher gives from 4 to 15 lessons weekly, and their salaries vary 
from 400 to SOti florins. Each school is divided into three classes, into the junior 
of which a boy may pass from the grammatical first class of a (gymnasium. In 
the fii'st class of a technical school, (the first class always means the lowest,) the 
pupil is obliged to attend weekly 2 lessons of religion, 3 of Italian grammar, 3 of 
geography, 4 of mathematics, 3 of zoology, 6 of drawing, 4 of writing, in all 25 
lessons, of an hour each ; in addition to these, there are 2 lessons of German, and 
2 of French, the attendance on which is optional. In the second class, botany is 
substituted for zoology. In the third class are given 2 lessons of religion, 3 of 
Italian style, 7 of natural philosophy, 3 of mineralogy, in all 15 obligatory lessons. 
In addition to these, there are 5 lessons of chemistry, 5 of commercial science, 5 
of book-keeping, and 3 of commercial correspondence. Of these the pupil may 
choose whether he will attend the lessons of chemistryand one of the other three 
subjects, or whether he will attend the last three without chemistry. 

There is also a special school for 

Veterinary surgery, with 5 teachers, 41 pupils, and an expenditure of 71,643 
IJre! 

Chemistry, with 3 teachers, 15 pupils, and an expenditure of 6,750 lire. 

Midwives, with 3 teachers, 71 pupils, and an expenditure of 24,432 lire. 

This last institution is in connection with the lying-in and foundling hospitals. 

For future theologians, on leaving the elementary schools, distinctinstitutions are 
provided in the episcopal seminaries, of which there is one attached to every see. 
The largest, at INIilan, in 1837, contained 403 pupils; the smallest, at Crema, only 
10. In these the teachers are appointed by the bishop, but satisfactory proof of 
their capacity must be given to the temportil authorities. 

Mr. Von Raumer adds the following remarks : 

In the first place, the elementary instruction is so simple, and the natural 
progress so evident, that there appears in this respect, to be no very important 
difference between the German system and that of Lombardy. The only thing to 
be wished for is, that the number of good teachers may increase in proportion to 
the number of pupils. To the credit of the clergy be it said that, in addition to the 
regular hours of religious instruction, they sometimes take charge of one or two 
other branches, a course perfectly consistent with the duties of their profession. 

Secondly — the limited number of school-hours at the gj'mnasiums is explained 
by the work which the children are expected to do at home, and the incompati- 
bility of an Italian temperament with long confinement. The work to be done at 
home is, however, much less considerable than at a public school in Germany ; 
and the vivacity of the Italian temperament might just as reasonably be adduced 
as a motive for subjecting to a more strict and continuous discipline, besides, in 
other parts of Italy, we shall see that the number of school-hours is greater. On 
other grounds, therefore, must be decided the question, whether an increase in the 
number of lessons be desirable or not ; and also, whether it would not be better to 
give two lialf-holidays in the week, as with us, than to sacrifice one whole day out 
of six, as is done in Lombardy. 

Thirdly — I have to observe that under the word grammar is included not only 
Latin, but every instruction in the native language. Greek is thi'own too much 



638 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN ITALY. 



into the back-ground ; and, however laudable it may be to attend to the geog- 
raphy and history of Austria, it may be much doubted whether it be well judged to 
assigu to them so marked a precedence before every other kind of historical 
instruction. 

Fourthly — the reading nothing but fragmentary collections is defended on the 
gi'ound that it is expedient to make a pupil acquainted with a variety of authors, 
and with the different kinds of Latin and Greek. It must be owned that, in our 
German schools, where a contrarj' system prevails, many a young scholar becomes 
acquainted with all the delicacies of one author, without being able even to con- 
strue another, with whose particular style he happens not to be acquainted. It 
would perhaps be better to combine the two systems, and not to make the acquire- 
ment of dead languages the main object, where the student is in point of fact in- 
tended for some more active pursuit ; otherwise, the student, instead of having 
his character strengthened and his judgment improved by the full impression of 
ancient greatness, is likely to conceive a disgust of all classical studies, and never 
to take a Greek or Roman into his hand again, when once he has left school. 
Who will deny that such is with us the rule, and the contrary the exception ? 

Fifthly — It may be doubted, perhaps, whether it be advisable to draw the future 
theologian, like other students, into the full current of temporal affairs ; and it is 
just as doubtful whether it is advisable to detach him completely from the world, 
and yet require him, when he comes to mingle in it, to understand, to estimate, 
and to guide it. 

Sixthly — Whether our public schools in Germany are not more efficient, and 
whether they do not prepare the student better for the university than those of 
Lombardy are questions that do not admit of a doubt. On that very account, 
however, the lyceum and the course of philosophy have been established. 

Seventhly — to a most important point, namely, that in the Lombardo- Venetian 
kingdom all public instruction, whether in the elenientaiy schools, or at a gj'm- 
nasium, a lyceum, or a university, ]s altogether gratuitous. lam auare of the 
motives by which the demand of payment is usually justified ; nor do I require to 
be told that what is given away rarely fails to be undervalued ; nevertheless, there 
is something gratifying in the idea of education without any cost to the parents : 
much anxiety is thus prevented, as well as many little selfish manoeuvres. 

The following notice is given of the lyceums and universities. 

It is generally thought that the gymnasium affords but an insufficient prepara- 
tion for the study of divinity, law, or medicine, and even for those who, without 
purposing to devote themselves to either of those professions, intend to compete 
for appointments to certain public offices. For such students, therefore, a two 
years' course is opened at the lyceum, or in the philosophical faculty of a university. 
Before completing this course, a student can not be entered for either of the three 
other faculties. In Prussia we have no corresponding regulation. The subjects 
here treated of at the lyceums are with us either attended to at the public school, 
or may be studied at the university simultaneously with divinity, jurisprudence, or 
medicine. Here no student can enter a lyceum without a certificate of maturity 
from the gymnasium ; nor can he be entered for either of the three faculties, without 
a certificate to show that he has passed through the intermediate two years' course, 
which is never curtailed, though, with respect to some of the lectures, it is left to 
the option of the students to attend them or not, as they please. The discipline 
under which they are kept is tolerably strict. They must not go to a theater, ball, 
or any place of public amusement, without express permission, nor are circulating 
libraries allowed to lend them novels or the Conversations- Lexicon. On Sun- 
days they must go to church, and six times a year they must confess and receive 
the communion. There are in Lombardy seven imperial lyceums, one civic at 
-Lodi, and eight episcopal, connected with the seminaries. They are attended by 
1,600 students. The imperial lyceums cost the government about 1.37,000 lire 
annually. 

In the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom there are two universities, those of Padua 
and Pavia, where the course of study is under the control of the directors of the 
several faculties, who in their turn are responsible to the governor of the province. 
The directors propose candidates to fill up vacancies, suggest modifications in the 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN ITALY. 539 

course of study, see that the professors arrange their lectures in a suitable manner, 
that they do not wander away from their subjects, and that they lead a moral 
life ; the directors are also to examine class-books and academical discourses, to be 
frequently present at the lectures, to take part in the deliberations of the senate, to 
call the faculties together, and to superintend the election of a dean. 

These directors, who are not professors, are said to have all the real power in 
their hands, the rector being a representative without influence, and the functions 
of the dean being confined to the care of some matters of a purely scientific char- 
acter. Every thing belonging to discipline and the maintenance of order is also in 
the hands of the directors. 

An ordinance relating to the university of Padua, dated the 8th of April, 1825, 
declares that institution to be immediately under the gubernium. A general 
assembly includes not only the directors, deans, and professors, but likewise all 
doctors who have graduated at Padua, and reside in the city. Tiie rector is 
elected annually from the different faculties in succession, and not only the pro- 
fessors but also each of the doctors just mentioned has a voice in the election, and 
is himself eligible to the dignity. The senate selects three candidates from the 
faculty next in s'lceession, alter which a majority of votes determines the election, 
subject to the confirmation of the government. The rector calls the senate 
together twice a year, when a report is read of all that has been done by him dur- 
ing the interval. His power, however, in this respect, is greatly cramped, espe- 
cially by means of the directors. The dean must be a doctor of the faculty to 
which he belongs, but, in that of law or medicine, must not himself be a professor. 
In the other faculties, professors are eligible to the dignity of dean. The dean is 
to keep an historical chronicle of every thing relating to the faculty. All lectures 
are gratuitous, with the exception that twelve lire are paid by the higher order of 
nobles on entering their names, nine by the inferior nobles, six by a wealthy citizen, 
and three by any other student. 

With respect to the relation between doctors and professors, the law says : the 
faculties are considered as academical corporations, distinct (separati) from the 
professors. Although the doctors, therefore, do not belong to the body of instruc- 
tors, they have a central point of union, to consult together, and place their sug- 
gestions before the authorities. They likewise serve the state, as an assembly of 
well-informed men, whose opinion may be consulted and listened to. 

The university of Padua has the four customary faculties. The senate consists 
of the following persons : the rector, four directors, four deans, and four ancients 
among the professors. There are six ordinary professors of divinity, eight of law, 
twelve of medicine, nine of the philosophical sciences, besides a few deputies and 
assistants, but not, as with us, a set of extraordinary professors and private tutors. 
The general assembly, including the doctors, consists of twenty-four theologians, 
fifty-seven jurists, twenty-four physicians, and thirty philosophers. 

The university course, for divinity in law, lasts four years ; for medicine and 
surgery, five ; and for those who study surgery only, three or four years. Every 
half-year the students are examined. At the end of two years they obtain the 
dignity of bachelor, and at the end of three, that of a licentiate. The dignity of 
doctor is not conferred before the end of the fourth year, nor till after a general 
examination. The candidate must publicly defend a Latin thesis, but no mention 
is made of any essay required to be printed. 

The university of Pavia has no theological faculty, but in every other respect the 
same constitution as that of Padua. There are at present thirty-eight professors, 
three adjuncts, and eleven assessors. Of these eleven professors and two adjuncts 
belong to the ])hilosophical faculty ; four professors and one assessor to the mathe- 
matical division of the faculty ; eight professors and one adjunct to the legal ; and 
fifteen professors and ten assessors to the medical faculty. 

The mathematical division of the philosophical faculty is chiefly intended for the 
education of land-surveyors and engineers. A student fean enter it on completing 
his course of philosophy. 

I will only add a few brief remarks as when treating of schools, by way of insti- 
tuting some comparison between the German and Italian universities. 

In the first place, the lyceum and the course of philosophy owe their institution 
evidently to a consciousness that a blank existed between the degree of information 
acquired at a gymnasium and that necessary for prosecuting the study of either of 



640 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN ITALY. 

the other three faculties ; but here a doubt suggests itself, whether it would not be 
simpler, more economical, and more beneficial, to assign to the gymnasium a part 
of the instruction afforded by the lyceum, and the remainder to the university itself. 
I scarcely think it well-judged to compress all these subjects into the space of two 
years, and then to confine the student entirely to matters connected with his in- 
tended profession, without allowing him the relief of variety. Would it not be 
better to permit the young men, as is done at our German universities, to attend 
philosophical and historical lectures, simultaneously with those on theology, medi- 
cine or law ? It is true that, owing to the greater liberty allowed to our students, 
they frequently absent themselves from all lectures but those connected with the 
pursuit on which their future livelihood is to depend. In such eases it is not to be 
denied that the stricter regulations of Italy may be preferable. 

The director of a faculty is an officer wholly tmknovvn with us, and the object 
of liis appointment is evidently the maintenance of a stricter discipline. The en- 
largement of the faculty by the admission of resident doctors is another arrange- 
ment unknown in Germany. It may have the effect of avoiding nmch partiality 
and e.xclusiveness ; but it may be questioned whether, on the other hand,^ it does 
not tend to weaken the corporation. 

Many objections might be made to the number and succession of the lectures, 
and certainly our better universities in Germany present greater variety and more 
completeness. The Italians, on the other hand, might argue, that this variety is 
carried much too far with us, breaking up the course of study into a multitude of 
fragments, in a manner quite unsuitable to the student's advancement. 

A new law was promulgated on tbe 6th of September, 1838, for the foundation 
or restoration of two academies of arts and sciences at Venice and Milan, and 
measures are now in progress to effect the realization of this plan. Each eeademy 
is to comprise three classes: real members, honorary members, and correspon- 
dents. The first are to receive salaries of 1,200 lire, and the further assistance to 
be afforded has, for the present, been fixed at 45,000 lire. 

II. Sardinia. 
The system of public education embraces, 1. elementary schools in 
each commune, in which reading, writing, arithmetic, and religious in- 
struction is given. 2. Upper schools in the large towns under the direc- 
tion of the clergy. 3. Four univer.sities. 4. Special schools of agricul- 
ture, of arts and manufactures, of civil engineering, &c. We have no 
recent statistics respecting these schools. The following notice of higher 
instruction is taken from the Anmiarie des deux Mondes, for 1851. 

Public instruction under the regime of the old monarchy was not without its 
fame. The university of Turin, founded so long ago as the 15th century, was 
fully organized by the middle of the 1 6th, and gradually became the center for 
students from all northern Italy. It owes its rapid progress much to the careful 
solicitude of Victor Amadeus II. In 1720, it had but 800 students ; in 1730, two 
thousand. This university was the focus of intellectual activity in Piedmont, the 
other institutions for instruction having been but slowly developed. 

The system of exclusive privileges, the varying laws, the influence of a hier- 
archy which mainly governed the elementary schools, all the assemblage of feudal 
and ecclesiastical institutions embracing government and society, naturally caused 
great confusion in the organic principles of instruction. 

A serious and fundamental reform was attempted in 1 847 by the royal decrees 
of 30th November. The old administration of the university was abolished, and 
a special ministry of public instruction created. The formation of a high council 
to assist the minister completed on the 27th December, following this effort of the 
State to centralize the system by placing it under uniform and stricter supervision. 
But the present orgaiiization only dates from the law of 4th October, 1848, 
which, inspired by the recent revolution in the principles of political legislation, 
imprinted upon the institutions for public instruction, of every grade, a new type. 
The duties of the ministry and of the various councils destined to act Under its 
orders were fixed by this law. All the universities, secondai'y and elementary 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN ITALY. Q^l 

schools of the kingdom, are placed under the control of the minister of public in- 
struction. Schools for the deaf and duiab, those of agriculture, of arts and man- 
ufactures, of veterinary medicine, forests, civil engineering, of the marine and a 
few other special schools, are the only exceptions to the rule laid down by this new 
law. Subsequent legislation has developed these principles. The high council 
consists of nine regular members appointed for life, and five transient whose term 
of service is three years. Both classes are chosen by the king among professors 
either retired or in service, of the various faculties of the kingdom, excepting two 
of the regular councillors who must be selected among the savans or distinguished 
literary men. Each university, and each faculty, is directed by a council. In each 
university exists a permanent board, chosen out (if its council, charged with direc- 
tion and supervision of the institutions for secondary instruction. Every college 
that has a professorship of philosophy has also its council. Elementary instruc- 
tion is dii'eeted by one general council for the whole kingdom whose authority is 
in the island of Sardinia delegated to the university councils, aided by a board of 
e1euient;u-y instruction in each province. 

In all the pnivinccs, the State is represented by a sort of rector \>ho is entitled 
regio proveditore. But the movement of this system is derived from the minis- 
ter and his high council. The resemblance of this to the former high council of 
the universities in France is obvious. The Piedmontese council prepares and 
examines projects of laws and regulations relating to public instruction, it 
arranges a general plan for studies, it examines and appi'oaches the outlines of 
the courses of study presented to it by the university boards, and also the class- 
books. The reports of inspectors of schools and scientific institutions, those of 
the university boards and of the provincial councils presiding over elementary in- 
struction, are also submitted to examination by the high council. Among the 
most important duties of this body, we may number the obligation of presenting 
to the minister, once in three years, a general report upon the condition of instruc- 
tion in the kingdom, and among its most important powers, that of deciding upon 
questions of discipline, and upon charges preferred against professors of universi- 
ties and secondary schools, and elementary inspectors, the accused party to be 
heard. 

There are in the kingdom four universities, for Piedmont one at Turin, and one 
at Genoa ; for the island of Sardinia two others, one at Cagliari, the other at 
Sassari. These universities confer the higher academic degi-ees. The university 
schools (»f Chamberi and Nice, dependencies of the Turin university, have profes- 
sorships of law and medicine, and students of medicine can pass two years of the 
required course in them. Each royal college established at an episcopal see, has 
a faculty of theology for instruction of youth designed for the priesthood. Nearly 
all the chief provincial towns have a professorship of civil law for those intended to 
be notaries or advocates. 

University instruction is divided into five faculties, theology, law, medicine and 
surgery, belles-lettres and philosophy, physical and mathematical science. These 
are subdivided nearly as in the French plan. The most important difl:erences are 
that of the study of canon law, a branch of the law faculty, and that of the some- 
what confused organization of teaching in philosophy. A distinction is made be- 
tween rational and positive philosophy. The course of positive philosophy which 
occupies three years includes but one year of philosophy properly so called, moral ; 
the other three are devoted to various branches of exact sciences. Embraces 
with geometry, general chemistry, mineralogy, zoology and physics, ancient lit- 
erature and modern Italian. 

Mr. Von Raumer. in his " Italy and the Italians," remarks ; 

A collection of laws for tliL- regulation of schools was printed in 1834. Ac- 
cording to these, the instruction given in the elementary schools is gratuitous. 
The lessons begin and end with prayer. The gymnasiums (collegi) are divided 
into six classes: three junior, one of grammar, one of humanity, and one of 
rhetoric. The branches of instruction and class-books are prescribed. Besides 
the ordinary teachers, every gymnasium has a prefect, who is often changed, and 
whosL' duty it is to enforce discipline among teachers and scholars, and a spiritual 
dire. Under the last named, the following exercises occur daily. Every morn- 
ing; 1. a quarter of an hour of rehgious reading; 2. the hymn, Veni creator; 

41 



g42 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN ITALY. 

3. according to the season, the Anibrosian hymn, and other extracts from the 
Ufficio delta beata Vergine ; 4. mass ; 5. hymn of the litanies of the holy vir- 
gin ; 6. spiritual instruction ; 7. the psalm Laudate Dominum^ and a prayer for 
the king. In the afternoon : 1. a quarter of an hour of religious reading; 2. 
hymn and prayer ; 3. three quarters of an hour explanation of the catechism. 
The school lasts 3i hours in the forenoon, and 2^ hours in the afternoon. Thurs- 
day is a whole holiday. Where the funds of the school are insufficient, a boy in 
the three junior classes pays 15 francs a year, and in the upper classes, 20 francs, 
besides 8 or 12 francs on being promoted from one class to another. The salaries 
of the teachers are paid partly by the government and partly by the towns, and 
amount to from 750 to 1,200 lire per annum, with some trifling addition in case 
of long service. The retiring pensions also depend on the period of service, but 
the highest pension never exceeds the lowest salary. Where the ability is the 
same, clergymen are always to be preferred. No teacher must cause any thing to 
be printed either in or out of the kingdom without submitting his manuscript first 
to the ordinary censorship, and to the censorship of the riforma. The magistrato 
di riforma is a kind of ministry of public instruction, and has a consiglio di 
riforma under it in every province. Among its other duties, occurs that of pre- 
scribing what books shall be used in instruction, although, in the episcopal semi- 
naries, and some others under the guidance of ecclesiastical orders, such as the 
Jesuits, the Barnabites, &e., it has little influence. 

The scholars of the gymnasiums are not allowed to read any books which have 
not been either given or furnished by the prefect. They are forbidden to swim, 
to frequent theaters, balls, coffee or gaming houses ; to perform in private plays, 
and the like ; and it is the business of the police to see these prohibitions at- 
tended to. 

There is in Turin one head university, with four faculties ; and thei'e are sec- 
ondary universities (universitd secondarie) in Chamber!, Asti, Mondovi, Nizza, 
Novara, Salu'zzo, and Vercelli, either for the study of medicine alone, or for medi- 
cine and jurisprudence together. The universities have no legal right to make 
proposals for the appointment to vacant places, and there is consequently no can- 
vassing. This is by some regarded as an advantage, though it is stated on the 
other band that hasty and partial nominations are more frequent on this system. 

There are three academical degrees, those of bachelor, licentiate, and laureate; 
and the holidays are on the whole more frequent than with us. 

The students are not only under strict scientific superintendence, but also under 
the close surveillance of the police. No student is allowed to choose his dwelling 
or leave it without permission of the prefect, who often appoints the place where 
he is to lodge and board. 

Whoever wishes to receive students into his house must undertake the respon- 
sibility for* their observance of the laws which regulate their going to mass and 
confession, fasting, and even their clothing and their beards. Neglect of these 
rules is punished by exclusion from the examinations, or from the university 
itself. 

With respect to the great abundance of devotional exercises, I may be per- 
mitted to remark that, though the reference to piety and devotion, as to that 
which should mingle in all sciences and in every action of our lives, be undoubt- 
edly praiseworthy, and for Catliolics it is right to prefer Thomas a Keiflpis to 
Ovid as a school-book, I can not help doubting if the constant repetition of these 
prescribed forms be really advisable. Without considering that many must re- 
gard them as mere loss of time, it would be scarcely possible to avoid one of two 
errors — either that of an over-estimation of mere external observances, and a 
consequent disregard of true inward holiness, or an indifference and disgust easily 
excited in young minds, when the highest and holiest subjects become matters of 
daily and mechanical routine. 

In the second place, that the school instruction should devolve wholly on Cath- 
olic clergymen may have one advantage in an economical point of view, since, 
being without families, they are better able to maintain themselves on a small in- 
come ; but it can scarcely escape the objection of bestowing onl}^ of one-sided 
education, or avoid the danger of having many branches of instruction under the 
superintendence of those who are themselves little instructed ; unless ecclesias* 
rics should be obliged to devote themselves to studies foreign to their vocation. 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN ITALY. 643 

The existence of a lurking wish to extend and strengthen by this means the 
power and dominion of the church is the more evident, as establishments for edu- 
cation are daily arising, which are entirely withdrawn from tempwral influence. 
I repeat that such a system as this appears to me quite as one-sided and disad- 
vantageous as the opposite one. 

In the third place, what is called the philosophical course, is here, still less than 
in the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom, such as to afford any compensation for the 
meagerness of the education afforded at the gymnasium. How, for instance, can 
a single lesson or lecture a week in Greek grammar make amends for many years' 
academical study of that difficult language, or afford any preparation for the 
studies of the university, in themselves meagre enough ? Besides, there is merely 
a choice offered to the quasi-student, whether he will learn Greek or history. 
Should he prefer history, he must renounce Greek altogether, 

Fourthly, much might be said against the subordinate universities above-men- 
tioned. They were established at a time when the unquiet dispositions of the 
Turin students had turned towards politics, and occasioned much trouble to the 
government, which endeavoi-ed to weaken them by scattering them thus over the 
country. It may be doubted, nevertheless, whether this lasting resource against 
a merely temporary evil has proved really effectual. 

It is at all events likely that the number of ignorant students has been thereby 
increased, and the instruction deteriorated from the diminution of the number of 
learned professors. The German universities sometimes exhibit the dangers of 
too much liberty, those of this country the evils of too much restraint. The time 
must come in a young man's life when even paternal authority must ceascr^much 
more, then, the discipline of a school. 

III. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany. 

The means of education provided by the central government, munici- 
pal authorities, or charitable endowment are: — 1. infant schools, of 
which, in 1850, there were 22, numbering over 2,000 children. 2, Ele- 
mentary schools, of which there is at least one supported by the com- 
mune, and a number of schools of mutual instruction supported by vol- 
untary associations. In these schools, there is no charge for tuition. 3 
Schools for secondary education embracing 4 colleges for nobles. If 
gymnasiums or classical schools. 16 seminaries or boarding schools foi 
girls, called conservatori. The seminary at Florence, has 600 boarders. 
In'^'all of these schools there are over 5.000 students. 4. Three univer^ 
sities. viz.: at Pisa, (founded in 1138.) with 580 students; at Siena, 
(founded in 1331,) with 300 students; and at Florence, (called the 
academy, and founded in 1428.) with 230 students. 

Mr. Von Raumer, remarks : " In so highly polished a land as Tus- 
cany, the value of education and instruction has by no means escaped 
the attention of the government and of individuals ; yet much still re- 
mains to be done, and schools and universities appear to be very scanty 
in comparison with the number and revenues of the clergy and espc" 
cially of the monks. Indeed, the Italians do not acquire knowledge by 
means of their universities, but in spite of them ; and how can govern^ 
ments be surprised if many, both old and young, have eitherno ideas at 
all, or false ones, of passing events, of social relations, states, constitu- 
tions, and governments, since every genuine avenue to science and ex- 
perience is cut ofTli-om them by the perverse one-sidedness and silly ap- 
prehension of their rulers !" 



g44 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN ITALY 

IV. States of the Church. 

The Roman, or Papal States, or States of the Church are divided 
into 21 provinces, of which those lying west of the Apennines are styled 
Legations, while that of Rome bears the name of Comarca. This ter- 
ritory was at various times, — most of it from 755 to 1273 donated to the 
Holy See. The general supervision of ail the educational institutions 
is committed to a Commissioner of Studies, while the local management 
of the elementary schools is assigned to a committee of which the parish 
priest is one. The means of elementary education are very geneyally 
provided either by parish schools, or by schools conducted by various reli- 
gious orders. Higher education is dispensed by seven universities, 
several of which are among the oldest in the world. 

The institutions for elementary education in the city of Rome are: 

1. Orphan asylums. Of these there are a large number richly en- 
dowed and well regulated, of which some are for boys and others for girls. 
The San Michael, is supported by the government, and furnishes in- 
struction not only in the elementary studies but in various trades, to 
over 400 orphans of both sexes- In this class of institutions there are 
about 2,000 boys and girls. 

2. Parish schools ibr poor children — established by the rector of the 
parish, assisted by the commission of charitable subsidies. There were 
in 1847, eleven of these schools with about 1,000 scholars, between the 
ages of 5 and 12 years. 

3. Schools conducted by religious orders, devoted by their vows to 
teaching. 

i. Schools conducted by a religious order established by Calasanzio, 
a native of Spain, who opened a free school in Rome, in 1597. which at 
one time numbered over 1.000 poor children in one of the poorest districts 
of the city. He died at the advanced age of 92 years, after his " Con- 
gregation to the poor" had been erected into a religious order, by #ie 
pope, the members taking in addition to the vows of poverty, chastity 
and obedience, the vow of instruction. The members are called Padri 
Scolapi, and the schools Scolapi, (contracted from schole pie.) or pious 
schools, of which there are now three, with over 1.000 pupils. 

ii. Schools of the Fathers of the Christian doctrine or teaching." This 
religious congregation, devoted to teaching, is composed of a fraternity 
established by Cesare de Bees in 1592, (Congregazione degli Agaiisti,) 
and another founded by two priests in 1559. They have two houses, and 
educate about 700 pupils. 

iii. Schools of the Brothers of the Christian doctrine, a fraternity con- 
nected with the order of teachers established by De Lasalle in 1684, in 
France, and transferred to Rome in 1702. As they profess to teach only 
the elementary studies, they are sometimes called the Ignorantelli. 
They have three houses and instruct about 1,200 children without fee 
or reward. 

In these schools, much time is given to religious instruction and ob- 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN ITALY. g45 

eervances, and the methods which were once in advance of other schools, 
ate now antiquated and formal, to which these fraternities adhere with 
the tenacity of religious faith. 

4. Elementary schools for the gratuitous instruction of poor girls. In 
one of these, the cojiservatori^ sixty girls are boarded, lodged, and in- 
structed ; and as soon as they are of suitable age, are taught to spin, 
weave, make gloves, and other profitable handicrafts. 

5. Regional or district schools. Rome is divided into wards, or dis- 
tricts, in which are maintained, partly at the expense of the gov- 
ernment, and partly by a small charge on the parents, 246 district or 
regional schools, (scholae regionarie,) with about 5,000 children. These 
schools are of three grades— Jij-st, those which receive boys and girls 
under five years ; second^ those which receive only girls, in which they 
are taught, besides the elementary studies, to sew, knit, and embroider ; 
third, those which receive only boys over five years. In a few of the 
two last grades of schools, the course of studies is extended so as to em- 
brace the studies of our public high schools. 

6. Schools established by individuals and associations — such as the 
school of Prince Massieno in one of the poorest districts of Rome — the 
evening schools established by Casaglio, an engraver in wood, in 1816. 
and extended by others. 

These schools belong to the primary grade, and are intended mainly 
for the poorer classes. 

V. Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. 
A system of public instruction was established for this kingdom dur- 
ing its occupancy by the French, embracing the three grades of schools : 
1. primary ; 2. secondary ; 3. superior. 

1. The law requires at least one elementary school in every commune, 
for reading, writing, arithmetic^ and the catechism. This provision is 
not very generally enforced. There are a number of primary schools 
taught by religious congregations, such as the Christian Brothers, and 
the Fathers Scolapi. In 1847, there were 2,500 primary schools. 

2. Secondary instruction is supplied by 780 gymnasia, or classical 
schools, besides 4 lycea. which confer degrees. There is a large semi- 
nary for girls at Naples, and another at Palermo, besides a number of 
conventual seminaries for female education. 

3. Superior education is dispensed by 4 universities: — at Naples, 
(founded in 1224;) at Catania, (founded in 1445;) at Palermo, (founded 
in 1447;) at Messina, (founded in 1838,) with an average attendance 
of about 2,300 pupils. 



PORTU&AL. 



The direction and supervision of public instruction in the kingdom 
of Portugal, is committed to the minister of the home department. 
The system is as follows : 

1. Primary instruction is given through 1,190 elementary schools; 
some of them conducted on the monitorial, and others on the simultane- 
ous, method. To train teachers for these schools there is one normal 
school, at which the government supports thirty students. 

2. Secondary instruction is imparted through a class of institutions 
called Lycea, (of which there were 27 in 1850,) in which the Portuguese 
and Latin languages, mental and moral philosophy, rhetoric, history 
and geography in reference to the commerce of the country, arithmetic, 
and geometry in their applications to the arts and manufactures. In 
some of the Lycea, located in the principal cities, there are classics 
of theology, the German and Hebrew languages, and commercial law, 
including particularly, insurance, exchange, &c. ; while in those located 
in the country, rural economy is introduced. Besides these there are 
350 classical schools. 

3. Superior instruction is given in the university of Coimbra, founded 
in 1279, in which there are five faculties, viz. : of theology, law. medi- 
cine, mathematics and philosophy, and a library of 60,000 volumes. 

4. Special instruction is given in a polytechnic academy, a naval 
academy, a military school, a school of mines, three schools of medicine, 
a school of civil architecture, a school of painting, and several schools 
of design. 

5. There are several institutions for the encouragement of science 
and arts. Among these are, the royal academy at Lisbon, the historical 
society, the national library at Lisbon with 80,000 volumes, the conserv- 
atory of arts, twelve museums of coins, antiquities, and specimens of 
mineralogy, and other departments of natural science, an academy of 
music, and seven botanic gardens. 



SPAII. 



Amid the revolutions of the government and of the country for the 
last half century, the friends of popular education have not been able, 
till within a few years past, to make much progress in organizing 
a system of elementary schools. The universities, and high schools, 
(many of them in connection with the religious orders) have with diffi- 
culty been kept open for the children of the rich and noble. In 1839, 
under the auspices of an association, including among its members 
and patrons several of the noblest names of Spain, a normal school for 
the training of masters in the Lancasterian system, as pursued in the 
Borough Road School, in London, was established in Madrid. Through 
the agency of teachers trained in this school, many new schools were 
opened in different parts of the country, and new life was infused into 
many schools for poor children connected with convents. In 1849, '• on 
the representation of the Minister of Instruction and Public Works, 
respecting the desirableness of giving a new organization to the Nor- 
mal Schools of Elementary Instruction, and in view of the need that 
exists of forming suitable inspectors for this branch of education," the 
following royal decree was promulged, which we copy from a recent re- 
port of the British and Foreign School Society. 

ROYAL DECREE RELATIVE TO EDUCATION. (1849.) 

T\tle I. — Of Normal Schools. 

1. The normal schools of elementary instruction shall be limited to 
the following, namely : the central school of Madrid ; nine superior 
schools ; twenty elementary schools in the Peninsula, and two in the 
Balearic and Canary Islands. 

2. The central normal school shall preserve its actual object and organ- 
ization, and shall also form the superior school for the university district 
of Madrid. The other university districts shall each have its superior 
school stationed in the town where the university exists ; but in case 
this should be impracticable, it may be established in another place near 
to it. The towns in the Peninsular where elementary schools are to be 
placed are the following: Alicante, (or, instead of it, Orihuela,) Bada- 
ioz, Burgos, Caceres, Ciudad Real, Cordova. Cuenca, Gerona, Guada- 
lajara, Huesca, laen, Leon, Lerida, Lugo, Murcia, Orense, Pamplona, 
Santander, Soria, and Vittoria. 

3. The central normal school shall communicate directly with the 



648 NOHMAL PfHOOLS IX SPAIN. 

government; the superior schouis shall be under the care of the rectors 
of the universities ; and the elementary schools under the directors of 
the institutes, as delegates of the rectors. 

4. The instruction which is to be given in the superior normal 
schools shall continue for three years, and shall embrace the following 
matters : Religion and morals ; reading and Avriting ; the grammar of 
the Spanish language, together with some idea of rhetoric, poetry, and 
Spanish literature ; arithmetic in its full extension, with the legal system 
of weights and measures; the elements of algebra; the principles of 
geometry, with their application to the uses of common life ; the 
industrial arts, and agriculture; geography and history, especially of 
Spain ; those principles of natural philosophy, chemistry, and natural 
history, which are indispensably necessary for forming a general knowl- 
edge of the phenomena of the universe, and for applying them to the 
more common uses of life ; a practical knowledge of agriculture ; peda- 
gogy, or the general principles of education, and methods of teaching. 

5. In the normal elementary schools the period of teaching shall be for 
two years, and the following matters shall be embraced: Religion and 
morals; reading and writing ; Spanish grammar; arithmetic, with the 
system of weights and measures; the elements of geometry ; lineal 
drawing ; the principles of geography, and a sketch of the history of 
Spain ; some ideas of agriculture ; and knowledge of the methods of 
teaching. 

6. The programme of studies in the superior schools shall be formed 
on a plan to meet, as far as possible, the convenience of those who have 
studied two years in the elementary schools, so that they may pass 
their third year in them. 

7. In the superior schools there shall be both internal and external 
pupils; the elementary schools shall only have external pupil.=!. The 
age of entering in reference to becoming a candidate for a mastership 
in the normal schools shall not be under seventeen, nor over twenty-five. 

8. There shall be in each superior normal school a head master, with 
an annual salary of 10.000 rials, (£100*;) a second master, with 8,000 
rials; and a third, with 7,000 ; a director of the practical school, with a 
salary corresponding to that of a superior master, according to the 
royal decree of the 23d of September, 1847 ; an assistant or usher to 
the director, with half the salary assigned to the said master; an eccle- 
siastic intrusted with the instruction of morals and religion, with 2,000 
rials of gratification, and the assistants that may be required. 

9. In the normal elementary schools there shall be a chief master, 
with 8,000 rials a year of salary; a director of the practical school and 
his ushers, with the same salaries as those with the same names as 
already mentioned for the normal superior schools ; the ecclesiastic for 
the instruction of religion and morals, with a salary of 1,500 rials ; 
and the necessary assistants. 

10. The appointment of masters shall be by the government, through 
means of a public exhibition or trial, giving, notwithstanding, a prefer- 
ence to those now actually holding these situations. The directors of 
the practical schools, and their assistants, shall be appointed by the 
several town councils, according to the form prescribed for the ordinary 
schools. 

11. In order that the instruction in agriculture may be conveniently 
given in the normal superior schools, and may be extended afterward 
to the other schools in a uniform manner, the masters that may be 
named for this object shall come in the first place to Madrid, with the 



* 100 reales de vellon are about equal to jEl, or $5,00. 



NORMAL SCFIOOLS IN SPAIN. g49 

enjoyment of their salaries in the Ibrm of a pension, in order that tiiey 
luiiy, for the time judged necessary, make a special study of lliis science, 
and acquire the otlier branches of knowledge connected with it, unless 
they should previously possess all the knowledge required in this par- 
ticular branch. 

12. By the 11th article of the law, dated 21st July, 1838, all the 
provinces of the kingdom are under obligation to contribute to the sup- 
port of these normal schools, and also a certain sum is assigned lor tiie 
same purpose in the general budget of the state. Tlie respective quotas 
of the expenses incurred by these establishments shall be as follows: 
The province of Madrid shall contribute 12,000 rials annually; the 
provinces of tlie first class 8,000 ; those of tlie second class, 7,000 ; and 
those of the tliird, 6,000 The government shall contribute a sum 
equal to the salaries of the directors and second masters of the supe- 
rior schools, together with all tlte costs of the central school. Each 
province shall contribute tor the support of two pupils in the superior 
school of their respective districts, a sum equal to that contributed by 
the government to each eslablislunent, according to their re.spective 
localities. The expenses of school materials and attendants shall bo 
paid by the })rovinces severally where the schools are settled, wlielher 
superior or elementary. To aid in these expenses, each establishment 
sliall be entitled to the matriculation fees of the students, and the con- 
tributions of the children. The practical schools attached to the nor- 
mal schools shall continue to be supported as they hitherto have been, 
by the several town councils. The preservation of the buildings in 
proper repair shall be the duty of the same councils. 

Title II. — Of the Conditions and Examinations for obtaining the 
iSitiialion of a Master. 

13. Every candidate for the situation of master in the elementary 
schools must have studied two years in some one of the normal schools 
of the two classes. 

14. Every candidate for the situation of master in the superior schools 
must have studied a third year in one of the schools of the same class. 

15. Every candidate for an elementary school, the salary of which 
ascends to 4.000 rials, must obtain the title of a superior master. 

16. In future the examinations lor a superior school shall take place 
only in schools of this class. Those for an elementary school shall be 
held as hitherto, in any of the provinces. 

Title \\\. — Of Inspectors. 

17. In each province there shall be a school inspector, named by the 
government. Candidates for this otfice must have studied three years 
in the central, or in one of the superior schools, and have acted as a 
master for at least five years. At present all the directors and masters 
of the existing or suppressed normal schools shall be eligible tor this 
situation. 

18. The salaries of the inspectors shall be, in the provinces of the 
first class, 10,000 rials ; in those of the second class, 9.000 ; and in those 
of the third, 8.000 ; they shall also be paid traveling expenses, and 
these shall be considered equal to one-third of their annual salary. 
Both the salaries and the traveling expenses of the inspectors shall be 
paid by the provinces, and shall be included in their budgets. 

19. The provincial inspectors shall be, ex-offcio, members of the 
Superior Commission of Primary Instruction in their respective provinces. 

20. The said inspectors, in those provinces where a normal elementary 
school is situated, shall be uridfr obliiiation to teach in the same, at 



650 SCHOOL INSPECTION IN SPAIN. 

certain times of the year, such branches as shall be assigned to them. 
They shall also supply the places of directors during their absence or 
illness. 

21. There shall be likewise six general inspectors, named and paid by 
the government, having each the salary of 12.000 rials. To obtain the 
office of inspector-general the candidates must have held the situation 
of director of a superior normal school, or that of master in the central 
school. 

22. The principal object of the general inspectors shall be to visit 
the normal schools, and the ordinary schools in the capitals of the prov- 
inces. They shall also attend to all the commissions intrusted to them 
by the government for the general ad vancementof elementary instruction. 

23. The inspectors. botTi general and provincial, are prohibited from 
holding either a public or a private school, or of acting as masters in 
any establishment, except as is stated in Article 20. 

Title IV. — Of the Secretaries of the Superior Commissions of Ele- 
mentarij Instruction. 

24. The secretaries of the superior commission of elementary 
instruction shall be appointed, as vacancies occur, from the masters who 
have obtained the title to a superior school. The government shall 
name them from a list of three proposed by said commissioners. Their 
office shall be considered incompatible with any other employment, 
including that of a master in any of the schools. 

25. The salaries of the secretaries shall be, in Madrid, 12,000 rials ; in 
provinces of the first class. 9,000 ; in those of the second. 8,000; and in 
those of the third, 7,000. They shall defray the costs of their own sta- 
tionery, but not those of postage or f rinting. These salaries and com- 
mission expenses shall be, as heretoicre, a provincial charge. 

26. In extraordinary cases, and when demanded by authority, or the 
provincial commission, the secretaries may be employed to visit any par- 
ticular school, but so as to be absent not more than fifteen days. 

27. Regulations and special directions shall be made to fix the rou- 
tine of the schools, the powers and duties of the inspectors, and all 
other necessary points for the suitable fulfillment of this decree. 



SCOTLAND, 



The parochizJ schools of Scotland have been the pride of her own peo- 
ple and the admiration of enlightened men in all countries. The founda- 
tions of the system were laid in 1494. In that j'ear it was enacted by 
the Scotch Pnrliament, that all barons and substantial freeholders 
throaghout the realm should send their cliildren to school from the age 
of six to nine years, and then to other seminaries to be instructed in the 
laws; that the country might be possessed of persons properly qualified 
to discharge the duties of sheriffs, and to fill other civil offices. Those 
who neglected to comply with the provisions of this statute vVere sub- 
jected to a penalty of £20. In 1560, John Knox and his compeers hold 
the following memorable language, in the " First Book of Discipline," pre- 
sented to the nobility. 

" Seeing that God has determined that his kirk here on earth shall be taught, 
not by angels, but by men ; and seeing that men are born ignorant of God and 
of godliness; and seeing, also, that he ceaseth to illuminate men miraculously, 
of necessity it is, that your honors be most careful for the virmous education 
and godly lip-bringing of the youth of this realm. For as they must succeed to 
us, so we ought to be careful that they have knowledge, and erudition to profit 
and comfort that which ought to be most dear to us, to wit, the kirk and 
spouse of our Lord Jesus Christ. Of necessity, therefore, we judge it, that 
every several kirk have one schoolmaster appointed ; such an one, at least, as 
is able to teach grammar and the Latin tongue, if the town be of any reputation. 
And further, we think it expedient, that in every notable town, there should be 
erected a coll-ge, in which the arts at least of rhetoric and logic, together with 
the tongues, be read by sufficient masters, for whom honest stipends must be 
appointed; as also that provision be made lor those that are poor, and not able 
by themselves or their friends, to be sustained at letters. 

The rich and potent may not be permitted to sutTer their children to spend 
their youth in a vain idleness, as heretofore they have done ; but they must be 
exhorted, and, by the censure of the kirk, compelled to dedicate their sons by good 
exerci'^es to the profit of the kirk, and commonwealth ; and this they must do, 
because they are able. The children of the poor must be supported and sus- 
tained on the charge of the kirk, trial being taken whether the spirit of docility 
be in them found, or not. If they be found apt to learning and letters, then may 
they not be permitted to reject learning, but must be charged to continue their 
study, so that the commonwealth may have some comfort by them ; and for this 
purpose, must discreet, grave, and learned men be appointed to visit schools, for 
the trial of their exercise, profit, and continuance; to wit, the ministers and 
elders, with the best learned men in every town. A certain time must be ap- 
pointed to reading and learning the catechism, and a certain time to grammar 
and to the Latin tongue, and a certain time to the arts of philosophy and the 
other tongaes, and a certain lime to that study in which they intend chiefly to 



652 ELEMENTARY EnilCATION IN SCOTLAND. 

travel for the profit of the commonwealth ; which time being expired, the chil- 
dren should either proceed to further knowledge, or else they must be set to 
some handicraft, or to some other profitable exercise." 

In 1615, an act of the Privy Council of Scotland empowered the bish- 
ops, along with the majority of the landlords or heritors, to establish a 
school in every parish in their respective dioceses, and to assess the 
lands for that purpose. This act of the privy council was confirmed by 
an act of the Scotch Parliament, in 1633 ; and under its authority, schools 
were established in the lower and the more cultivated districts of the 
country. But the system was still far from being complete ; and the 
means of obtaining elementary instruction continued so very deficient, 
that it became necessary to make a more complete and certain provision 
for the establishment of schools. This was done by the famous act of 
16G6, the preamble of which states, that •• Our Sovereign Lord, consider- 
ing how prejudicial the want of schools in many places has been, and how 
beneficial the establishing and settling thereof will be to this church and 
kingdom, thereibre, his Majesty, with advice and consent, &c." The act 
went on to order, that a school be established, and a schoolmaster ap- 
pointed in every parish ; and it further ordered that the landlords should 
be obliged to build a school-hou.?e, and a dwelling-house for the use of 
the master ; and that they should pay him a salary, exclusive of the 
fees of his scholars ; which should not fi^ll short of 5Z. lis. Id. a year, nor 
exceed 111. 2s. 2d. The power of nominating and appointing the school- 
master was vested in the landlords and the minister of the parish ; and 
they were also invested with the power of fixing the fees to be paid him 
by the scholars. The general supervision of the schools was vested in 
the presbyteries in which they are respectively situated ; who have also 
the power of censuring, suspending, and dismissing the masters, without 
their sentence being subject to the review of any other tribunal. 

It has been usually expected that a Scotch parish schoolmaster, be- 
sides being a person of unexceptionable character, should be able to in- 
struct his pupils in the reading of English, in the arts of writing and 
arithmetic, the more common and useful branches of practical mathematics, 
and that he should be possessed of such classical attainments as might 
qualify him for teaching Latin and the rudiments of Greek. 

It would be no easy matter to exaggerate the beneficial effects of the 
elementary instruction obtained at parish schools, on the habits and indus- 
try of the people of Scotland. It has given to that part of the empire an 
importance to which it has no claim, either from fertility of soil or amount 
of population. The universal diffusion of schools, and the consequent 
education of the people, have opened to all classes paths to wealth, honor 
and distinction. Persons of the humblest origin have raised themselves 
to the highest eminence in every walk of ambition, and a spirit of fore- 
thought and energy, has been widely disseminated. 

At the period when the act of 1696 was passed, Scotland, which had 
suffered greatly from misgovernment and religious persecutions under the 
reigns of Charles II. and his brother, James II., was in the most unprosper- 



ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 653 

ous condition. There is a passage in one of the discourses of the cele- 
brated Scotch^ patriot, Fletcher of Saltoun, written in 1698, only two 
years after the act for the establishment of parochial schools had been 
passed, that sets the wretched state of the country in the most striking 
point of view. 

•' There are, at this day in Scotland, besides a great many families very 
meanly provided for by the church boxes, with others who, by living upon bad 
food, fall into various diseases, two hundred thousand people begging figm door 
to door. These are not only no way advantageous, but a very grievous burden 
to so poor a country. And although the number of them be, perhaps, double to 
what it was formerly, by reason of this present great distress, yet in all times 
there has been about a hundred thousand of these vagabonds, who have lived 
without any regard or subjection, either to the laws of the land, or even those 
of God and nature. No magistrate could ever discover which way one in a 
hundred of these wretches died, or that ever they weie baptized. Many mur- 
ders have been discovered amongst them ; and they are a most unspeakable 
oppression 10 poor tenants, who, if they do not give bread, or some kind of pro- 
vision, to perhaps forty such villains in a day, are sure to be insulted by them. 
In years of plenty many thousands of them meet together in the mountains, 
where they feast and riol for many riays; and at country weddings, markets,- 
burials, and other the like public occasions, they are to be seen, both men and 
women, perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together. These 
are such outrageon,s disorders, that it were better for the nation they were sold 
for the gallies or the West Indies, than that they should continue any longer to 
be a burden and a curse upon us." 

No country ever rose so rapidly from so frightful an abyss. In the au- 
tumn circuits or assizes for the year 1757, no one person was found guilty, 
in any part of the country, of a capital crime. And now, notwithstandinor 
the increase of population, and a vast influx of paupers from Ireland, 
there are very few beggars in the country; nor has any assessment been 
imposed for the support of the poor, except in some of the large towns, 
and in the counties adjoining England ; and even there it is so light as 
scarcely to be felt. This is a great and signal change. We can not, in- 
deed, go quite so far as those who ascribe it entirely to the establishment 
of the parochial system of education. It is, no doubt, most true, that this 
system has had great influence in bringing about the change ; but much 
must also be ascribed to the establishment of a regular and greatly im- 
proved system of government ; to the abolition of hereditary jurisdictions. 
by the act of 1748 ; and to the introduction of what may. in its applica- 
tion to the vast majority of cases, be truly said to be a system of speedy, 
cheap and impartial justice. Certainly, however, it was the diffusion of 
education that enabled the people to avail themselves of these advan- 
tages ; and which has, in consequence, led to a far more rapid improve- 
ment; than has taken place in any other European country. 

The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has ever taken an 
active interest in the parochial schools. Immediately after the passage 
of the act of 1696. the Presbyteries were instructed to carry it into effect, 
and Synods, to make particular inquiry that it was done. In 1704, the 
Assembly undertook to supply schools to such part of the highlands and 
islands as could not be benefited by the act of 1696. In 1705, ministers 
were ordered to see that no parents neglected the teaching of their chil- 



654 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND. 

dren to read. In 1706, it was recommended to such as settled schoolmas- 
ters, " to prefer men who had passed their course at colleges and univer- 
sities, and have taken their degrees, to such as have not." In 1707, 
Synods and Presbyteries were directed to send into the General Assem- 
bly returns of the means and condition of the parochial schools. 

The internal dissensions of Scotland and other causes, however, Avith- 
drew the public attention from the schools; and the advance of society in 
other respects, and the want of a corresponding advance in the wages of 
teachers, and the internal improvement of the schools, all combined to sink 
the condition of parochial education. In 1794, the General Assembly be- 
came roused to the subject. Visitation of the schools was enjoined on the 
clergy ; and they were particularly instructed to inquire into the qualifi- 
cations of the teachers. In 1802, the Assembly issued the following dec- 
laration, &c. : 

" That parochial schoolmasters, by instilling into youth the principles of reli- 
gion and morality, and solid and practical instruction, contribute to the im- 
provement, order, and success of people of all ranks ; and are therefore well 
entitled to public encouragement: That from the decrease in the value of money, 
their emoluments have descended below the gains of a day laborer: That 
it has been found impossible to procure persons properly qualified to fill paro- 
chial schjols : That the whole order is sinking into a state of depression hurt- 
ful to their usefulness : That it is desirable that some means he devised to hold 
forth inducements to men of good principles and talents to undertake the office 
of parochial schoolmasters: And that such men would prove instrumental in 
counteracting the operations of those who may now, and afterward, attempt to 
poison the minds of the rising generation with principles inimical to religion, 
order, and the constitution in church and state." 

In consequence of this declaration by the Church of Scotland, and of the 
complaints which were sent up from all parts of the country. Parliament, 
in the course of the next session, passed the famous act of 1803, which or- 
dains as follows: 

" That, in terms of the act of 1696, a school be established, and a schoolmas- 
ter appointed in every parish, the salary of the schoolmaster not to be under 
three hundred marks, (16/. 135. 4d..) nor above four hundred, {221. 4s. 5d. :) That 
in large parishes, where one parochial school can not be of any effectual benefit, 
it shall be competent lor the heritors and minister to raise a salary of six hun- 
dred marks, (33^. 6s. 8d.,) and to divide the same among two or more schoolma.s- 
ters. as circumstances may require : That in every parish the heritors shall 
provide a school-house, and a dwelling-house for the schoolmaster, together 
with a piece of ground for a garden, the dwelling-house to consist of not more 
than two apartments, and the piece of ground to contain not less than one- 
fourth of a Scots acre; except in parishes where the salary has been raised to 
six hundred marks, in which the heritors shall be exempted from providing 
school-houses, dwelling-houses, and gardens : That the foregoing sums shall 
continue to be the salaries of parochial schoolmasters till the end of twenty-five 
years, when they shall be raised to the average value of not less than one chal- 
der and a half of oatmeal, and not more than two chalders; except in parishes 
where the salaries are divided among two or more schoolmasters, in which case 
the whole sum so divided shall be raised to the value of three chalders ; and so 
toties quoties at the end of every twenty-five years, unless altered by parliament: 
That none of the provisions of this act shall apply to parishes, which consist of 
a royal burgh, or part of a royal burgh : That the power of electing schoolmas- 
ters continue with the heritors and minister, a majority of whom shall also de- 
termine what branches of education are most necessary and important for the 
parish, and shall from time to time fix the school-fees as they shall deem expe- 
oient: That the presbyteries of the church shall judge whether candidates for 



ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND. 555 

schools possess the necessary qualifications, shall continue to superintend paro- 
chial schools, and shall be the sole judges in all charges against schoolmas- 
ters, without appeal or review." 

In the year 1828, as the statute had provided, a small addition was 
made to the emoluments of the parochial schoolmasters, the maximum 
salary having been increased to 34i. As. Ad., and the minimum to 
251. 13s. 3d. 

The deplorable scenes of outrage and murder, which occurred in the 
streets of Edinburgh on the 1st of January, 1812, made the city clergy 
anxious to devise some means for diminishing the mass of crime and 
misery which was then brought to light. The scheme first proposed, and 
carried into execution, was to establish sabbath schools in all the parishes 
within the royalty, to which they gave the name of the Parochial Institu- 
tions for Religious Education. It was soon found, however, that the use- 
fulness of these institutions was greatly limited, in consequence of a very 
great number of the children, for whose benefit they were intended, being 
unable to read. It was therefore proposed that, in connection with the 
sabbath schools, a day school should be established, which was accord- 
ingly opened on the 29th of April, 1813. This day school took the name 
of the Edinburgh Sessional School, from the circumstance of its being 
superintended by a minister or an elder from each kirk-session* in the city. 
The object of this school is to give instruction to the children of the poor 
in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Five gratis scholars may be recom- 
mended by each kirk-session ; but the charge to all the others is sixpence 
per month. For many years the average attendance has been about 
500; so that the school-fees, together with occasional donations, and a 
small share of the collections made annually at the church doors for the 
parochial institutions. h<ive hitherto been sufficient to meet the ordinary 
expenses of the school. At first, no particular regulations were laid 
down for conducting the Sessional School ; but afier some years, the 
system of Dr. Bell was partially introduced. In the year 1819, circum- 
stances led Mr. John Wood, Sheriff-deputy of the county of Peebles, to 
take an interest in the institution ; and that benevolent individual began 
by degrees to give so much of his time and attention to it, that it soon be- 
came almost identified with his name. Under his superintendence, a 
large and commodious school-house was erected, and the system of 
teaching entirely re-modeled. In the latter department of his meritori- 
ous labors, Mr. Wood did not adopt the particular views of any one wri- 
ter on education, but collected from all what he thought useful, and ar- 
ranged it into a method of his own. So judicious is this plan of tuition, 
that it has not only been crowned with complete success in the Sessional 



* A kirk-se.ision is the lowest ecclesiastical court in Scotlnnd. and consists of the clergymen of 
each congregation, with a small number of lay elders : it generally meets on Sunday, after public 
worship. The next court, in point of judicial authority, is the presbytery, which consists of nil the 
clergymen within a certain district, with a lay elder from each congregation : this court meets once 
a month. All the presbyteries within given bounds, form a still higher court, called a synod, which 
meets twice in the year. The General .Issemhly is the supreme judicial and legislative court of 
the Church of Scotland ; it consists of clerical and lay representatives from the several presbyteries, 
of a lay elder from each royal burgh, and of a Commissioner to represent bis Majesty, and holds itf 
sittings at Edinburgh, once a year, for about a fortnight. 



656 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 

School, but has been introduced, either partially, or entirely, into many 
other public and private seminaries, and has, in fact, given a new im- 
pulse to the work of elementary instruction throughout Scotland. 

In 1837 the Sessional School was, with the approbation of Mr. Wood, 
constituted the Normal School of the General Assembly, and persons in- 
tending to offer themselves as teachers in schools aided by Ihe Education 
Committee, were iurnished with opportunities of conducting classes daily, 
and of being instructed Avith pupils of the same standing with themselves. 
Previous to this movement, in 1835, the Educational Society of Glasgow 
had been formed, among other purposes, " for the training of teachers for 
juvenile schools." In 1842, both of these institutions were placed under 
the direction of the Educational Committee of the Chvjrch of Scotland, 
and the Committee of Council on Education, in that year, made a grant of 
$50,000 toward providing a new building for the Normal School at 
Edinburgh, and completing a building already commenced for the Nor- 
mal School at Glasgow. The two buildings cost about $130,000. In the 
same year the General Assembly appointed a superintendent to visit the 
schools aided by the education committee, and voted to aid in the erection 
of not less than five hundred new schools in connection with destitute 
parishes. 

In 1841. William Watson, Sheriff-substitute of Aberdeenshire, com- 
menced a system of Industrial Schools in Aberdeen, which embraced 
within its comprehensive grasp, all classes of idle, vagrant children, and 
in its beneficent operation, cleansed in two years a large town and county 
of juvenile criminals and beggars. Out of this experiment has grown 
the system of Ragged and Industrial Schools, which are now found in 
many of the large towns of England, Scotland and Ireland. 

The permanent support of public, and in some cases, free schools, is 
provided for in certain localities by the income of funds left by will or do- 
nation for this purpose. It has been estimated that the annual income 
of these funds amounts to near $100,000. 

There are a number of local societies, such as that for " Propagating 
Christian Knowledge," founded in 1701, the Gaelic School Society, that of 
Inverness, Ayrshire, &c., instituted for the purpose of supplying destitute 
parishes with schools, and of aiding those already established. The sums 
annually appropriated by the societies, amount to about $75,000. 

The Church of Scotland and the Free Church of Scotland, together, 
appropriate, out of permanent funds and contributions collected in the 
churches for this purpose, the sum of $50,000 in aid of schools in destitute 
parishes, and in educating teachers for the parochial schools generally. 

In 1836, the sum of $50,000 was voted by Parliament in aid of private 
subscriptions for the erection of school-houses, and the establishment of 
Model Schools. 

Notwithstanding all these efforts, the extension of the system of p8U"o- 
chial schools has not kept up with the growth of the population, espe- 
cially in the manufacturing towns, and the quality of the education given 
has not met the demands of educated and wealthy families. 



ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND. 657 

One of the most interesting facts in the history of parochial schools in 
Scotland, wherever they were adequately maintained, was the attend- 
ance in them of children from families widely separated in outward cir- 
cumstances — the rich and the poor, the laborer with his hands and the 
laborer with his head. The presence of the children of the better edu- 
cated and wealthier classes gave importance to the school in the estimation 
of the poor, and raised the whole tone and standard of manners and intel- 
lectual culture within the school and village. It created, too, a bond of 
union in society, which is thus beautifully noticed by Lord Brougham, 
(then Henry Brougham,) in some remarks at a public dinner in Edin- 
burgh, in 1825. 

" A public school, like the Old High School of Edinburgh, is invaluable, and for 
what is it sol It is because men of the highest and lowest rank in society 
send their children to be educated together. The oldest IViend 1 have in the 
world, your worthy Vice President, and myself, were at the High School of 
Edinburgh together, and in the same class along with others, who still possess 
our friendship, and some of ihem in a rank of life still higher than his. One of 
them was a nobleman, who is now in the House of Peers; and some of them 
were sons of shopkeepers in the lowest parts of the Cowgate of Edinburgh — 
shops of the most inferior description — and one or two of them were the sons of 
menial servants in the town. There they were, sitting side by side, giving and 
taking places from each other, without the slightest impression on the part of 
my noble friends of any superiority on their pans to the other boys, or any ideas 
of inferiority on the part of the other boys to them; and this is my reason for 
preferring the Old High School of Edinburgh to other, and what may be 
termed more patrician schools, however well regulated or conducted." * * 

Another distinguished pupil of this school remarks: " Several circum- 
stances distinguished the High School beyond any other which I attended : 
for instance, variety of ranks ; for 1 used to sit between a youth of a 
ducal family and the son of a poor cobler." This fact will distinguish 
good public schools of a superior grade, provided they are cheap, every 
where. The High School, like the parochial schools of Scotland, gener- 
ally is not a I'ree school, but the quarterly charge for tuition is small as 
compared with the actual cost of instruction in private institutions of the 
same grade. The fees payable in advance are £1. Is. per quarter. The 
course of instruction embraces all the branches of the liberal education 
suitable to boys, from eight to sixteen years of age. 

In connection with this mention of the High School of Edinburgh, Ave 
will introduce a few historical facts, which point back to a very early 
period for the origin of the system of parochial schools in Scotland. The 
funds out of which the edifice now occupied by the high school Avas built, 
and which was completed in 1829. at an expenseof £34.199, were derived, 
in part, from endowments belonging to the Abbey of Holyroocj. founded 
by David I., in 1236, with which this school was connected as early as 
1500. The school came into the management of the magistrates of 
Edinburgh in 1566. Prior to that, a grammar school had existed in the 
Cannongate, under the charge of the friars of the same monastery, " past 
the meraorie of man," as is stated in a memorial to the privy council, in 
1580. In the year 1173, Perth and Stirling had their school, of which 
the monks of Dumfernline were directors. Authentic records introduce 

42 



66R ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND. 

US to Similar institutions in the towns of Aberdeen and Ayr. The .schools 
in the county of Roxburgli were under the care of the monks of Kelso 
as early as 1241 ; those of St. Andrew, in 1233 ; and those of Montrose, in 
1329. 

The success of the school system of Scotland is to be attributed to their 
beintj erected on a permanent and conspicuous foundation, and to that 
particular constitution which made the situation of the teacher desirable 
to young men of education, for its competent salary, permanence, and so- 
cial consideration. Of the tliree modes of providing ibr popular instruc- 
tion, — that in which the scholars pay every thing, and the public nothing ; 
that in which the public pay every thing by a tax on property, or by 
avails of permanent funds, and the scholars nothing ; and that in which 
the burden is shared by both, — the latter was adopted in the original plan 
of the Scotch schools. The existence of the school was not left to chance 
or charity, but was permanently fixed by law on every parish. The 
school edifice and the residence of the teacher were to be provided for by 
public assessment, as much as the church, or the public road, or bridge. 
The salary of the teachers was so far fixed by law, that it could not sink 
below the means of a respectable maintenance according to the standard 
of living in a majority of the country parishes. 

Dr. Chalmers, in his valuable " Considerations on the System of ParO' 

chial Schools in Scotland,''^ thus notices some of the peculiarities of the 

system : 

" The nniversfility of the habit of education in our Lowland parishes, is cer- 
tainly a very striking fact ; nor do we think that the mere lowness of the price 
forms the whole explanation of it. There is more than may appear at first 
sight, in the very circumstance of a marked and separate edifice, standing vis- 
ibly out to the eye of the people, M'ith its familiar and oft-repeated designation. 
There is also much in the constant residence of a teacher, moving through the 
people of his locality, and of recognized office and distinction amongst them. 
And perhaps there is most of all in the lie which binds the locality itself to the 
parochial seminary, that has long stood as the place of repair, for the successive 
young belonging to the parish; for it is thus that one family borrows its prac- 
tice from another — and the example spreads from house lo house, till it embraces 
the whole of the assigned neighborhood — and the act of sending their children 
to the school, passes at length into one of the tacit, but well-undei:stood propri- 
eties of the vicinage — and new families just fall, as if by infection, into the habit 
of the old ones — so as. in fact, to g:ive a kind of firm, mechanical certainty to 
the operation of a habit, from which it were violence and sin^ulaiitv lo depart, 
and in virtue of which, ediication has acquired a universality in Scotland, 
which is unknown in the other countries of the world," 

The best minds of Scotland are at this time directed to a re-construc- 
tion of the system of parochial schools, or to such an extension of its bene- 
fits, as will reach at once, the wants of the large towns, and of the spar.-=!ely 
populated parishes. Among the plans set forth, we have seen nothing 
more complete than the following, which is signed by some of the most 
distinguished names in Scotland. 

"The subscribers of this document, believing that the state of Scotland and 
the general feeling of its inhabitants justify and demand the legislative estab- 
lishment of a comprehensive plan of national education, have determined that 
an effort shall be made to unite the friends of this great cause on principles at 
once so general and so definite as to form a basis for practical legislation ; and 



El-EMENTARY EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND. ^59 

with this view, they adopt the following resolutions, and recommend them to the 
consideration of the country : — 

1. That while it might be difficult to describe, with a near approach to sta- 
tistical precision, the exact condition of Scotland at this moment in regard to 
education, there can be no doubt that, as a people, we have greatly snnk from 
our former elevated position among educated nations, and that a large propor- 
tion of our youth are left without education, to grow up in an ignorance misera- 
ble to themselves and dangerous to society; that this slate of matters is the 
more melancholy, as this educational destitution is found chiefly among the 
masses of our crowded cities, in our manufacturing and mining districts, and 
in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, where the people are not likely spon- 
taneously to provide instruction for themselves; that the quality of education, 
even where it does exist, is often as defective as its quantity; and that this is a 
state of things requiring an immediate remedy. 

2. That the subscribers hold it to be of vital and primary importance that 
sound religious instruction be communicated to all the youth of the \und by 
teachers duly qualified; and they express this conviction in the full belief that 
there will never be any enlargement of education in Scotland, on a popular and 
national basis, which will not carry with it an extended distribution of religious 
instruction; while, from the strong religious views entertained by the great 
mass of the people of this country, and the interest which they take in the mat- 
ter of education, the subscribers can see in the increase of knowledge only an 
enlargement of the desire and of the capacity to communicate a full religious 
education to the generation whose parents have participated in this advantage. 

3. That the parish schools of Scotland are quite inadequate to the educa- 
tional wants of the country, and are defective and objectionable in consequence 
of the smallness of the class invested with the patronage, the limited portion of 
the community from which the teachers are selected, the general inadequacy 
of their remuneration, and the system of management applicable to the schools, 
inferring as it does the exclusive control of church courts; that a general sys- 
tem of national education, on a .«ound and popular basis, and capable of com- 
municating instruction to all classes of the community, is urgently called for; 
and that provision should be made to include in any such scheme, not only all 
the parish schools, but also all existing schools, wherever they are required by 
Xhi necessities of the population, whose supporters may be desirous to avail 
themselves of its advantages. 

4. That the teachers appointed under the system contemplated by the subscri- 
bers should not be required by law to subscribe any religious test ; that Normal 
Schools for the training of teachers should be established ; that, under a general 
arrangement for the examination of the qualifications of schoolmasters, the pos- 
session of a license of certificate of qualification should be necessary to entitle 
a teacher to become a candidate for any school under the national system ; and 
that provision should be made for the adequate remuneration of all teachers 
who may be so appointed. 

5. That the duty and responsibility of communicating religious instruction to 
children have, in the opinion of the subscribers, been committed by God to their 
parents, and through them to such teachers as they may choose to intrust with 
that duty; that in the numerous schools throughout Scotland, which have been 
founded and supported by private contribution, the religious element has al- 
ways held a prominent place; and that, were the power of selecting the masters, 
fixing the branches to be taught, and managing the schools, at present vested 
by law in the Heritors of Scotland and the Presbyteries of the Established 
Church, to be transferred to the heads of families under a national system of 
education, the subscribers would regard such an arrangement as affording not 
only a basis of union for the great mass of the people of this country, but a far 
bstter security than any that at present exists both for a good secular and a 
good Christian education. 

6. That m regard to a legislative measure, the subscribers are of opinion, 
with the late lamented Dr. Chalmers, that ' there is no other method of extri- 
cation.' from the difficulties with which the question of education in connection 
with religion is encompassed in this country, than the plan suggested by him 
as the only practicable one,— namely, ' That in any public measure for helping 
on the education of the people, government [should] abstain from introducing 
the element of religion at all into their part of the scheme, and this, not because 



660 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND. 

they held the matter to be insignificant — the contrary might be strongly ex- 
pressed in the preamble of their act — but on the ground that, in the present di- 
vided state of the Christian world, they would lake no cognizance of, just be- 
cause they would attempt no control over, the religion of applicants for aid — 
leaving this matter entire to the parties who had to do with the erection and 
management of the schools which they had been called upon to assisi. A 
grant by the State upon this footing might be regarded as being appropiiately 
and exclusively the expression of their value for a good secular education.' 

7. That in order to secure the confidence of the people of Scotland generally 
in a national system of education, as well as to secure its efficiency, the following 
should be its main features: — 1st, That Local Boards should be established, 
the members to be appointed by popular election, on the principle of giving the 
franchise to all male heads of families being householders; and with these 
Boards should lie the selection of masters, the general management of the 
schools, and the right, without undue interference with the master, to direct the 
branches of education to be taught. 2d, That there should be a general su- 
perintending authority, so constituted as to secure the public confidence, and 
to be responsible to the country through Parliament, which, without supersed- 
ing the Local Boards, should see that their duties are not neglected — prevent 
abuses from being perpetrated through carelessness or design — check extrava- 
gant expenditure — protect the interests of all parties — collect and preserve the 
general statistics of education — and diflTuse throughout the country, by commu- 
nication with the local boards, such knowledge on the subject of education, 
and such enlightened views, as their authoritative position, and their command 
of aid from the highest intellects in the country, may enable them to commu- 
nicate. 

Were such a system adopted, the subscribers are of opinion that it would be 
quite unnecessary either for the legislature or any central authority to dictate 
or control the education to be imparted in the National Schools, or to prescribe 
any subject to be taught, or book to be used ; and should a measure founded on 
these suggestions become law, not only would the subscribers feel it to be their 
duty, but they confidently believe the ministers and religious communities in 
the various localities would see it to be theirs, to use all their influence in pro- 
moting such arrangements as, in the working of the plan, would effectually se- 
cure a sound religious education to the children attending the schools." 

In September, 1847, on the invitation of an educational association of 
Glasgow, a large meeting of teachers from various parts of Scotland was 
convened in the High School of Edinburgh, and "the Educational Insti- 
tute of Scotland" was formed. The following is the preamble of the 
constitution : 

"As the office of a public teacher is one of great responsibility, and of much 
importance to the welfare of the community; as it requires for its right dis- 
charge, a considerable amount of professional acquirements and skill; and as 
there is no organized body in Scotland, whose duty it is to ascertain and cer- 
tify the qualifications of those intending to enter upon this office, and whose at- 
testation shall be a sufficient recommendation to the individual, and guarantee 
to his employers; it is expedient that the teachers of Scotland, agreeably to the 
practice of other liberal professions, should unite for the purpose of supplying 
this defect in the educational arrangements of the country, and thereby of in- 
creasing their efficiency, improving their condition, and raising the standard of 
education in general." 

" Among the modes of advancing the objects of the Institute, are speci- 
fied " the dissemination of a knowledge of the theory and practice of 
education by means of public lectures, and the institution of libraries." 



NORMAL SCHOOLS 



EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW 



The Normal School at Edinburgh originated in 1826, when the Educa- 
tion Committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 
placed a few teachers appointed to their schools in the Highlands, at one 
of their best conducted schools in Edinburgh, for a short course of prepar- 
atory training. In 1838. the Sessional School of Tron Parish, was trans- 
ferred to that Committee, to enable them to pursue this plan with more 
convenience and effect.^It was the best model elementary school in Scot- 
land, and it was used, as much as possible, to all the intents of a normal 
seminary for teachers, under the care of the Assembly Committee, down 
to the year 1845, when the new building in Castle Place, built expressly 
for a Normal School, was occupied for the same purpose, with a model 
school constituted of children from the immediate neighborhood. 

In the mean time, an Institution had been established in Glasgow, 
mainly through the efforts of Mr. Stow, and an association, called the 
Glasgow Education Society, for the purpose of " training " a class of teach- 
ers who should be qualified to afford to the neglected children of the poor 
in that city, much of that moral education which was wanting to them at 
home. The attempt to erect a suitable building for the accommodation of 
the Normal and Model schools, embarrassed the Society, and about the 
year 1840, the institution was transferred to the General Assembly's 
Committee; and in that year the Committee of Council on Education 
made a grant of 10,000L to the same Committee, to enable them to com- 
plete the building at Glasgow, and erect a new edifice at Edinburgh, on 
condition that 5.000Z. should be raised for the latter purpose by the Gene- 
ral Assembly. 

The circumstances out of which these institutions arose, are thus noticed 
by Mr. Gordon, her Majesty's Inspector of Schools for Scotland, from 
whose Report for 1847, the following account is compiled : 

1. It was seen that a considerable part of the lower population, whether because 
schools were wanting, or ill conducted, or ill attended, had received little or no ed- 
ucation; and it was judged that, if more attention were bestowed upon the prepa- 
ration of teachers, an improvement in tins respect would take place, not merely from 
the abler tuition so provided, but from that better inclination to be instructed, which 
follows in general the appearance of intelligent and zealous masters. It was sup- 
posed, also, that such a preparation of the teachers, at once more liberal and more 
specially directed to their profession, would help to the attainment of their proper 
place in the community, and so benefit the education of the country ; for if the in- 
creased resort to schools should do little for their advantage in respect of income, 
some advantage of the kind would be the more apt, with every addition to their 
merits, to arise from other quarters ; if not, the benefit would remain, of their pos- 
sessing as much intelligence as would itself prove a source of enjoyment and re- 
BpectalMlity. 



662 EDINBXniGH AND GLASGOW NORMAL SCHOOLS. 

2. In the next place, the population had so far outgrown the means of education 
provided by law, th^it the unendowed schools were more than three times the num- 
ber of the endowed, while their masters were generally inferior to those of the 
latter class, and often so unequal to the duty they had undertaken, as to sugge-t 
forcibly the need of their being somehow enabled to come to it with more of the 
requisite qualification. And this appeared the more needful, as the nonparoeJiial 
teachers were not subject to the same legal test of qualification as those ofthees- 
tabhshed schools, wliile the want of such a test in their case might be, in some 
measure, supplied by a system of preliminary training. 

3. The opportunities of employment opened up by the extension of commerce, 
manufactures, mining, and other kinds of industry, had indirectly tended to lower 
still more the qualification of tho-^- wlio wore left ti> pursue the business of teaching. 

4. Another effect of the extension of tlie national industry in these departments 
was to withdraw from school a great proportion of the children of tiie laboring 
classes at a very early age ; and it was plain that the shorter the period of educa- 
tion, so much the more need that the masters should be competent to employ it to 
good account. 

5. It was observed that there is a tendency in the occupations connected with 
some of the branches of industry now mentioned, to impair the character of do- 
mestic education among the laboring classes ; and the remedy was looked for in the 
school. The school came, on this account, to he considered, rather more than it had 
been, as a place not merely of instruction, but of general education — as appropi-i- 
ating, in fact, somewliat more of the office of the parent. It followed that the 
general cliaracter and manners of the masters became to the promoters of schools 
a matter of still greater interest than beft)re ; and the same could be. at once, dis- 
covered and formed, or in some degree influenced, in the Normal School. 

6. There was another and more special reason for the ostiiblishment of schools 
of this sort, in the improvements which had been recently introduced upon the 
methods of elementary instruction, and this chiefly in the Sessional School, Market 
Place, Edinburgh. To establish a normal seminary might well be considered as 
tiie readiest mode of diff'using a knowledge of such improvements; and according- 
ly the Sessional School now mentioned was among tlie first, if not the first in Scot- 
land, which came to be employed for normal purposes. 

7. It became more commonly known than before, that institutions of the kind had 
been tried in Prussia, Germany, and France, and with results that might well tempt 
the experiment elsewhere. 

These circumstances suggested the formation of a seminary for the preparation 
of teachers, in the hope of thereby amending much of what was seen to be amiss 
in the state of education throughout the country ; and accordingly the education 
Bouglit aid of the Committee of Council, which was granted to tlie extent of 10,- 
000/. for building purposes, and 1,000/. annually, towards the current expenses of 
the two institutions. — the sums to be divided equally between them, and the Gene- 
al Assembly obligating itself to appropriate a like sum to the same objects. 

Each seminary is superintended by a Sub-committee of the General As- 
sembly's Education Committee, who appoint the masters, regulate the 
expenditures, the rate of school-fees, the terms of admission, and other 
matters. 

Each seminary has a fund applicable to its uses of 1,000/. besides a 
revenue from school fees, amounting to about 250/. more. Both are open 
to candidates of all religious denominations, and to .'students who do not 
reside, as to those who do reside in the institution. About one-half of the 
students are admitted free, (their expenses of board and tuition are paid 
out of the permanent resources of the Committee)- — one quarter reside 
in the institution at their own expense, and one quarter reside out of the 
institution and pay their own board, and an admission fee of one guinea. 
The average number in attendance is fifty. 

The board of instruction consists of a Rector, a first, second and third 
master, who give their time wholly to their respective seminaries, and 
three other masters who teach only for certain hours in each day. 



EDINBiniGH AND GLASGOW NORMAL SCHOOLS. 663 

The opportunities of instruction in the arts of teaching arid of school 
management, which form the distinguisliing object of tliese schools, have 
been provided in three different ways- — by piactice, by example, and by 
lecture. The students are appointed to teach, and to observe the teaching 
of the masters in the model or practising schools, which are constituent 
parts of the seminaries, and which, though intended at the same time for 
the " instruction of the children of the poor," must be regarded mainly as 
subservient to the normal office of the institutions with which they are 
connected. 

Tlie attendance at each school amounts to about 550. 

The methods employed in the practising schools are not distinguished 
from those which are common in other schools of tlie better class. Normal 
schools may be expected to teach something of the nature of all methods 
of any recognised value ; but their practising departments must be con- 
ducted on some single, congruous system. The simultaneous method, 
accordingly, is practised in both schools, but v*ith that care to ascertain 
the impression made upon the minds of individuals, without which that 
mode is incomplete. The monitorial plan is not employed in cither school, 
simply becavise the aid it furnishes is not there needed ; but a semblance 
of it is presented in the teaching of the students. The Glasgow school has 
still some features of the system on which it was originally conducted — 
the gallery exercises, among which is the admirably conducted Bible 
lesson, frequent singing, much precision in the movements of the classes, 
regulated gymnastics, a style of interrogation that supplies great part of 
the answer, and that negation of all distinctions by means of places or 
reward, which has been noticed as marking with less questionable 
propriety, the order of the students when classed together for their separate 
instruction. 

In the Edinburgh school, each student is occupied in instructing a section 
of the pupils two hours daily. One section of the children is placed un^er 
charge of two students, who teach that section alternately for the space of 
fourteen days. Another section in a diflerent stage of- progress then 
succeeds, and remains under the same charge for the same length of time ) 
and so on, till, in the course of two months, an occasion of teaching has 
been given to each, in all the branches and in every stage of progress. 
Meantime, their manner of conducting their respective sections is observed 
either by the rector, who is present in the practising school for this 
purpose one hour and a half daily on an average, or by one or other of the 
masters, who employ tw^o hours daily in like manner, — each master, 
however, confining himself to a distinct section of the school. The 
students are thus under direct observation, during the greater part of the 
time they are employed in teaching : and afterwards, in their private class 
they receive the remarks which the rector and the masters may have made 
upon the manner in which they severally appeared to have performed their 
tasks. 

They are, next, allowed to see the masters teach daily, for a certain 
length of time, amounting on an average to one hour and a half. On these 
occasions, all the students are present at the same time, and all the 
branches are taught in rotation, upon the days specified in the Time-table 
appended. They are required to mark closely everything in the masters' 
mode of conaucting the different lessons, and to note down their remarks 
for their own benefit afterwards. The notes are subsequently examined : 
and it is soon perceived, in the character of their own succeeding practice, 
how far they had profited from the example of the masters. 

Lastly, they have all, both male and female, an opportunity of attend- 
ing a weekly lecture delivered by the rector upon the theory and art of 



664 EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW NORMAL SCHOOLS. 

teaching, the design of -which is described as being " to counteract the ten- 
dency of the practical engagements of the elementary school to degenerate 
into mere routine and a copy of the superintending master." The course 
consists of twenty lectures, occupied with the various topics set forth in 
the appended Syllabus. 

If the object of the common school be not merely to instruct, but to 
educate ; not merely to inform the understanding, but to cultivate the 
entire character, the object of the normal school is assuredly no less com- 
prehensive. The schoolmaster, it is always to be remembered, is a moral 
teacher, and mu.st be prepared expressly for that delicate and difficult 
office. The normal t^ohools accordingly provide for communicating this 
qualification. 

Each hour in the day, from 6 a. m. to half-past 10 p. m., has its allotted 
occupation, fixed by rules which are unvarying, and, so far as could be 
perceived, invariably observed. Half an hour is set apart in the morning 
for devotional exercises, and half an hour for the same in the evening. 
On Sabbath one hour and a half is employed, under the rector, in exercises 
upon Bible history and Christian doctrine : public worship is attended in 
one or other of the churches of the city ; and in the evening, written 
abstracts of the discourses heard during the day are prepared and 
submitted to the rector's inspection. These arrangements mark a due 
solicitude for the moral well-being of the students, and a sense of its 
essential connection with the professional qualification of a school-master. 

At the same time, the general culture of the students at the Normal 
school almost necessarily receives a bent to their future calling — and this 
from the proper influences of tlie place, in particular from the fellowship 
^of so many engaged in the same studies, brought together after a common 
trial, looking forward to the same pursuit, and entertaining the same 
hopes, anxieties, and ambitions. A society so formed begets a bias to the 
professed object so decided, that there is less hazard than might have been 
expected of the superior instruction of a normal school tempting to aspire 
beyond the schoolmaster's calling. 

The following is the plan on which both schools are now conducted : 

The Directors have considered, in the first place, that schools for the cliildren of 
the poor, if they do not need to afford moi-e than a limited elementary education, 
behove to afford the same by masters as competent within their range as any 
masters intiusted with a more extended cliarge ; nay, tliat there are difficulties in 
the management of sucli schools, from the short and broken attendance of the 
pupils, that require in the teachers somewhat more than the usual ability and 
devotion to their duty. They have considered, further, that a more advanced educa- 
tion is sought at many schools, the teacliers of which arc not qualified, and have 
had no means of being qualified, to supply it. For these reasons they have pro- 
posed — 

1. That two distinct classes of teachers shall be educated at the normal seminaries — one for 
elementary schools, the oiher for those of a higher or mixed kind, such as the parochial schools. 

The examinations for admission are now conducted by those who, from their 
office, may be fairly presumed competent ; and, at the same time, disinterestec^ in 
the absence of all relation to the candidates. But the case is somewhat altered 
when the student appears for a final examination ; for tlien, though the compe- 
tency may be still the same, he has been the pupil of those who are now to judge 
of his proficiency — in other words, of tlie success witli wliich his studies have been 
conducted, and, by inference, of the skill with which these studies have been 
directed. The following rule has, therefore, been laid down : — 

2. That the first examination shall be conducted by the General Assembly's Committee and 
the rectors and masters ; the final examination by the same parties assisted by a professor in thft 
University and by a master in the High School of Edinburgh or Glasgow. 

It is further proposed to extend the range of study at the institution for the 



EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW NORMAL SCHOOLS. ^65 

teachers of both classes, and, above all, to impart to them a fuller and more exact 
knowledge of the subject with which, from the beginning, they had been partiiilly 
acquainted. In this, the Directors liave proceeded upon these views — tliat if a 
teacher s knowledge should considerably exceed what he is called on to impart, 
there is no prejudice, but the reverse, to his ability for teaching, — those who have 
been educated in higher things being commonly found to excel in the lower paths 
of iu-structiun ; that the estimation and authority of a teacher always rise with his 
attainments: that a general intelligence beyond tjie limit referred to bears 
directly upon that part of the work of education wliich is distinguished from mere 
instruction ; that the more promising youth have the better chance of being brought 
forward under such a master : and, moreover, that to the master himself the pos- 
session of a fund of hberal knowledge is hkely to prove a source at once of comfort 
and of energy. For these reasons, — 

o. The students, before leaving the institution, are to prove a qualification of defined extent in 
tiie branches under noted : 

First Class. — 1, English reading ; 2, loriting ; 3, English graimaar, — elemen- 
tary manual, and an enlarged course (c. g. Latham's), Vv-ith etymology; 4, English 
composition — ab=;tracts and original essays ; 5, arithmetic — theory and practice, a 
full course, with mental arithmetic, book-keeping ; 6, elementary geography, 
followed by a course of physical geography and use of globes ; 1, general history, 
with at least one portion of particular history ( e. g. that of Great Britain or the 
period of the Reformation) : S, natural liistory ; 9, singing; \^, linear drawing ; 
W, pedagogy ; 12, religious knowledge — (a) Bible doctrine (Confession of Faith 
and Shorter Catechism) ; (6) Bible analysis (examination of a given portiim of the 
text ;) (f) history of the Old and New Testaments, followed by {d.) outhnes of 
ecclesiastical history and the evidences of revealed religion. 

Second Class. — All tlie branches of the preceding class, with 13, Latin — Livy, 
Virgil, Terence, themes, English rendered into Latin, Roman aniiquities, syno- 
nymes, <fec. ; 14, Greek — Analecta Minora, Greek Testament, two books of the 
Anabasis, two books of Homer; 15, mathematics — a full course of f^uclid, practical 
trigonometry, mensuration of surfaces and sohds, laud-surveying, algebra to cubic 
equations, elements of mechanics. 

The Directors are well aware that this course of study is not to be completed in 
a short time ; and moreover, that the number of the teachers sent forth must 
diminish, as the term of their attendance is extended. Nevertheless, they prefer 
a distinction for the seminaries rather in the accomplishment of a few to that 
extent, than in the slightest preparation of many ; and consider that they thus 
afford to the normal syS'tenr a better chance of attaining its due estimation and 
success. They do not, in the mean time, fix the utmost length of the attendance, 
but they prescribe — 

4. That the least period of attendance for students of both classes shall be eighteen months. 

At the same time, precautions will be taken to insure that the individuals 
favored with this prolonged, invaluable opjDortunity of study are not such as shall 
disappoint expectation afterwards. 

5. At the end of three months from the periodical admission of students, the rectors shall report 
to the directing Committees on the general conduct of the students, the progress they have made 
and the capacity they have shown during that time. The report to be engrossed in the minutes 
of the institution. 

These regulations apply to all students admitted on the footing of free main- 
tenance ; and to those, also, who are not so f\ivored, but who are willing to comply 
with the rule fixing the least period of attendance. There is, however, another 
class of persons who seek admission, consisting of those who could not venture to 
compete for the benefit of free maintenance, and have not the means tif maintain- 
ing themselves for even the least appointed term ; of those, also, who can afford 
but little time from other charges with which they are already occupied ; and of 
those who, having completed a curriculum of literature and philosophy at some 
university, require no more of the normal institutions than what they afford of 
instruction upon the arts of teaching and school management. It is therefore 
proposed — 



(566 EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW NORMAL SCHOOLS. 

6. To admit students at their own expense at any time without examination, except by th« 
rector, upon evidence of respectable character, and for such period as they may find convenient to 
remain ; and to L'.tl'ord ihem ^iii examination at any time upon their professing the qualification 
required of the regular studen.tsat the termination of their course. 

It has been further arraiv^ed that, to give a fair opportunity to the student.s of 
mastering' the required qualification, not only the term of the attendance shall be 
prolonged, but tliat moie time than heretofore shall be allowed for their own 
study and instruction. This time is to be taken from their occupation in the 
practicing schools : where it is not thought necessary they should be employed so 
much as heretofore, nor quite so macli at one pei'iod of the course as at another. 
Accordingly — 

7. One hour daily its alloted to the students for teaching in the practicing schools during the first 
hilf of the term, and two hours during the second. 

At the same time, to maintain the due importance of this practice, and to give 
the advantage of cariying it on with mutual aid and under mutual observation, it 
is appointed — 

8. That one hour daily shall be devoted to the teaching of a class by one student in presf-nce of 
all the rest, each having the same oliice in rotation on sncce.ssive days ; and to hearing the re- 
marks of all upon the manner in which tha ta.sk has beeu performed — the rector presidin". 

The practicing schools having now less aid than formerly from the services of 
the students, the want will be supplied by the employment of assistant teachers 
and apprentice-pupih. At the same time, the attendance will be reduced to an 
amount more suited to the extent of the accDnmiodation, to 351) in the one institu- 
tion, and 500 in tJie other. In short, the Directors have proposed to remodel this 
department, and have resolved— 

9 That the practicing school is to-be considered as mainly subservient to the normal school; 
and to be so formed as to atfoid to the students opportunities of teaching all parts of au elemen* 
tary course, and if possible the elements of some brjnches more advanced. 

These arrangements have led to others of less moment, which it is unnece.ssary 
here to describe. For one thing, they have occasioned another distribution of 
time for the occupation of the rectors and the masters ; in the settling of whicli, 
the geneial principle has been held in view, that the in4ruction of the students 
should be intrusted as much as possible to the rector and the mathematical tutors; 
wdiile tlie masters will liave charge of the practising schools, and the superinten- 
dence of the students when teaching. The regulation on this head is— 

10. That the students shall be under the rector four hours daily for instruction in the bratiches 
they are required to stuity, except the mathemaiical, which will be conducted by the tutor for 
one hour ami a half i:i the i'V«ning; that they shall also, while ieaching in the practicing school, 
be under the oc>;,i-ional supervision of the rector, as well as that of the masters. 

After all, it is not by any organization, however carefully or well contrivedj that 
the excelUmce of a school is to be secured ; everything still depending on the 
genius of the master. And if this be true in regard to common schools, it is .still 
more so in regard to those, which have the exemplification of good methods for 
their distinguishing obect. The Directors liave therefoi-e signified that tlieir main 
reliance is upon the devotedness and skill of the rectors and the masters ; whom 
they have appointed to find for these institutions their jjroper position in the edu- 
cational system of the country. 

It is not forgotten that a normal school, though perfect in all respects, would 
not present a model for exact imitation in all cases, and that the application of its 
methods to the management of common schools must be left, in great part, to tlie 
judgment of the masters of the latter. No school, h)deetl, can be the very pattern 
for others that exist under different circumstances ; alid the normal scliools are, 
from their very nature, singular in some of their conditions. It is eiiougli that in 
them, so far as they are normal, the general principles of method are taught, exem- 
plitied, and practiced. To the masters it may be reserved, in mere deference to 
their self respect to form the plan of then- own schools, according to 
their own knowledge of what the locality requires or permits, and according to the 
gennral notions of method which they have received. In short, it is as little desir- 
able as it is practicable, that the normal scliools should be altogether such as to 
afford an absolute rule and exact model for the guidjuice of the pupil, in the con- 
struction and management of his owa 



EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW NORMAL SCHOOLS. 667 

Department for Female Teachers, 
Female School"; of I nduxt ry .^--T here is a description of schools which is 
now rapidly increasing in Scotland, and extending to a lower class of the 
population than had been wont to have or to consider tliein as at all need- 
ful — the Female Schools of Industry. This is mainly the consequence of 
elementary education, in general, having taken more of a practical char- 
acter than formerly; for the male children, somewhat modifying the 
course of literary instruction^ and occasionally attempting a specific pre- 
paration for some particular calling or handicraft. The same tendency 
woulil have led, of it.seU". to an instruction of the other se\ in the usual 
art.s of domestic industry ; but it was aided by this, that, while tlie period 
of school attendance was the same for both sexes, it was not requisite for 
tlie female to proceed so far in the different literary branches as the other, 
and so the opportunity arose of attemling to those things that form the 
proper objects of a female .«chool. The promoters of such schools are 
commonly benevolent ladies, who are no strangers to the cottages of the 
poor, and who would endeavor by in.struction of this sort to improve their 
domestic condition. It is not unusual, too, for the proprietors of public 
works, maiuifacturing or mining, to favor the people in their service with 
institutions of the kind. The Directors have, in these circumstances, 
attached to each of their normal seminaries a df'partment for instruction in 
needlework and knitting, and have opened it freely to female students 
desirous of undertaking the charge of schools of this description. 

This division of the seminary is conducted by the matron of the estab- 
lishment at Edinburgh, and at Glasgow by a mistress engaged for that 
single purpose. All the female children above seven years of age at the 
practising schools are, in both cases, permitted to attend in this department, 
without additional fee; and nearly all avail themselves of the i)rivilege, 
each class attending for one hour daily. Their attention is wholly con- 
fined to the different sorts of work mentioned, and from the mistresses they 
receive neither literary nor religious instruction. The female students 
attend in this division during the whole time it is assembled — that is, for 
two hours and a half daily — and they are employed mainly in directing 
the classes, or attending to the directions of the mistress; and are them- 
selves instructed, during a portion of the time, by the mistress at the 
Glasgow school, in the more ditFicult kinds of work. In the general model 
school for the children of both sexes, they are employed four hours daih — 
half the time occupied, under the ma,ster's eye, in teaching the female 
classes; the other half, in observing how the masters teach. Two hours 
daily, they are themselves under instruction in reading, religious know- 
ledge, and the elements of grammar and geography. 

Female students are admitted under the same regulation which has 
been formed in regard to those of the other sex who have not the benefit of 
free maintenance, and who do not engage to remain for any certain period. 
They are examined upon their knowledge of the elementary branches, 
before entering, only by the rector, and few have been at any time rejected. 
The admission fee is £1 for the first four months, .5s for each of the next 
four months, and no further payment is required for the remainder of the 
term, the duration of which is optional. Admission is allowed at any time 
of the year. 

No regular examination is undergone by the female students upon leav- 
ing the seminary; and far the greater number have left it to enter on the 
charge of schools to which they had been recommended by the Directors, 
— not more than four leaving the Edinburgh School, without any certain 
engagement. 

It is not proposed, in the mean time, to place this department of the 



668 EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW NORMAL SCHOOLS. 

institution under any stricter regulations than the follo-w-ing; — 1. To with- 
hold certificates from those who have attended for a shorter period than 
three months; and, 2. To grant certificates to those who have proved a 
certain qualification in the elementary branches, after a formal examination 
by the superintending Committees, assisted by the rectors and masters. 
Syllabus of the Rector's Lectures on the Theory and art of Teaching, ad' 
dressed to the Studeiits of the Normal Institution, Edinburgh. 
Introductori/. 

1. Tlie importance of education — most needful in every view — practicable — 
hopeful and encouraging. 

2. Moral requisites and qualifications of the educator ; (a) A correct view of his 
office ; (6) Proper motives ; (c) A well regulated temper and disposition ; [d] A 
well'Stored mind ; (c) Aptitude to teach ; (/) An irreproachable life. 

I — Man, the subject of Education. 

Knowledge of this an essential preliminary ; mental philosophy has not afforded 
the practical aitl tliat might have been expected. 

The ordi.'r, mode, and extent of the development of the human powers considered, 
with a practical reference. 1. Physical — histoiically first ; nature requiring the 
main share of time for sleep and recreation ; mental exertion, short and diversi- 
fied ; instincts to be regulated. 

2. Moral powers awake nearly at the dawn of existence ; should be early 
addressed and practically exercised ; impressed with the idea of God and account- 
ability to Him ; charity, purity, and uprightness inculcated. 

3. Intellectual — («) Intuitive — developed through the perceptive powers ; truths 
and f icts impressed by attention, recalled by memory, combined by conception ; 
importance of educating the senses and training the powers of observation through 
object-lesson? ; (6) O^evAW'^ii^-imderstartding inve-tigates truth ; jmlgnient traces 
its relations and tendency ; (c) Cieative—- imagination — 'reason controlling all. 

XL — The End and Object of Education. 

The comprehensive and harmonious development of the powers in due place and 
proportion ; errors arising from the excess, deficiency, or misapplication of any 
element ; detinitions of different writers. 

III. — The Means for attaining the End. 

Pedagogy, education (properly so called) extending to every department 
througliout--(l) childhiKvl; (2) youth; (3) manhood — from the houseliold to the 
school, from the school to the world and church. 

Pedentics, uistruction or schooling ; that department which is jiroper to the in- 
termediate period, youth, when the faculties are made conversant with facts, 
occurrences, objects, and otherwise exercised for their due development. 

A. The parties by whom — the field in which — this should be carried out. 
Hosijital, public school, or private education considered. 

B. The subject-matter of instruction: — {a) From the existence of man — speech 
and song ; {b) From the existence of space and matter — mathematics and form 
(paiuting, sculpture, (fee.) ; (c) From the relation of man to God — Christianity ; {d) 
To the world — political economy ; (e) To animals — natural history ; (/) To 'sul> 
stances — chemistry, &c. 

The due place and comparative importance of the subjects of elementary and 
superior instruction. Reading, the key to all — 

Organs of speech — origin and import of speech — invention of writing — alpha- 
bet, printing — on teaching the alphabet — Lancaster — Jacotot — Pillans. 

Elementary reading — 1st. The dogmatic system overburdens the memory ; 2nd. 
The scientific, difficult to accomplish in English; 3rd. Intellectual, the sense help- 
ing the sound. 

Theory of explanation and interrogation, elliptical and suggestive methods con- 
sidered — treatment of answers received — moral enforcing — application of lesson 
read. 

Examination of manuals for reading, and instructions in the proper way of 
teaching them. 



EDINBUKGH AND GLASGOW NORMAL SCHOOL. Q{jQ 

Class method — individual, monitorial, simultaneous ; class conducted by single 
examination. 

Method not much apart from the man — consideration of the different subjects of 

school instruction — method of treating and art of imparting them, viz. spelling, 

grammar, reUgious instruction, geography, writing, drawing, arithmetic. 

School organization : 

Arrangement of classes — tripartie division — school furnishing. 

Discipline : 

Theory of rewards and punishments. 

(N'ote.) — The design of these lectures is to counteract the tendency of the prac- 
tical engagements of the elementary school to degenerate into mere routine, or a 
copy of the superintending master. Tlie subject discussed in the connected series 
is proposed as a theme for a weekly exercise, and is found highly beneficial, not 
only as regards the proficiency of the students in English composition, but like- 
wise as it engages their best thoughts in giving their own views of the different 
topics, and imparts an elevated tone to their professional pursuits. 



NORMAL TRAINING SCHOOL 

AT 

EDINBURGH, IN CONNECTION WITH THE CHURCH. 



The Normal Training School at Edinburgh, in connection with the 
Free Church of Scotland, was establisiied in 1843, soon after the Reces- 
sion of that Church from the Established Church, and as a part of its 
educational scheme. In 1848, the Education Committee, appointed by 
the General Assembly of the Free Church, purchased the premises 
known as the •■ Moray House," in the neighborhood of the Holyrood, 
and erected a new hall, and fitted up the whole at an expense of about 
£9,000, ($45,000) for the accommodation of the Normal School, and 
the Practicing Department. 

Pupils are admitted, on passing in a satisfactory manner an enirance 
examination, to the privileges of the institution, which embrace not only 
a thorough course of normal training, but also direct pecuniary aid as 
bursaries, or exhibitions. Those bursaries are to be competed for from 
year to year, and to be awarded to those only, who, havmg successfully 
passed the entrance examination, are willing to devote themselves to 
teachmg. and to declare, at the same time, that but for this assi.«tance, 
they could not afford the means requisite to prepare them, fully and 
satisfactorily, for their important work. 

Although persons of both sexes, and of all religious denominations, 
are received to the entrance examination, the subjects of examination, 
and the course of study afterward entered upon, are determined and 
regulated mainly with a view to the benefit of those who Intend to 
devote themselves to teaching in connection with the Free Church. It 
is conducted by means of printed papers, and generally occupies a 
week. These examination-papers have always been drawn by distin- 
guished practical teachers, intimately acquainted with the subjects 
intrusted to them ; and the written answers of the candidates for admis- 
sion, after being carefully reviewed by the same gentlemen, are handed 
for revision to the rector and tutors of the institution, who again make 
known the results to the education committee, with whom rests the 
final decision as to those who are qualified to enter, with advantage, 
upon the prescribed course of study and training. 

The conditions of the competition for bursaries are stated in the fol- 
lowing regulations : — 

I. Candidates must not be less than seventeen years of age, and shall be required 
to declare, before entering on the competition, that it is their wish and intention to 
devote themselves to the profession of teaching. 

II. Each candidate must produce a certificate of his moral and religious character 
from the minister of the congregation to which he belongs. Such certiticnte shall also 
set forth his attainments in scholarship, the degree of aptitude for practical teaching 
which he may seem to possess, and any circumstances in his history with which the 
committee ought to be acquainted. 



672 NORMAL TRAINING SCHOOL AT EDINBURGH 

III. Each candidate must be in attendance at the seminary on the morning of Sat- 
urday, 26th September, for the purpose of bema, enrolled as a candidate. 

IV. The competition will be chiefly conducted by written questions, and the exam- 
inators will be guided in awardmg the bursaries by the comparative results of the 
examination, the certificates of the ministers, and the report of the rector of the nor- 
mal school in regard to aptitude for practical leaching. 

V. The committee will not defray the travelinj: expenses of unsuccessful candi- 
dates, but they would strongly urge, that when necessary, these expenses should be 
defrayed by local parties acquainted with and interested in the young men recom- 
mended. 

VI. The bursaries shall consist of three classes, for which sums of lOl., 15Z., and 
201., shall be set apart respectively. 

VII. The bursers shall give regular attendance in the normal school from the begin- 
ling of October until the end of July, and shall during that period be in all respects 
subject to the discipline and arrangements of that institution. The bursaries shall be 
payable in monthly installments, and the committee reserve to themselves full power at 
any time to withhold further payments on considering the periodical reports made to 
them by the rector and tutors regarding the conduct and progress of the liursers. 

N. B. There must be throughout the church many under the age of seventeen, 
whom it is highly desirable to aid and encourage m their preparatory studies. Dea- 
cons' courts and presbyteries are earnestly recommended to use every exertion in their 
power for bringing forward such youths, until they have arrived at the stage which will 
bring them within the scope of the committee's scheme of encouragement by bursaries. 

The following are the subjects of the entrance examination for the 

three classes of bursaries : — 

CLASS I. 

English literature and grammar. 

Geography, especially that of Europe and Palestine. 

History. — British history, with the elements of general history. 

Arithmetic— PmpciTlion with vulgar and decimal fractions. 

Latin. — Rudiments; grammatical exercises, large print; and Cornelius Nepos' 
Life of Miltiades. 

Scripture Knowledge. — Bible and shorter catechism. 

N. B. A knowledge of Gaelic will be regarded as equivalent to this amount of attain- 
ments in Latin. 

CLASS 11. 

All the branches of the preceding class, and Latin. 
Latin. — Caesar, book i. ; eclogues of Virgil ; and grammatical exercises. 
G^eek. — Greek grammar; Xenophon's Anabasis, chapters, first, second, and third, 
of book i. 

Algebra. — The elementary rules, fractions and simple equations. 

CLASS III. 

All the branches of the preceding classes, and 

Latin. — Virgil, vi., Book of iEneid ; Sallust's Catilinarian Conspiracy, and Mair's 
Introduction. 

Greek. — Xenophon's Anabasis, books i. and ii. ; gospel of Matthew. 

Algebra — Involution, evolution, surds, quadratic equation. 

Geometry. — Euclid's Elements, first six books. 

Text BooJt.?.— Chamber's History of English Literature ; Reid's English Grammar ; 
Reid's Geography; Chamber's History of the British Empire; White's Elements 
of Universal History, or Tyiler's Elements of General History. 

The following works are recommended for perusal and study : — Chamber's Cyclo- 
psedia of English Literature; Allan and Cornwall's English Grammar; Malte Biun 
and Balbi's System of Geography ; Professor Thompson's Arithmetic ; Vincent's 
Exposition of the Shorter Catechism ; Tract Society's Companion to the Bible; and 
Abridgment of Horn's Introduction to the Study of the Scriptures. 

The course of instruction upon which the students enter, after having 
passed this examination, embraces BibUcal instruction, Engheh litera- 
ture and grammar, history and geography, arithmetic, algebra and 
geometry, plane and spherical trigonometry, practical mathematics 
and mechanics, Latin, Greek, and the elements of Hebrew, drawing 
and music, chemistry, botany, vegetable physiology, and cottage 
gardening, with the theory and practice of the art of teaching. 



NORMAL TRAIMNC; Blf.lIOOL AT nDINUIiIlGIl. g'73 

A careful examination ol" tlie table, in wliicli are recorded the 
results of the entrance examination, enables the rector and tutors to 
determine, with almost perfect precision, the place which each student 
should occupy, and the studies to which his attention should be chiefly 
directed. The attainments of the young men in Biblical knowledge, 
in English literature and grammar, in geography and history, are not 
so unequal as to render necessary or desirable a separate classification, 
while prosecuting the study of these branches. Nor has it been found 
expedient to arrange the students in different sections, when engaged 
in the study of French, chemistry, drawing, and music ; and both in 
the practice of leaching, and ig listening to the exposition, by the rec- 
tor, of the various methods and systems, or to his criticism of the mode 
in which particular lessons have been communicated by particular stu- 
dents, no separate classification has been made. 

By the Time Table, drawn up for the regulation of the students in 
, 1849, it appears that five hours weekly (one hour a day) are devoted 
to Biblical instruction ; four hours to English literature and grammar; 
two hours to history and geography ; two hours to lectures, in con- 
nection with recitations in a text book, in chemistry ; two hours to 
drawing ; three to French ; and two hours to instruction in music, with 
practice at intervals every day. In the higher departments of study, 
Latin, Greek, geometry, algebra, plane and spherical trigonometry, 
with their practical applications, the students are arranged into divi- 
sions, junior and senior. The proficiency in these branches is not very 
great, although the stimulus of competition for the bursaries is showing 
itself in drawing to the institution a large number of right-minded, and 
properly-prepared candidates, and in a more comprehensive and 
thorough course of instruction during their connection with the institution. 

A knowledge of the history, principles, and practice of education, is 
given as follows: 

First, The rector expounds, conversationally, but with a degree 
of minuteness and care that shows how fully he appreciates the impor- 
tance of this department of his labors, the methods that are employed 
in the model schools of the institution, in teaching the various 
branches. He himself exemplifies the application of every principle 
that may seem in the least recondite, gives its philosophy, and shows 
how it may be applied in conducting the work of the school-room. In 
this way it may be said, that every method deserving examination, as 
based upon any philosophical principle, is not only elaborately examined 
and minutely expounded, but skillfully exemplified in the presence of the 
students. 

Second. Essays are prescribed to be written on subjects, embracing 
the whole theory of teaching, and requiring, for their discussion, a good 
extent of reading and study. The best of these essays are afterward 
read in the hearing of the assembled body of students, and their merits 
and defects carefully pointed out. 

48 



074 NORMAL TRAINING SCHOOL AT EDINBURGH. 

Third, A systematic analysis and examination of all the leading 
educational works in onr own language is made during tlie session. A 
particular work is assigned to each student, in turn, who is charged 
with the preparation of a careful analysis and examination of its con- 
tents. This paper is read before the rector in the presence of all the 
students, who express their opinion generally, and specify what they 
consider to be most valuable in the views presented in it. The rector 
sums up by an exposition of what appears to him to be its real char- 
acter and value. 

In this way the students have an opportunity, during the session, of 
acquiring a tolerably satisfactory knowledge of the principles and his- 
tory of teaching, of the various methods which deserve examination, as 
well as of all the details of school organization and management. 

The practical instruction of the normal pupils is obtained through 
the model schools attached to the institution. These schools contain 
upward of five hundred children, arranged in six classes, under ten 
teachers, and nineteen pupil teachers, acting under the personal direc- 
tion of the rector, who has the immediate charge of the first class. 

In these model schools the students have an opportunity of seeing all 
the branches usually pursued in the Elementary school of Scotland, 
taught by skillful and experienced masters, and, in their observations of 
the methods practiced, have the advantage of the personal direction and 
superintendence of the Rector. The means by which they themselves 
are trained to skill in the communication of knowledge are twofold. 

First, They are employed two hours weekly in teaching, in the 
model schools, under the superintendence of the rector, together with 
the master of the department in which they are practicing. 

Second, One hour, weekly, is set apart, for the purpose of hearing 
a certain number of the students give lessons, in the presence of the 
rector and the other students, on particular and previously prescribed 
subjects. These subjects are varied m such a manner, that, ere the 
end of the session, each student has had frequent opportunities, both of 
himself conducting each educational process, and of seeing it conducted 
by his fellow students. While these lessons are being given by those 
appointed to this work, their fellow students are busy observing the 
manner in which the various processes are conducted, and marking in 
their note-books any thing that may seem to deserve or call for com- 
ment. An opportunity is afterward afforded them of expressing their 
opinions, in regard to the manner in which the various lessons had been 
given, and of criticising minutely the whole process gone through by 
the students, who had been engaged in the business of the class-room. 
An hour is devoted to this work of public criticism. 

The teachers consisted in 1852 of a rector, who has special charge of 
Biblical instruction, and the theory and practice of teaching, a mathemat- 
ical tutor, a classical tutor, a teacher of drawing, a lecturer on chem- 
istry, and a music master. 



IRELAND. 



The checkered experience of Ireland, — its dark and its bright sides, — 
forms one of the most instructive chapters in rhehistory of popular educa- 
tion. It commences, according to the testimony of the earliest chroniclers, 
with institulions of learning, not only of earlier origin, but of higher repu- 
tation, than any in England or Scotland, — institutions which were resorted 
to bj' English youth for instruction, who brought back the use of letters 
to their ignorant countrymen. According to Bede and William ot 
Malmesbury, this resort commenced even so early as the seventh century, 
and these youth were not only taught, but maintained without service or 
reward. The great college of Mayo was called '-the Mayo of the Sax- 
ons," because it was dedicated to the exclusive use of English students, 
who at one time amounted to no fewer than 2000. Bayle, on the author- 
ity of the historian of the time, pronounces Ireland •' the most civilized 
country in Europe,* the nursery of the sciences" from the eighth to the 
thirteenth century, and her own writers are proud of pointing to the 
monastery of Lindisfarne, the college of Lismore, and the forty literary 
institutions of Borrisdole, as so many illustrative evidences of the early 
intellectual activity and literary munificence of the nation. But Ire- 
land not only abounded with higher institutions, but there were connected 
with monasteries and churches, as early as the thirteenth century, teachers 
expressly set apart '• for teaching poor scholars gratis." When the coun- 
try was overrun by foreign armies, and torn by civil discord, and governed 
by new ecclesiastical authorities, set up by the conquerors, and not in 
harmony with the religion of the people, a change certainly passed over 
the face of things, and there follows a period of darkness and educational 
destitution, for which we find no relief in turning to the history of English 
legislation in behalf of Ireland. Indeed there is not a darker page in the 
whole history of religious intolerance than that which records the action 
and legislation of England for two centuries, toward this ill-fated country, 
in this one particular. Even the statute of Henry VIII., which seems to 
be framed to carry out a system of elementary education already existing 
before the new ecclesiastical authorities were imposed upon the country, 
was intended mainly to convert Irishmen into Englishmen. By that 

* These facts are stated on the authority of a speech of Hon. Thomas Wyse, in the House ol 
Commons, in 1835. 



676 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 

statute, every archbishop and bishop was bound to see that every clergy- 
man took an oath •' to keep, or cause to be kepi, a school to learn English^ 
if any children of his parish came to him to learn the same, taking for the 
keeping of the said school such convenient stipend or salary as in the said 
land is accustomably used to be taken ;" and both higher and lower 
authorities, archbishops and their beneficed clergymen, are subjected to a 
fine for neglect of duty. The fatal error in this and in all subsequent 
legislation and ' associated eifort for education in Ireland, until the last 
twenty years, was its want of nationality ; the schooJs were English and 
Protestant, and the people for whom they were established were Irish and 
Catholics, and every effort, by legislation or education, to convert Irishmen 
into Englishmen, and Catholics into Protestants, has not only failed, but 
only helped to sink the poor into ignorance, poverty and barbarism, and 
bind both rich and poor more closely to their faith and their country. 
Every system of education, to be successful, must be adapted to the in- 
stitutions, habits and convictions of the people. If this principle had been 
regarded in the statute of Henry" VIII., Ireland, which had the same, if 
not a better foundation in previous habits and existing institutions, than 
either Scotland or Germany, would have had a system of parochial schools 
recognized and enforced by the state, but .supervised b^'' the cfergy. This 
was the secret of the succesa of Luther and Knox. What they did was in 
harmony with the convictions and habits of the people. So strangely was 
this truth forgotten in Ireland, that until the beginning of this century, Cath- 
olics, who coiistilnted four-filths of the population, were not only not permit- 
ted to endow, conduct, or teach schools, but Catholic parents even were not 
permitted to educate their own children abroad, and it was made an 
offense, punished by transportation, (and if the party returned it was 
made high treason,) in a Catholic, to act as a schoolmaster, or assistant 
to a schoolmaster, or even as a tutor in a private family. Such a law as 
that in operation for a century, coupled with legal disabilities in every 
form, and with a system of legislation framed to benefit England at the 
expense of Ireland, would sink any people into pauperism and barbarism, 
especially when much, if not most, of the land itself was held in fee by 
foreigners, or Protestants, and the products of the soil and labor were 
expended on swarms of church dignitaries, state officials, and absentee 
landlords. But even when these restrictions on freedom of education and 
teaching were removed in 1785, the grants of money by the Irish and Im- 
perial Parliaments, down to 1825. were expended in supporting schools 
exclusively Protestant. Upward of $7,000,000 were expended on the 
Protestant Charter Schools, which were supported by a society which 
originated in 1733. on the alleged ground --that Protestant English 
schools, in certain counties inhabited by Papists, were absolutely neces- 
sary for their conversion." By a bv-law of this society, the advantages 
of the institutions were limited exclusively to the children of Catholic 
parents. On the schools of the " Society for Discountenancing Vice." 
which originated in 1792, and which was soon converted into an agency 



NATIOXAT. EDTTCATION IN IRELAND. g^Y 

of proselytism, the government expended, between 1800 and 1827, more 
than a half million of dollars. In 1814. the schools of the "Kildare Place 
Society," began to receive grants from the Parliament, which amounted 
in some years to £50,000, and on an average to $25,000, and in the aggre- 
gate 10 near $2,000,000; and yet the regulations of the Society, although 
more liberal than any which preceded it. were so appUed as practically 
to exclude the children of Catholics, who constituted, in 1S30, 6,423,000, 
out of a population of 7,932,000. 

In 1806 commissioners were appointed by Parliament to inquire into 
the state of all schools, on public or charitable foundations, in Ireland ; who 
made fourteen reports In their last report, in 1812, they recommend the 
appointment of a board of commissioners, to receive and dispose of all 
parliamentary grants, to establish schools, to prepare a sufficient number 
of well-qualified masters, to prescribe the course and mode of education, 
to select text-books, and generally to administer a system of national 
education for Ireland. To obviate the difficulty in the way of religious 
instruction, the commissioners express a confident conviction that, in the 
selection of text-books, '• it will be found practicable to introduce not only 
a number of books in which moral principles should be inculcated in such 
a manner as is likely to make deep and lasting impressions on the youth- 
ful mind, but also ample extracts from the Sacred Scriptures themselves, 
an early acquaintance with which it deems of the utmost importance, and 
indeed indispensable in forming the mind to just notions of duty and sound 
principles of conduct ; and that the study of such a volume of extracts 
from the Sacred Writings would form the best preparation tor that more 
particular religious instruction which it would be the duty and inclination 
of their several ministers of religion to give at proper times, and in other 
jplaces. to the children of their respective congregations." 

In 1824. another commission was instituted to inquire into the nature 
and extent of the instruction afforded by different schools in Ireland, sup- 
ported in whole or in part from the public funds, and to report on the best 
means of extending to all classes of the people the benefit of education. 
This commission submitted nine reports, concurring generally in the 
recommendations of the committee of 1805. 

In 1828, the reports of the commissioners were referred to a committee 
of the House of Commons, who made a report in the same year, in which 
they state their object to be " to discover a mode in which the combined 
education of Protestant and Catholic might be carried on, resting upon 
religious instruction, but free from the suspicion of proselytism." The 
committee therefore recommend the appointment of aboard of education, 
with powers substantially the same as possessed by the former commis- 
sioners. The following resolution presents their views on the matter of 
religious education 

" That it is the opinion of this Committee, that for the purpose of carrying into 
effect the combined hterary and the separate religious education of the scholars, 
the cinrse of study tor four fixed days in the week should be e.v^l'i^ively moral 
«nd literary; and that, of the two remaining days, the one t;) if, a;); lop.i.jU"'] 



678 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 

solely to the separate religious instruction of the Protestant children, the other 
to the separate religions instruction of the Roman Catholic children. 'In each 
case no literary instrnciion to be given, or interference allowed on the part of 
the teachers, but the whole of the separate religious instruction to be given under 
the superintendence of the clergy of the respective communions. I'hat copies 
of the New Testament, and of such other religious books as may be printed in 
the manner hereinafier mentioned, should be provided for the use of the children, 
to be read in schools, at such times of separate instruction only, and under the 
direction of the attending clergyman: — the established version for the u.se of 
the Protestant scholars, and the version published with the approval of the 
Roman Catholic bishops for the children oftheir communion." 

In 1830, the subject was again considered by a select committee of the 
House on the state of the poor in Ireland, and the hope expressed that no 
further time would be lost in giving to Ireland the benefit of the e.xpen- 
eive and protracted inquiries of the commissioners of 1805 and 1825, and 
of the committee of 1828. In September. 1831. Mr. Wyse, author of the 
able volume entitled '^ Educational Reform," a member of the House 
from Ireland, brought in a bill to establish a system of national education 
for Ireland, but it was not acted upon on account of the adjournment. 

In October, 1831, Mr. Stanley, then Secretary for Ireland, announced, 
in a letter to the Duke of Leinster, Lord-lieutenant of Ireland, the inten- 
tion of the Government to appoint a Board of Commission of National 
Education. The Board were soon after appointed, consisting of the Duke 
of Leinster, the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, the Catholic Arch- 
bishop of Dublin, Rev. Dr. Francis Sadleir. Rt. Hon. A. R. Blake, and 
R. Holmes, Esq., — three Protestants, two Catholics, one Presbyterian, 
and one Unitarian. 

The Board of Commissioners have now been in existence about 
eighteen years. During that time they have encountered bitter opposi- 
tion from able but ultra zealots in the Protestant and Catholic churches ; ' 
but. sustained by the Government under the administration of all political 
parties, they have gone on extending their operations, and accomplishing 
results which are worthy of the attentive study of every statesman and 
educator. The fruits of their labors are already visible, but they will be 
"read of all men" when another generation comes on the stage. 

The following are among the results oftheir measures : 
I. The Board have succeeded in establishing a system of National 
Education, or have made the nearest approach to such a system, which 
knows no distinction of party or creed in the children to whom it proffers 
its blessing, and at the same time it guarantees to parents and guardians 
of all communions, according to the civil rights with which the laws of the 
land invest them, the power of determining what religious instruction the 
children over whom they have authority shall receive, and it prohibits all 
attempts at enforcing any, either on Protestant or Roman Catholic chil- 
dren, to which their parents or guardians object. 

" For nearly the whole of the last century, the Government of Ireland labored 
to promote Protestant education, and tolerated no other. Large grants of fub- 
lic money were voted for having children educated in the Protestant faith, 
while it was made a transportable offense in a Roman Catholic (and if the party 
returned, high treason) to act as a schoolmaster, or a.ssislant to a schoolmaster, 



NATIONAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 679 

or even as a tutor in a private family.* The acts passed for this purpose contin- 
ued in force from 1709 to 1783. The\' were then repealed, but Parliament con- 
tinued to vole money for the support only of schools conducted on principles 
which were regarded by the great body of the Roman Catholics as exclusively 
Protestant, until the present sysiem was established." 

"The principles on which they were conducted rendered them to a great ex- 
tent exclusive with respect either to Protesiants or to Roman Catholics ; Rt^man 
Catholic schools being conducted on Roman Catholic principles, were, of 
course, objectionable generally to Protestants ; while Protestant schools, being 
conducted on Protestant principles, were equally objectionable to Roman Cath- 
olics ; and being regarded by Roman Catholics as adverse establishments, they 
tended, when under the patronage of Government, and supported by public 
money, to excite, in the bulk of the population, feelings of discontent toward the 
state, and of alienation from it." 

■' From these defects the National Schools are free. In them the importance of 
religion is constantly impressed upon the minds of the children, through works 
calculated to promote good principles, and fill the heart with a love of reHgion, 
but which are so compiled as not to clash with the doctrines of any particular 
class of Christians. The children are thus prepared for those more strict reli- 
gious exercises which it is the peculiar province of the ministers of religion to 
superintend or direct, and for which stated times are set apart in each school, 
so that each class of Christians may thus receive, separately, such religious 
instruction, and from such persons, as their parents or pastorsmay approve or 
appoint." 

The following Regulations will show the manner in which the Board 
have aimed to avoid the difficulty of religious instruction in schools com- 
posed of different denominations, as well as the prejudices of political 
parties : 

As to Government of ScJwols loith respect to Attendance and Religious Instruction. 

"1. The ordinary school business, during which all children, of whatever 
denomination they may be, are required to attend, is to embrace a specified 
number of hours each day. 

'2. Opportunities are to be afforded to the children of each school for receiving 
such religious instruction as their parents or guardians approve of 

3. The patrons of the several schools have the right of appointing such reli- 
gious instruction as they may think proper to be given therein, provided that 
each school be open to children of all communions; that due regard be had to 
parental right and authority ; that, accordingly, no child be compelled to receive, 
or be present at, any religious instruction to which his parents or guardians 
object; and that the time for giving it be so fixed, that no child shall be thereby, 
in effect, excluded, directly or indirectly, from the other advantages which the 
school affords. Subject to'this, religious instruction may be given either during 
the fixed school-hours or otherwise. 

4. In schools, toward the building of which the Commissioners have contrib- 
uted, and which are, therefore, vested in trustees for the purposes of national 
education, such pastors or other persons as shall be approved of by the parents 
or guardians of the children respectively, shall have access to them hi thcschool- 
ro-rin, for the purpose of giving them religious instruction there, at convenient 
times to be appointed for that purpose, whether those pastors or persons shall 
have signed the original application or otherwise. 

5. In schools NOT vestiod, but which receive aid only b)'' way of salary and 
books, it is for the patrons to determine whether religious instruction shall be 
given in tke school-room or not: but if they do not allow it in the school-room, 
the children whose parents or guardians so desire, must be allowed to absent 
themselves from the school, at reasonable times, for the purpose of receiving 
such instruction elsewhere. 

6. The reading of the Scriptures, either in the Protestant authorized, or Douay 
version, as -well as the teaching of cat. chisms, comes within the rule as to reli- 
gious instruction. 

* See 8th Anne, c. 3, andOtli Willium III. c. 1. 



680 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 

7. The rule as to religious instruction applies to public prayer and to all 
other religious exercises. 

8. Tiie Commissioners do not insist on*' the Scripture lessons being read in 
any oCthe nalional schools, nor do they allow them to be read during ihe time 
of secular or literary instruction, in an"y school attended by childien whose 
paients or guardians object to their being so read. In such case, the Commis- 
sioners prohibit the use of them, except at the times of religious instruction, 
when the persons giving it may use these lessons or not. as they think pro) er. 

9. Whatever arrangement is made in any school lor giving religious instruc- 
tion, must be public'y notifie I in the school-room, in order that those children, 
and those only, may be present whose parents or guardians allow them. 

10. If any other books than the Holy Scriptures, or the standard books of ihe 
church to which the children using them bek>ng, are employed in communica- 
ting religious instruction, the title of each is to be made known to the Commis- 
sioners. 

11. The use of the books published by the Commissioners is not compulsory; 
but the titles of all other books which the conductors of schools intend for the 
ordinary school business, are to be reported to the Commissioners ; and none 
are to be used to which they object ; but they prohibit such only as may appear 
to them to contain matter objectionable in itself, or objectionable for con -mon 
instruction, as peculiarly belonging to some particular religious denomination. 

1'2. A registry is to be kept in each school of the daily attendance of the schol- 
ars, and the average attendance, according to the form furnished by the Coin- 
missioners." 

II. The Board have done much to improve the hterary quahfications, 
and professional knowledge, and skill of teachers, as well as their pecuniary 
condition, and by a jiKlicious system of classification in salaries, and re- 
warding cases of extraordinary fidelity and success, to diffuse a spirit of 
self-education throughout the whole profession. The main defect in the 
schools of Ireland at the institution of the Board was the incompetency 
of the teachers. They were in general extremely poor, many of them 
were very ignorant, and not capable of teaching well even the mere 
art of reading and writing; and such of them as could do so much, were 
for the most part utterly incapable of coinbining instruction in it with 
such a training of tlie mind as could produce general information and im- 
provement. One of the first and main objects of the Board was, and con- 
tinues to be, to furnish an opportunity to deserving persons of the right 
character, to qualify themselves properly for teaching, and then, by a fair 
prospect of remuneration and advancem.ent, to devote themselves to the 
business for life, with a holy national and catholic spirit. A brief notice 
of the successive steps by which the present system of training and aid- 
ing teachers in Ireland was reached, will be appropriate to the design of 
this work. The earliest indication of any movement in the educational 
history of Ireland, for the professional training of teachers, was in 1812. 

In their thirteenth annual (for 1812) report, the •' Commissioners for in- 
quiring into the state of all schools on public or charitable foundations in 
Ireland," recommend the appointment of a Board of Commissioners as the 
first step in a system of National Education, with power to establish a 
number of additional or supplementary schools to those already in exist- 
ence, and that they be ''directed and required to apply themselves imme- 
diately to the preparing a sufficient number of well-qualified masters to 
undertake the conduct of such supplementary schools as they should from 
time to time proceed to endow." 



NATIONAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. gRl 

"We have already adverted to the deplorable want of such qualification in a 
great majority of those who now leach in th; common schools, and to the f erni- 
cioas consequences ari.^ing fiom it; their ignorance, we have reason lo believe, 
is not seldom their least disqualiticatiiin ; and the want of proper books often 
combines with their own opinions and propensities in introducing into their 
schools such as are of ihe worst tendencv. l^.ven for schools of a suj erior de- 
scription, and underbetter control, there is a general complaint that [ropermas- 
lers can not lie prjcurei without much dilhculty ; and we are persuaded that a 
more essential service could not be rendered lo the State than by carrying into 
etfeci a practicable mode nf supplying a successionofwell-quaiified instructors 
for the children of the lower classes." 

The recommendatioii.s of the ^Commission were not acted upon, but 
annual grants were subsequently made to the Kildare Place School So- 
ciety, which were applied in estahlishing two Model Schools in Dublin, 
in which teachers, intended for their employment, were practised in the 
mechanism and methods of the particular system of teaching encouraged 
by that society. The period of instruction, or rather of observation and 
practice, was brief and the instruction itself amounted to but little more 
than a knowledge of the forms and evolutions of the monitorial system of 
Dr. Bell. 

In 1828, R. J. Bryce, Principal of the Belfast Academy, in a pamph^et 
entitled " Sketch of a Plan for a System of National Education for Ire- 
land,^'' pp. 58, presents a very elaborate argument in favor of legislative 
provision for the education of teachers, as the only sound basis on which 
a system of public instruction for Ireland could be raised. He sums up 
his discussion of this branch of the subject in the following manner: 

1. It is commonly supposed, that a man who understands a subject must be 
qualified to teach it, and that the only essential attribuie of an instructor is to 
be himself a good scholar. 

2. Even those who are aware that theie often exists a difference between two 
teachers as to their power of communicating, conceive this diflerence to be of 
much less importance than it really is; and if ever they take the trouble to 
think of itscauoe, they ascribe it to some mechanical hueck, or t^ome instinctive 
piedisposition. 

3. On the contrary, we maintain, that when a man has acquired the fullest 
and most pmfound knowledge of a subjecl, he is not yet half qualifie I to teach 
it. He has lo learn how to communicate his knowledge, and how to train the 
young mind to think for itself And, as it usually happens that children ate 
placed under the ins|cction of their instrur-tors. who become in a great measure 
responsible for their morals, every teacher ought also to know how to govern 
his pupils, and how to form virtuous habits in their minds. Am/ this sldli in 
comvmiiicalins knovde li^e, and in managing the mind, is by far the v tost important 
gualijica'ion of a teacher. 

h. Every teacher, before entering on the duties of his profession, ought there- 
fore to make hirnself acquainted with the Art * of Edv.atioib ; that is. with a 
system of rules for communicating ideas, and forming habits; and ought to ob- 

* The nuttior thus refer? to nn article in No. .54 of the North American Review, devoted to Mr. 
Carter's Essay, whirh will be found in nnnther part of this work. 

"The necessitv of some re?nlar provision for instructing teachers in the Art of Teachinsr, has be?nn 
to be felt by nil those who tnl<e nn enlarjed and raticmnl view of the snliject of ednrntion. The first 
rnde essnv was made in the model schools of Rell and Lancaster. Bnt reflecting perplesoon saw -he 
ultor inefficiency of this mere mechanical trnininj, which hears the same re'ntion to a trne and 
rational system of professional edncation for teachers, that the steam-engine of the Mnrqii's of Wor- 
cester bears to the steam-engine of Watt Hints to this pnrpcse we have met with in vnrions places; 
but tlie first reiular publication on the subject that we have heard of, is i;ne by Mr. .1. G. Carter, an 
American writer, svith which we are acquainted only through a short article in No. I.IV. of the 
North American Review. * * * 

In short we recommend the whole of this article to the careful perusal of the friends of real editca- 
tian. in Britain and Ireland." 



682 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 

tain such a knowledj^e of ihe philosophy of mind, as shall enable him to under- 
stand the reasons of those rules, and to apply them with judgment an i discre- 
tion to the great diversity of dispositions with which he will meet in the course 
of his professioaal labors. 

6. No man is qualifled for the delicate and difficult work of managing the 
youthful mind, unless his own mental faculties have been sharpened and invig- 
orated by the exercise afforded to them in the course of a good general edu- 
cation. 

7. Therefore, a legislature never can sxicceed in establishing a good system of 
national education, without making some provision for insuring a supply of 
teachers possessed of the qualifications specified in the two last articles; in 
order to which, it is indispensably necessary, that Professorships of the Art of 
Teaching be instituted; and that students, placing themselves under the care 
of such professors, be required to have previously attained a good general edu- 
cation, and, ill particular, a competent knowledge of the philosophy of the hu- 
man mind. 

In 1831, the Board of Commissioners of National Education in Ireland 
was established. In a letter from Hon. E. G. Stanley, Chief Secretary 
for Ireland, explaining tlie powers and objects of the Board, one of the 
objects is declared to be " the establishing and maintaining a Model 
School in Dublin, and training teaciiers for country schools." and it is 
mgide a condition on which pecuniary aid shall be granted to any teacher, 
that ■• he shall have received previous instruction in a Model School to 
be established in Ireland." 

In April. 1833, two Model Schools, one for males and one for females, 
were established by the Board, and two courses of instruction provided 
for teachers in each year, to continue three months each. In 1834, steps 
were taken to extend both the Model Schools and the Training Estab- 
lishment, as set forth in their Report for 183.5. 

'' If we are furnished with adequate means by the State, not only for training 
schoolmasters but for inducing competent persons to become candidates for 
teacherships, through a fair prospect of remuneration and advancement, we 
have no doubt whatever that a new class of schoolmasters may be trained, 
M'hose conduct and influence must be highly beneficial in promoting morality, 
harmony, and gaod order, in the country parts of Ireland. 

It is only through such persons that we can hope to render the National 
Schools successful in improving the general condition of the people. It is not, 
however, merelv through the schools committed to their charge that the benefi- 
cial effc-cts of their influence would be felt. Living in friendly habits with the 
pe.iple ; not greatly elevated above them, but so provided for as to be able to 
maintain a respectable station; trained to good habits; identified in interest 
with the State, and therefore anxious to promote a spirit of obedience lo lawful 
authority ; we are confident that they would prove a body of the utmost value 
and inpirtaace in promoting civilization and peace. 

Formerlv, nothing was attempted in elementary schools further than to com- 
municate the art of reading writing, and arithmetic, with some knowledge of 
grammar, geography, and history. Latterly, teachers have made use of the 
reading lessons to convey information. Writing has been made subservient to 
the teaching of spelling, grammar, and composition, and also to the fixing of 
instruction on the memory. Arithmetic, instead of being taught by unexplained 
rules, has been made the vehicle for conveying the elements of mathematical 
knowledge, and training the mind to accuracy of thinking and reasoning. 
Reading-books have latterly been compiled on these principles, the lessons 
being so selected as to convey the elements of knowledge on a variety of .sTjb- 
jects. And this introduction of intellectual exercises into the teaching of these 
elementarv arts, has been found to produce a reflex effect upon the progress of 
the pupils in learning the arts themselves. Children are found to be more easily 
taught to read when, while they are learning to pronounce and combine sylla- 
bles and words into sentences, thev are receiving information, Their writing 



NATIONAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 683 

proceeds better when, while they are learning the mechanical art, they are 
learning the use of it; and they become belter aritlimelicians when the princi- 
ples on which arithmetical operations are founded are gradually developed to 
them. 

To teach upon this principle, it is absolutely necessary that the teacher not 
only be able to read, and spell, and write well, and be a good practical ariilime- 
tician, but that he be a person of general intelligence, having an extensive and 
accurate knowledge of the subjects treated of in the reading lessons. Be must 
know much more than is expres.'~ed in the lessons themselves, or he will be 
totally unable to explain them familiarly, to correct the mistakes into which 
hispiipils fall, and answer the innumerable questions that will be put to him as 
soon as the understanding of his pupils begins to be exercised on any subject. _ 

It is therefore necessary that teachers should not merely be able to teach their 
pupils to lead, write, and to conduct schools upon an approved system of disci- 
pline, but that they be able to aid in forming the minds of children, and direct- 
ing their power of reading into a beneficial channel. The power of reading is 
frequently lost to children, and even becomes a source of corruption and mis- 
chief to them, because they have never been directed to the proper use of it ; and 
it is consequently of the highest importance that, while they are taught to read, 
their thoughts and inclinations should have a beneficial direction given to them. 
To etlect this, manil'estly requires a teacher of considerable skill and intelli- 
gence. 

To secure the services of such persons, it is material that suitable means of 
instruction should be provided for those who desire to prepare themselves for the 
office of teaching, and that persons of character and ability should be induced 
to seek it by the prospect of adequate advantages. 

With these views, we propose establishing five Profe.ssorships in our training 
institution. I. Of the art of leaching and conducting schools. The professor 
of this branch to be the head of the institution. II. Of composition, tnglish 
literature, history, geography, and political economy. III. Of natural histoiy 
in all iis branches. IV. Of mathematics and mathematical scienre. V. Of 
mental philosophy, including the elements of logic and rhetoric We propose 
that no person shall be admitted to the training institution, who does noi pievi- 
ously undergo a satisfactory examination in an entrance course lo be appointed 
for thai purpose ; and that each peison who may be admitted shall siudy in it 
for at least iwo years before he be declared fit to undertake the charge of a 
school; that during this time, he shall receive instruction in the different 
branches of knowledge already specified, and be practised in leaching ihe model 
school, under the direction of the professor of teaching. 

We are of opinion that, in addition to the general training institution, thirty- 
two district Model Schools should be established, being a number equal to that 
of the counties of Ireland; that those Model Schools sliould be under the direc- 
tion of teachers chosen for supeiior attainments, and receiving sui erior remu- 
neration to those charged with the general or Primary Schools; and tliat, here- 
after, each candidate for admission to the training establishments should undergo 
a preparatory training in one of them. 

We think the salary of the teacher of each Model School should be ^100 a 
year, and that he should have two assistants, having a salary of X50 a year 
each. 

We consider that the teacher of each Primary School should have a certain 
salary of £25 a year; and that the Commissioners for the time being should be 
authorized to award annually to each a further sum, not exceeding X5. provided 
ihey shall see cause for doing so in the Inspector's report of his general conduct, 
and the character of the school committed lo him. We are also of opinion 
that each teacher should be furnished wiih apartments adjoining the school." 

By the parliamentary grants of 1835 and 1836, the Board were enabled 
to proceed with the erection of suitable buildings, and the establishment 
of the Model School, and Training Department, in Marlborough street, 
Dublin, which were completed in 1838. To this, in 1839, was added a 
Model Farm, and School of Agriculture, at Glasnevin, in the neighbor- 
hood of Dublin, where the male teachers are lodged, and where they 
receive a course of instruction in agricultural science and practice. 



684 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 

The training department was at first intended for schoolmasters ; but 
in 1340, through the munificent donation of £1000, by Mrs. Drummond, 
for this special purpose, and an appropriation of a like amount by the 
Government, a suitable building was erected in connection with the Model 
School in Marlborough street, for the training of female teachers. In 
addiiion to the ordinary course of instruction in the theory and practice of 
leaching, schoolmistresses are instructed in plain needlework, in the 
art of cutting out and making up articles of female wearing apparel, in 
the arts of domestic economy, such as cottage cookery, washing, ironing, 
mangling, and other useful branches of household management. 

The Commissioners have recently erected in Dublin subsidiary Model 
Schools, where temporary courses of instruction are given to teachers 
already connected with National Schools. 

In connection vvilh.and in extension of the plan of the central Training 
Establishment, a system of Primary Model Schools in each district into 
which the country is divided, is commenced. To several of these schools 
a residence for the teacher, and land for a Model Farm, are annexed. It is 
in contemplation to make these District Model Schools the residence of 
the inspector, and depots for a supply of school books, apparatus, and 
requisites for the schools of the district. Respecting these Model Schools 
and Training Department, the Board remark in 1818 : 

"Our training establishment'^ continue in a prosperous ,«tate. We have 
traineJ, during ihe year, and sup,c)rted at the public expense, 224 national 
teachers, of whom 137 weie males and 87 were temales. We also trained 14 
teachers noi connected wJih National Schools, ami who maintained ihernsielves 
during theii attendance at the Model Schools. Of the 224 teachers of National 
Schools trained duiing the year, 9 were of the Established Church, 37 Presby- 
terians. 3 Dissenters of other denominations, and 175 Uoman Catholics. The 
toial number of male and female teachers trained from the commencement ol 
our proceedings to the 3 1st of December, 1847, is 2 044. We do not include in 
this number those teachers who are not connected with National Schools. 

With reference to the training of teacheis we have to observe, that the expe- 
rience of each successive year s,rengLhens our conviction of its importance. It 
is vain to expect that the National schools, established in all parts of Ireland, 
will ever be effectively conducted, or the art of communicating knowledge ma- 
terially improved, until a sufficient number of well-paid masters and mistresses 
can be supplied, thoroughly qualified, by previous training, to undertake the 
office of teachers, and feeling a zealous interest in promoting the great objects 
of their profession. 

We have observed, with satisfaction, a marked improvement in the appear- 
ance, manners, and attainments of every successive class of teachers who come 
up to be trained in our Normal establishment. With refeience to the two last 
classes, we have ascertained that 34 teachers in the last, and 73 in the present, 
had been originally educated as pupih in National Schools. It is from this de- 
sciiption of persons to whom the practice of instructing others has been familiar 
from their childhood, that we may expect to procure the most intelligent and 
skillful teachers, to educate the rising generation of Ireland. 

It is a gratifying fact, that the good feeling which has always prevailed 
amongst the teachers of different religious denominations residing together in 
our training establishment, has suffered no interruption whatever during the 
last year of extraordinary public excitement. 

Whilst every attention has been paid to the improvement of thp children in 
our Model Schols in the various branches of their secular education, the par- 
amount duty of giving to them, and the teachers in training, religious instruc- 
tion, has not been neglected by tho.se intrusted with that duly. Upon this sub- 
ject we deem it expedient to republish the statement made in our Report of last 



NATIONAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. ggS 

year, which is as lollows: — "The arrangements for the separate religious in- 
struction of the children of all persuasitms attending these schools, and also of 
the teachers in training, continue to be carried inio effect every Tuesday, under 
the respective clergymen, with punctuality and saiisfaction. Previously toihe 
ai rival of the clergymen, each of the teachers in training is employed in giving 
catechetical and oiher religious instruction to a small class of children belong- 
ing to his own communion. These teachers attend their respective places of 
worship on Sundays; and every facility is given, both before and after Divine 
service, as well as at other times, for their spiritual improvement, under the 
directions of their clergy.' " 

III. They have not only increased the number of ordinary elementary 
schools, but they have established and aided a number of special schools 
of different grades, pre-eminently calculated to benefit the people of Ire- 
land. 

1. Ecening Schools. The experiment was commenced at Dublin, 
under the direct inspection of the Board, and was conducted to their satis- 
faction. They thus refer to the subject in their report for 1847 : 

" The average attendance of the Evening School on our premises in Marlbo- 
rough street. Dublin, during the past year, was about 200, composed partly of 
boys who cuuld not attend school during the day, and partly uf adults. 

The anxiety evinced by boys, and by young men from eighteen to twenty -five 
years of age, toparticipate in the advantages afforded by this school, coLfiims 
our opinion that such institutions, if well conducted, will be of incalculable 
benefit to the working classes ; and that, if established in large towns, or in 
populous localities adjoining them, they will form an important step in the edu- 
cation of tlie artisan between the common National School and the Mechanics' 
Institution. After the toils of the day, the humble laborer and the tradesman, 
will find in Evening Schools the means of literary and moral improvement, and 
a protection against temptations to which, at their age, this class of persons are 
peculiarly exposed. 

We received during the year numerous applications for aid to Evening 
Schools, the majority of which we rejected, 1 eiiig of ojinion that our giants for 
this purpose should as yet be confined to large towns, in which trade and manu- 
factures are extensivelv carried on. and wheie alone we at present possess the 
means of inspL'ction. We made grants to twelve Evening Schools in the course 
of the year. It is probable that the number of applications for assistance will 
gradually increase. Should this be the case, we shall take the necessary steps 
to ascertain that the Evening Schools are properly conducted, and that the sys- 
tem ofeducation carried on in them is adapted to the varied occupations of the 
artisans, mechanics, and others, who are desirous of obtaining the special in- 
struction which their several trades and avocations require." 

2. Workhouse Schools. The children of families provided for in work- 
houses, under the Poor Law Commissioners in Ireland, are gathered into 
schools under the care of the Board. In 1847 there were 104 of these 
schools, for which the Board propose the following vigorous measures of 
improvement : 

" 1. That the minimum rate of salary to male teachers, in addition to apart- 
ments and rations, shall be £30 a year; and to feinale teachers £25, exclusive 
of any gratuity from the Commissioners of National Education. 

2. "That noteacher shall be required to undertake the instruction of more 
than froin 80 to 100 children ; and that assistant teachers be piovided, at lower 
salaries, when the daily average attendance considerably exceeds 100. 

3 That in female schools, when the number of pupils considerably exceeds 
100, a work-mistress be engaged, in addition to the principal teacher, to instruct 
the children in the various branches of plain needlework, and in the art of cut- 
ting out, and making up articles of female wearing apparel. 

4. That the whole time of the teachers shall be devoted to the literary, moral, 



686 NATIONAL EDDCATION IN IRELAND. 

and industrial education of the children, and to the superintendence of them, 
during the hours of recreation and manual labor. 

5. That Evening Schools be opened for the instruction of the adult paupers, 
and of such of the pupils of the day schools, as it may be practicable and desir- 
able to have in attendance for two hours each evening. The Evening Schools 
to be conducted by the teachers of the day schools. 

6. That the number of children to be accommodated in each school-room be 
so regulated, as that a space of at least six square feet be allowed for each 
child. 

7. That every Workhouse School, in connection with the Commissioners of 
National Education, be supplied with suitable furniture and apparatus, accord- 
ing to models to be furnished by ihem. 

8. That each Workhouse School, on its coming into connection with the 
Commissioners of National Education, be gratuitously supplied with a com- 
plete outfit of bjoks, maps, stationery, &;c., and that a further supply be granted 
afterward, at stated periods. 

9. That two of the local Guardians be requested to visit the schools weekly, 
and report once a month to the Board of Guardians. This duty might be ren- 
dered less onerous, if undertaken by ihe members of the Board in rotation. 

10. That in order to provide industrial training for pauper-children a suffi- 
cient quantity of land be annexed to each Workhouse, to be cultivated as farms 
and gardens by the pupils of the schools; and that, for this purpose, Agricultur- 
ists be appointed, to the most deserving of whom ihe Commissioners of National 
Education will award gratuities not exceeding -£15 each. 

11. That it is advisable, under particular circumstances, to consolidate two 
or three Unions, and to establish a Central Agricultural School, to be attended 
by the children of each." 

3. Industrial Schools. The Board have extended aid to a class of 
schools which gather in children who can not ordinarily be induced to 
attend the regular day schools, and who need special care and training. 
The results are shown in the following extracts from the Reports of the 
Inspectors appointed by the Board : 

'^ CInddah Fishing Schout, County Galway. — The attendance has been, sometimes, over 
500, and ihe average for six months has been nearly 400. I regret that the apparatus re- 
quisite forgiving an extensive course of instruction on prat-tice of navigation has not 
been provided, and that there are no funds available for this purpo.«e. 

Since the opening of the female schools, 36 girls have been employed in the indtistrial 
room at spinning and net. making ; and in providing materials and making trifling dona- 
ticms to children, £66 \s. 6d. have been nearly expended. The schools are in a much 
better state than I expected them to be, the merit of which must be attributed to the 
praiseworthy assiduity and attention of the manager, and rev. gentlemen of the Caddah 
convent." 

4. Agricultural Schools. In accordance with the wise policy which 
has characterized all the measures of the Board, of trying all new exper- 
iments under their own inspection, and of exhibiting a working plan, the 
Board first established a Model Farm and Agricultural School at Glas- 
nevin, in connection with the Training Establishment in Dublin, und 
afterward attached an ordinary National School to the establishment at 
Glasnevin. to ascertain to what extent industrial training suited to the 
wants and circum,=5tances of the locality, could be united with literary 
instruction. As to the results the Board remark : 

" It has proved that literary instruction and practical instruction in garden- 
ing, together with some knowledge of agriculture, may be successfully commu- 
nicated to boys in a National School by one master, provided he be zealous and 
skillful. No difficulty has been experienced in inducing a limited number of 
the advanced boys to work in the garden two hours each day. after the ordinary 
school business. The scholars composing the Industrial class are paid six- 
pence a week each for their labor ; and the produce of the garden is valued to 



NATIONAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 687 

the Commissioners, at the current market prices, for the use of the teachers 
and doniesiics, in the male and female training establishments: an account is 
kept by the teacher t)f the receipts as well as of the expehses of cuJiivation. 
Our mas ers in training have thus an opporluiiiiy of seeing a model of what a 
small village school ought to be in a rural flistiict, and how far it is practicable, 
under one and the same master, to unite literary and industrial education. 
The boys employed in cultivating the garden attend daily, together with the 
teachers in tiaining,a course of lectures on the elementary principles of agricul- 
ture, as well as of gardening. The practical information they thus acquire, 
and the habits of industry to which they become accustomed, can not fail to be 
highly serviceable to them in after life. It will be a .subject for futuie consid- 
eration, whether this arrangement for the regulation of the labor of the garden 
might not be so altered, as to place under each of the pupils a small alloiment, 
which he shall be required to cultivate, being permitted to receive a portion of 
the profit derived from his industry. 

We conceive that no greater boon could b^onferred upon Ireland than the 
establishment of similar schools in every coumry paiish. They would not only 
be conducive to the improvement of the laboring classes themselves, but would 
tend materially to remove the prejudices existing amongst many respectable 
farmers against the mere literary education of the peasantry. Schools of this 
description would prove, by the combination of intellectual with industrial 
training, that not only are the understandings of the young developed by this 
species of education, but their bodies formed and disciplined to habits of useful 
and skillful labor." 

After training up teachers competent to conduct Agricultural Schools, 
and showing them a working model of such a school, and also of an ordi- 
nary school in which agriculture was introduced as a study and an exer- 
cise, the Board proceeded to establish Model Agricultural Schools, pub- 
lish Agricultural Class Books, and promote the study of agriculture in all 
the schools under their care, in appropriate situations. In their Report 
for 1847 they remark : 

"We had in operation on the 3lst of December, 1847, seven Model Agrif^ul- 
tural Schools; and we have made building grants of i;200 each to ten others of 
this class, some of which are in progress. In addition to those schools, there 
are twelve other Agricultural Schools to which small portions of land are 
attached; and to the masters of these we pay an additional salary of £b per 
annum for their agricultural services; and other emoluments are secuied to 
them by the local managers. Since the commencement of the present year, 
several applications have been received for aid both to Model and ordinary 
Agiicultural Schools; so that we hope to announce, in our next Report, the 
establishment of a greater number. 

We have pabli>hed an Agricultural Class Book for the u.se of the advanced 
pupils attending the National Schools, which it is intended shall be read by all 
the pupils capable of understanding its contents. The otject of this little work 
is to explain, in as simple language as possible, the best mode of managing a 
small farm and kitchen garden. Appended to it are introductory exercises, in 
which the scholars should be examined by the teachers. In order to render the 
lessons attractive, they have been thrown into the foim of a narrative, calcula- 
ted to arrest the attention of young readers. This reading book is not. however, 
designed as an agricultural manual for our teachers. We propose to supply 
this want by the publication of a series of agiicultural woiks, lising from ihe 
simplest elementary book, to scientific teaching of a high character, and com- 
prehending various branches of practical knowledge, tearing u| on the snlject 
of agricultural instruction. We distributed last year, amongst our teachers, a 
variety of cheap and useful tracts, relating to the best modes of cultivating the 
soil, and providing against the dearth of food ; and we are now engaged in cir- 
culating-, among.>t our masters, several other elemeniarv treatises on husbandr\', 
recently published under the direction of the Royal Agricultural Society, and 
containing much valuable information. 

In a limited number of large National Schools, situated in rural districts, we 
intend to introduce agricultural instruction, subject to the following conditions : 



6&g NATIONAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 

If the manager of a National School of this description, or any respectable 
person of whom he approves, shall annex to it a farm of eight or ten acres, and 
erect the necessary farm buildings thereon, without reqaiiing any grant from 
us toward building, repairs, the purchase of slock, or the payment of rent, we 
propose in such cases to pay the Agricultural teacher a salary not exceeding 
£30 per annum. 

We shall leave the appointment of the teacher and the superintendence of the 
farm to the proprietor of the land, or to the manager o( the school, should he 
also be the owner ol'the land. All we siiall require will be, that the teacher be 
competent, in the opinion of our Agricultural Inspector, to manage the farm 
according to the most improved system; and that he shall instruct daily in the 
theiry and practice of agriculture, a sufficient number of advanced buys, who 
shall be in attendance at the adjoining National School. Our Agiicullural 
Inspector will be required tcf report half-yearly whether the farm has been con- 
ducted to his satisfaction, and whether the regulations which we shall presciibe 
for ihe agri'jultural instruction o^he pupils have been strictly adhered to. 

The plan we have now explai^d can not be effectually worked by our ordi- 
nary inspectors. It will be necessary, therefore that our Agricultuial Schools, 
inciu ling our Model Farm at Glasnevin, should be under the superintendence 
of a person, practically conversant with agricultural operations, with phins of 
farm buildings, and the best method of keeping farming accounts; and who 
shall be cjmietent to examine and report on the sy.>tem of agricultural in- 
struction adopted in schools of this description. We have, accordingly, deter- 
mined upon appointing an officer !o discharge those important duties. With 
his assistance, we shall in future be able to make full and satisfactory reports to 
Parliament of the agricultural branch of our system. 

In order to supply the demand for persons qualified to conduct farms and Agri- 
cultural Schools, we have resolved upon increasing from twelve to tvveniy-lour, 
the number of agricultural pupils, who compose the free class, at our Model 
Farm, Glasnevin ; also, upon increasing to the same extent the number of agri- 
cultural teachers at our training establishment there. We shall thus have a 
total of forty -eight pupils and teachers, who will be all under instruction at the 
same time. 

Our agricultural pupils are selected from the best qualitied of our pupils 
attending our several Agricultural Schools throughout Ireland; and our agri- 
cultural teachers who come up to be trained, are chosen from among the masters 
of ordinary National Schools. This arrangement is calculated to accelerate 
the diffusion of agricultural instruction throughout our schools, and, generally, 
amongst our teachers. 

ThiuiL'h convinced that, by means of these and other arrangements, we may 
become instrumental in promoting the cause of Agricultural liducation in lie- 
land, we teel bound to state that we can accomplish little, unless our effiiits be 
cordially sustained by the co-operation of the landed propriet(>rs of the country. 
The Agricultural Schools must, in almost all cases, be created by them, and 
conducted under their directions. It will be necessary for them to expend 
much monev, and bestow constant care upon them. The salaries, training, and 
inspection, furnished by the state, are indispensable; but they wijl be unavail- 
ing if local expenditure and exertions do not supply the groundwork upon which 
the assistance of Government is to be brought into operation." 

5. School Libraries. From the following extracts, it will be seen thai 

the Board are about to adopt the educational policy of New York and 

Massachusetts in extending the means of self-education out of school 

hours, and beyond the period of school attendance. 

" The want of School Libraries for the use of the children attending our 
schools has been long felt. To compile a series of instructive and entertaining 
works adapted to this purpose, would occupy a verv considerable time, and 
require the assistance of many individuals well qualified for compiling books 
suited to the minds of children. Under these circumstances, we have adopted 
the necessary steps for the selection of a sufficient number from those alreaay 
published. Care will be taken that they are unobiectionable in all respects, to 
the meinbers of every religious denomination. We shall buy them from the 
publishers at the lowest cost, and sell them at reduced prices to such of the 



NATIONAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. ggg 

managers of our schools as may approve of their being lent to their pupils. 
We shall also frame regulations for managing the ISchool Libraiies when 
foimed, which will insure a regular delivery and return of the books." 

IV. Tlie Board have aided in the erection and fitting up of more than 
3000 school-houses in different parts of Ireland, by contributing an amount, 
not more in any case tlian two-thirds of the sum actually expended. The 
expenditure in Ireland for school-houses, in connection with the Board, up 
to 1S50, has been estimated at $2,500,000. The Commissioners must be 
satisfied as to the site, size, furniture, material, and workmanlike manner 
of the work done, before the payment of any grant. 

V. The Board have succeeded in publishing and introducing a valua- 
ble series of text books, maps and school re«[uisites, prepared with great 
care, and furnished for a first supply, and at the end of every four years 
gratuitousltj to each school, and at other times below cost. Great pains 
have been taken to exclude from all books published or sanctioned by 
them, every thing of a sectarian or party character, the upper and the 
nether millstone between which Ireland has been for two centuries 
crushed. The publication of this "Irish National Series of School 
Books." has had the effect already to reduce the price of all school books 
in England and Scotland, and to lead to the revision of most of the stand- 
ing text books, in order to compete with this new competitor in the market. 
In their Fourteenth Report (for 1847) the Board remark : 

"We have the gratification to state that the demand for our school-books, in 
England and Scotland, is progressively increasing. Many of our colonies, 
too, have been supplied during the year with large quantities ; and in some of 
them a system of pabiic instruction for the poor, similar in its general charac- 
ter to that of the national system in Ireland, as being equally adapted to a pop- 
ulation of a mixed character as to their relijjioiis persuasions, is likely to be 
established. We have sent books and requisites to Australia, British Ouiana, 
Canada, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Gibraltar, and Malta. 
A complete series of our National school-books was also sent to Loid Seaton,- 
the Governor of Corfu; and it is not improbable that they will be translated, at 
no distant period, into the Greek language, for the use of children attending 
schools in the Ionian Islands." 

VI. The Board have subjected their schools to a system of thorough, 
periodical and intelligent inspection, by which all abuses and deficiencies 
are detected, and at once corrected or supplied, and a stimulus of the most 
powerful character is brought to bear on all of the teachers in any way 
aided by the Commissioners. 

Besides three head inspectors residing at Dublin, for local duties and 
special business abroad, there are thirty-four district inspectors, who de- 
vote their whole time to the services of the Board, under the following 
regulations : 

"1. The commissioners do not take the control or regulation of any school, 
except their own model schools, directly into their own hands, but leave all 
schools aided by them under the authority of the local conductors. The in- 
spectors, therefore, are not to give direct orders, as on the part of the Board, re- 
specting any necessary regulations, but to point out such regulations to the 
conductors of the school, that they may give the requisite orders. 

2. The commissioners require that every National School be inspected by the 
inspector of the district, at least three times in each year. 

44 



690 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 

3. The district inspector, on each inspection, is to communicate with the 
patron or correspondent, for the purpose of affording information concerning 
the general state of the school, and pointing out such violations of rule, or de- 
fects, if any, as he may have observed; and he is to make such suggestions as 
he may deem necessary. 

4. He is to examine tlie visitors' book, or daily report book, and to transmit 
to the commissioners copies of any observations made therein which he may 
consider to be of importance. 

5. He is not to make any observation in the book except the date of his visit, 
the time occupied in the inspection of the school, showing the precise time at 
which it commenced and the precise time at which it terminated ; and also the 
number of scholars present. 

6. Upon ordinary occasions, he is not to give any intimation of his intended 
visit; but during the middle term of the year, fiom the 1st of May to theSlstof 
August, when the inspection is to be public, he is to make such previous 
arrangements with the local managers, as will facilitate the attendance of 
the parents of the children, and other persons interested in the welfare of the 
schools. 

7. He is to report to the commissioners the result of each visit, and to use 
every means to obtain accurate information as to the discipline, management^ 
and methods of instruction pursued in the school. 

8. He is to examine all the classes in succession, in their different branches 
of study, so as to enable him to ascertain the degree and efficiency of the in- 
struction imparted. 

9. He is to examine the class roils, register, and daily report book ; and to 
report with accuracy what is the actual number of children receiving instruc- 
tion at the school, and what is the daily average attendance. 

10. He is to receive a monthly report from the teacher of each school, and 
also to make one quarterly himself to the commissioners, in addition to his or- 
dinary report upon the school after each visit. 

11. He is also to supply the commissioners with such local information as 
they may from time to time require from him. and to act as their agent in all 
matters in which they may employ him ; but he is not invested v/ith authority 
to decide up<in any question affecting a National School, or the general business 
of the commissioners, without their direction. 

12. When applications for aid are referred to the district inspector, he is to • 
communicate with the applicant so as to insure an interview, and also with 
the clergymen of the different denominations in the neighborhood, with the view 
of ascertaining their sentiments on the case, and whether they have any, and 
what, objections thereto. He is also to communicate personally, if necessary, 
with any other individuals in the neighborhood. 

13. The district inspector is to avoid all discussions of a religious or political 
nature; he is to exhibit a courteous and conciliatory demeanor toward all 
persons with whom he is to communicate, and to pursue such a line of conduct 
as will tend to uphold the just influence and authority both of managers and 
teachers. 

VII. They have, by their wise and successful measures, induced the 
British Parliament to increase their annual appropriation in aid of Na- 
tional Education in Ireland. The sum appropriated in 1831 was £4.328 ; 
in 1835. £3.5,000 ; in 1840, £50,000 ; and in 1847, £90,000. The whole 
sum expended by the Board in 1847 was £102,318. To the amount re- 
ceived from the Treasury was added the sum of £8,500. realized from 
the sale of books, published by the Board. The sum appropriated by 
the Board is made the condition and inducement of a still larger sum 
being raised by local and parental effort. The following account of the 
expenditures of the Board for 1847, will indicate the objects wliich they 
aimed to accomplish : 



NATIONAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 



691 



THE DISCHARGE. 

Normal Establishment : 

Salaries and Wages, 

General Expenditure, 

Malk Training Department, Glasnevin : 

Salaries and Wages, 

Maintenance and Traveling, 

General Expenditure 

Male Training Department, Great Georok's-strbet: 

Salaries and Wages, 

Maintenance and Traveling, 

General Expenditure, 

Male Temporary Department, 27, Marlborouoh-street, . 

Female Training Department; 

Salaries and Wages, 

Maintenance and Traveling, ... 

General Expenditure, ,..,.., 

Model School Department, 

Evening School, Marlbokough-street, , . 

Model Farm Department, including the Board and Lodg- 
ing of Agricultural Pupils and Teachers, Rent, Permanent 

Improvements, Salaries, Wages, &c., 

Purchase of Farm Stock and Agricultural Implements, from Mr. 
Skilling, in November, 

Glasnevin National School : — Completion of Building, Fit- 
ting-up, &c 

Glasnevin Evening School, 

Building, Fitting-up, Repairing, &c.. School-houses, 
Do. Do. Agricultural, Industrial and oth- 
er Schools, 



Salaries to Teachers and Monitors, .... 

District Model Schools : — 

Purchase, Rent, toward Building, Furnishing, &c., 
Salaries and Allowances to teachers, .... 
General Expenditure, 



Inspection, 

Book Department : — 

Her Majesty's Stationery Office, for one year ending 31st March, 

1847, for Paper, Printmg, Binding of National School Books, 

including Slates, Pencils, and other School Requisites, . . 

For Books and Requisites purchased from Publishers, and sold 

to the National Schools at reduced prices, Salaries, &c., . . 

Official Establishment in Marlborough-street, . . . 

Repairs and Works at Marlborough-street, including Pur- 
chase of ground in Rere, for New Male Training Establishment, 

Building and Fitting-up New Book Stores, 

Sundry Repairs and Alterations in various Departments, 

Miscellaneous : — 

Rates, Ta.\es, and Insurance, 

Coals, Candles, Gas, &,c. 

Postage, 

Stamps, 

Law Costs, JB424 13 2 t 

Sundries, 165 8 3 ( 



Incidents, 



Gratuities to Monitors, from Model School Fund, 



James Claridoe, Jlccomptant. 



£. s. d. 

861 
23 9 10 

126 2 4 

1,218 15 5 

312 16 8 



119 7 
928 12 
248 7 
307 16 



183 

1,139 8 

306 1 8 

852 19 10 

101 9 10 



021 19 8 
916 2 7 



744 18 9 
21 16 6 



3,956 7 10 
399 8 9 



520 
232 13 



14,064 8 5 
3,339 4 9 



1,100 
1,500 
1,412 4 2 



30] 11 6 

435 9 

380 5 

136 15 

589 15 5 



X. s. d. 



9,333 17 7 



4,355 16 7 
50,209 6 1 



752 13 

9,322 I 7 



17,403 13 2 
4,961 3 



4,012 4 2 



1,843 15 11 
124 2 " 

102,318 14 5 



VIII. The success which has attended the efforts of the Board even 
under the extraordinary and pecuUarly difficult circumstances of Ireland, 
has had a powerful influence on the cause of educational improvement in 
England, and other parts of the British Empire. 

Much has been done within five years past, and more is now doing in 
the Province of Upper Canada, by the Government, to establish a system 
of common schools than in any one of the American States, not excepting 
even New York, or Massachusetts. The action of the enlightened and 
indefatigable superintendent of schools, the Rev. Egerton Ryerson, D. D., 
has been guided more by the experience of the National Board of Ireland 
than that of any other State. 



g92 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 

The following extracts from the Eighteenth Report of the Commis- 
sioners of National Education for Ireland, exhibit the practical opera- 
tions of the system at the close of the year 1852: 

On the 3lst December, 1850, we had 4,547 schools in operation, which were 
attended by 511,239 children. At the close of the year 1851, the number of 
schools in operation was 4,704, and of pupils on the rolls 520,.401. showing an 
increase in the schools in operation of 157, and an increase in the attendance for 
the year 1851, as compared with the year 1850, of 9,162 children. The total 
attendance in 1851 of 520,401 children, in the 1,704 schools in operation, gives 
an average on the rolls of lOOi to each school. 

According to returns prepared at our request by the managers of the national 
schools, we have ascertained that of 5,822 male and female teachers, assistants, 
monitors, &c., in the service of our board on the 31st of March, 1852, there 
were — members of the Established Church, 360 ; Presbyterians, 760 ; other 
Protestant Dissenters, 49 — total Protestants of all denominations, 1,169 ; Roman 
Catholics, 4.653. The number of schools in operation on the 1st of November, 
1852, was 4,795. Of these, 4,434 were under 1,853 separate managers, and 175 
under joint management. There were 141 connected with workhouses or jails, 
and 45 of which the commissioners are the patrons, making in the whole 4,795 
schools. Of 434 schools, 1,247 were under the superintendence of 710 man- 
agers of the Protestant, and 3,187 under the 1,143 managers of the Roman Catholic 
communion. The number of managers, members of the Established Church, was 
296, clerical 67, lay 229, of schools 554 ; Presbyterians 398, clerical 247, lay 
151, schools 670 ; Protestant Dissenters 16, clerical 4, lay 12, schools 23. Total 
Protestant managers of all persuasions 710, and of schools under them 1,247. 
Roman Catholics 1,143, clerical 957, lay 186, schools 3,187. 

These returns show that the various religious denominations are rep- 
resented in the management, instruction, and attendance of the schools, 
about in proportion to their population. Still it is to be regretted that 
this system is assailed with great bitterness by ultra Protestants and 
ultra Catholics, each claiming that the schools are administered to tiie 
special benefit of the other side. The Commissioners remark: 

We beg to assure your Excellency, that we have no other object in bringing 
under your notice these statements than to prove that the benefits derived from 
the system of national education have not been confined almost entirely to the 
Roman Catholic population (as has been incorrectly stated in various publications) 
but that it has been found acceptable to a large proportion of the Protestant com- 
munity. Twenty years have elapsed since the introduction of the system of na- 
tional education into Ireland. After a careful review of its progress, and of the 
difficulties which it has had to encounter, we are convinced that it has taken deep 
root in the affections of the people, and that no other plan for the instruction of 
the poor could have been devised, in the peculiar circumstances of this country, 
which would have conferred such inestimable blessings on the great majority of 
the population. Every passing year strengthens our conviction that the intel- 
lectual and moral elevation of the humbler classes in Ireland will be effectually 
promoted by a firm adherence to the fundamental principles of the system, and by 
liberal grants from Parliament towards its support. 



TRAINING DEPARTMENT AND MODEL SCHOOLS 

OP THB 

COMMISSIONERS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION FOR IRELAND. 



The Commissioners for National Education in Ireland, provided in 
1839, in Marlborough street, Dublin, a Normal Establishment for trainintr 
teachers, and educating persons who are intended to undertake the 
charge of schools. 

The establishment consists of spacious accommodations for class and 
lecture-rooms for th6 Normal pupils^ school-rooms for three model schools 
in Marlborough street for the instruction of 800 pupils, and a boarding- 
house and model farm at Glasnevin. in the neighborhood of Dublin. 

The following extracts from the Regulations of the Board reo-ardino- 
the appointment and classification of teachers, the course of instruction, 
&c., will give a good idea of the establishment, and at the same time 
suggest many useful hints to the friends of educational improvement at 
home. 

ADMISSION OF PUPILS INTO THE MODEL SCHOOLS. 

Parents are requested lo observe the following rules : 

1. Parents wishing their children to be admitted into these schools must ap- 
ply to the head teacher of the respective schools, on anj' morning of the week 
except Monday, from half-past nine till ten o'clock. The names, residences' 
&c. of the children will then be registered in a book kept for the purpose and 
as vacancies occur, they will be sent for in the strict order of their respective 
applications ; except in the case of pupils %oho have been dismissed for irregularity 
of attewiancc, loho are iwt lobe received again till after all the other applicants 
shall have been admitted. 

2. The doors are closed every morning precisely at ten o'clock, and the 
children are dismissed at three, except on Saturdays, when the schools close at 
twelve o'clock. 

An opportunity for separate religious instruction is afforded every Tuesday, 
from ten till half-past twelve o'clock. 

4. If a child be absent on any day. he must bring a ticket to school, as a token 
that the absence was unavoidable, and by the consent of the parents. Three 
Abs'iuce tickets will be given to the parents on application to the heads of the 
respective schools. 

5. If any child be frequently absent, or absent five days successively, 
and the cause be not made known to the teachers before the expiration of the 
five days, such child will be discharged from the school. If the parents wish 
the child to be re-admitted, they must gel the name entered in the application 
book as at first ; and vjait till after all the children vjho have applied for the first 
time shall have been admitted. 

6. The payment is a penny per week, to be paid the first day in each week 
the child attends ; and should any child be unavoidably absent, the penny 
must nevertheless be paid weekly so long as the parent wishes the name of the 
child to remain on the roll. 

GENERAL LESSONS TO BE INCULCATED IN THE MODEL SCHOOLS AND TRAININQ 
DEPART.MENT, AND IN ALL SCHOOLS OF THE BOARD. 

Christians should endeavor, as the Apostle Paul commands them, to " live 
peaceably with all men," (Rom. ch. xii. v. 18,) even with those of a diferent 
religious persuasion. 



694 NORMAL AND MODEL SCHOOLS OF IRELAND.' 

Our Savior, Christ, commanded his disciples lo "love one another;" he 
taught them to love even their enemies, to bless those that cursed them, and to 
pray for those who persecuted them. He himself^rayed for his murderers. 

Many men hold erroneous doctrines, but we ought not lo hate or persecute 
them. We ought to seek for the truth, and to hold fast what we are convinced 
is the truth ; but not to treat harshly those who are in error. Jesus Christ did 
not intend his religion to be forced on men fey violent means He would not 
allow his disciples to fight for him. 

If any person treats us unkindly, we must not do the same to them ; for Christ 
and his apostles have taught us not to return evil for evil. If we would obey 
Christ, we must do to others, not as they do to us, but as we should wish them 
to do to us. 

Gluarreling with oUr neighbors, and abusing them, is not the way to con- 
vince them that we are in the right, and ihey in the wrong. It is more likely 
to convince them that we have not a Christian spirit. 

We ought to show ourselves followers of Christ, " who, when he was reviled, 
reviled not again," (1 Pet. ch. ii. v. 23,) by behaving gently and kindly to 
every one, 

TEN PRACTICAL RULES FOR THE TEACHERS OF NATIONAL SCHOOLS. 

I. To keep at least one copy of the General Lesson, or a Lesson of similar 
import, suspended conspicuously in the school-room, and to inculcate the prin- 
ciples contained in it on the minds of their pupils. 

II. To exclude from the school, except at the hours set apart for religious in- 
struction, all catechisms and books inculcating peculiar religious opinions. 

III. To avoid fairs, markets, and meetings — but above all, political meet- 
ings, of every kind ; and to do nothing either in or out of school which might 
have a tendency to confine it to any one denomination of children. 

IV. To keep the register, report book, and class lists, accurately and neatly, 
and according to the precise forms prescribed by the Board. 

V. To classify the children according to the national school books; to study 
those books themselves; and to teach according to the improved methods, as 
pointed out in their several prefaces. 

VI. To observe themselves, and to impress upon the minds of their pupils, 
the great rule of regularity and order — a time and a place for every thing, 

AND EVERY THING IN ITS PROPER TIME AND PLACE. 

VII. To promote, both by precept and example, cleanliness, neatness, and 
DECENCY. To effect this, the teachers should set an example of cleanliness and 
neatness in their own persons, and in the state and general appearance of iheir 
schools, They should also satisfy themselves, by personal inspection every 
morning, that the children have had their hands and faces washed, their hair 
combed, and clothes cleaned, and, when necessary, mended. The school apart- 
ments, too, should be swept and dusted every evening; and white-washed at 
least once a year. 

VIII. To pay the strictest attention to the morals and general conduct of their 
pupils ; and to omit no opportunity of inculcating the principles of truth and 
honesty ; the duties of respect to superiors, and obedience to all persons placed 
in authority over them. 

IX. To evince a regard for the improvement and general welfare of their 
pupils; to treat them with kindness combined with firmness; and to aim at 
governing them by their affections and reason, rather than by harshness and 
severity. 

X. To cultivate kindly and affectionate feelings among their pupils ; to dis- 
countenance quarreling, cruelty to animals, and every approach to vice. 

admission to training department. 
1. The appointment of teachers rests with the Local Patrons and Commit- 
tees of Schools. But the Commissioners are to be satisfied of the fitness of 
each, both as to character and general qualification. He should be a person 
of Christian sentiment, of calm temper, and discretion ; he should be imbued 
with a spirit of peace, of obedience to the law, and of loyalty to his sovereign ; 
he should not only possess the art of communicating knowledge, but be capa- 
ble of moulding the mind of youth, and of giving to the power which education 



NORMAL AND MODEL SCHOOLS OF IRELAND. 695 

confers a useful direction. These are the qualities for which patrons of 
schools, when making choice of teachers, should anxiously look. They are 
those which the Commissioners are anxious to find, to encourage, and to re- 
ward. 

2. The Commissioners have provided a Normal Establishment in Marlbo- 
rough street. Dublin, for training teachers and educating persons who are in- 
tended to undertake the charge of schools; and they do not sanction the ap- 
pointment of a teacher to any school, unless he shall have been previously 
trained at the Normal Establishment ; or shall have been pronounced duly qual- 
ified by the Superintendent of the district in which the school is situated. 

3. Teachers selected by the Commissioners for admission to the Normal Es- 
tablishment must produce a certificate of good character from the oificiating 
clergyman of the communion to which they belong. They are to be boarded 
and lodged at an establishment provided by the Board for the purpose at Glas- 
nevin, in the immediate neighborhood of Dublin, to which an agricultural de- 
partment is attached. They are to receive religious instructions from their re- 
spective pastors, who attend on Thursdays at the Normal Establishment; and 
on Sundays they are required to attend their respective places of worship ; and 
a vigilant superintendence is at all times exercised over their moral conduct. 

4 They are to attend upon five days in the week at the training and model 
schools, where lectures are delivered on different branches of knowledge, and 
where they are practised in the art of teaching. Thej^ are to receive instruction 
at Glasnevin, particularly in agriculture, daily, and they attend on Saturdays 
at the farm, which is conducted under the direction of the Commissioners, and 
where they see theory reduced to practice. They undergo a final examination 
at the close of their course, and each will then receive a certificate according 
to his deserts. The course of training at present occupies a period of four 
months and a half, and for a considerable time previous tc) their being sum- 
moned, they are required to prepare themselves for the course. 

5. Teachers of schools unconnected with the National Board, if properly 
recommended, are also admitted to attend the Normal Establishment, as day 
pupils, without any charge for tuition ; but such persons maintain themselves 
at their own expense. 

DAILY OCCUPATION IN THE TRAINING DEPARTMENT. 

The Lectures of the Professors commence in the first week of February and August 
in each year, and continue for between four and five months. 

DAILY OCCUPATION OF THE TEACHERS* TIME AND SUBJECTS TAUOHT. 
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. 

10 to 11 Mr. Sullivan — Principles of Teaching ; Systems of Popular Education 

and Lectures on School-keeping. 

11 to 12 Mr. M'Gauley — Arithmetic, Elements of Algebra, Geometry, and Mechanics. 

12 to 12J Hullah's System of Singing, under Mr. Gaskin, in the Gallery. 
12Jto 1 Relaxation in Play-ground, under Mr. Rintoul. 

1 to 14 Mr. Sullivan — Recapitulation and Examination. 

IJto 2 Mr. M'Gauley — Steam Engine, Elements of Chemistry, and subjects con- 
nected with them. 

2 to 3 Practice of Teaching in Model School under Mr. Rintoul, Mr. Keenan, 

and superintendence of the Professors.* 

3 to 4 Lecture on Agriculture from Mr. Donaghy. 

Tiusdays. 

10 to U Hullah's System of Singing under Mr. Gaskin, in the Gallery. 

11 to 12i Religious Instruction, under their respective Clergymen. 
12ito 1 Relaxation in Play -ground, under Mr. Rintoul. 

1 to 2 Mr. Sullivan — Books of the Board, Grammar, Easy Lessons on Reasoning, 

and Elements of Political Economy ; taking Archbishop Whateley's 
" Easy Lessons on Money Matters" as the basis ; and touching only on 
those topics which are plain, practical, and corrective of popular prejxulieea, 

2 to 3 Mr. M'Gauley — Same as early Lecture on Mondays. 

3 to 4 Lecture on Agriculture from Mr. Donaghy. 

* During these hours a portion of the teachers in roUtion attend the Infant Model SchodL 
■nder Mr. Younf. 



696 NORMAL AND MODEL SCHOOLS OP IRELAND. 

Thursdays. 

10 to 11 Mr. Sullivan — Geography, and Elements of Astronomy. 

11 to 12 Mr. M'Gauley — Same subjects as early Lecture on preceding days. 

12 to 12J Hull.ih's System of Singing, under Mr. Gaskin. 
12ito 1 Relaxation in Play-ground, under Mr. Rintoul. 

1 to 2 Mr. Rintoul — Preparation for Teaching in the Model School. 

2 to 3 Practice of Teaching in Model School, under Mr. Rintoul, Mr. KeenaN. 

and superintendence of the Professors.* 

3 to 4 Lecture on Agriculture from Mr. Donaghy. 

Saturdays. 

10 to 12 Mr. Donaghy — At the farm for practical Instruction in Agriculture. 
12 to 2 Mr. GiLSON — Surveying. 

2 to 3 Mr. Campbell — Horticulture. 

special class. 
*#* The Junior Division attend with the General or Ordinary Class, as above. ■ 
The Senior Divison, or those who have attended two courses of Lectures, are em- 
ployed in the Model School, under Mr Keenan, except at the periods in which the O-cn- 
eral Class learn the practice of Teaching under Mr. Rintoul. At these periods the 
Special Class receive extra and special instruction from one of the Professors. For the 
present, Mr. M'Gauley will take them on Thursdays, at the hour in which the men 
will he in the Model Schools for the practice of Teaching ; and also, from 2 till half-past 
2 o'clock on Mondai/s, Wednesdays and Fridays : Mr. Rintoul will also give them spe- 
cial instruction on Tuesdays, from 10 till 1 1 o'olock ; and Mr. Sullivan will mark out a 
course of reading for them, and examine them from half-past nine to 10 o'clock on Tues- 
days, on the hooks recommended ; he will also give them exercises to write on the sub- 
ject of Education and School-keeping. 

female class of teachers in training. 
Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. 
94 to 10} Mr. Rintoul — Writing, Arithmetic, Elocution, and Writing and Spelling, by 
Dictation. 

11 to 12 Mr. Sullivan — Geography, Grammar, Principles of Teaching, and Lectures 

on School-keeping. t 

12 to 12i Relaxation in Play-ground. 
12jto 3 Female Model and Infant Schools. 

3 to 4 Miss Byrne — For Singing. 

Tuesdays, 
9jto lOJ Mr. Rintoul — Same subjects as on Mondays. 
10 to I2i Separate Religious Instruction. 
Relaxation in Play-ground. 
Mr. M'Gauley — Arithmetic. 
Mr. Rintoul — Practice of Teaching. 
Miss Byrne — For Singing. 

Saturdays. 
10 to 12 Female Model School. 
12 to 124 Miss Byrne — For Singing. 

classification and salaries op teachers. 

Teachers of national schools are divided into three classes, to which the fol- 
lowing salaries are attached: 

First Class. First Division : males, £30; females, £24. Second Division: 
males, £25 ; females, £20, Third Division : males, £22 ; females £18 per 
annum. 

Second Class. First Division : males, £20; females, £15. Second Division : 
males, £18; females, £14 per annum. 

Third Class. First Division : males, £16; females, £13. Second Division : 
males, £14; females, £12 per annum. 

Probationary Teachers. Males, £10; females, £9 per annum. 

Assistant Teachers. Males, £10; females, £9 per annum. 

Mistresses to [.each Needle Work. £6 per annum. 

• In order thiit the tenchers in training mny see the Model School in all its phnses, we i-hnnse 
the hours of our Lectures every Thursdny, no ns to enable them to attend the first Thursday in liie 
course from 10 to ii o'clock, the second from II to 12, and so on. 

\ Except from 11 tiU 12 o'clock on Tburadays, which they spend in the Female Model School. 



12jto 


1 


1 to 


2 


2 to 


3 


3 to 


4 



NOnMAL AND MODEL SCHOOLS OP IRELAND. 



697 



Masters of agricultural model pchools, with farms of eight or ten acres an- 
nexed, who are compeient to conduct both (he liieraiy and agiiculinral depart- 
ments, are to receive £10 per annum, in addiiion to the salary of the class in 
which they may be placed. 

Masters of national schools with a small portion of land annexed, consisting 
of from two to three acres, for the purpose of affording agricultural instruction, 
will leceive £o per annum, in addiiion to the salary of iheir class, provided 
ih?y are competent to conduct both the literary and agricultural departments, 
and that the commissioners thall have previously approved of agriculture being 
taught in the school. 

The cDmmi.ssioners will not grant salary to an assistant teacher, or to a 
teacher of nee lie work, unless they are satisfied that the appointment is necessary ; 
and such teachers, even though they may be classed, will not be paid any higher 
rate o^.^alary than the amiant awarded to them as assistant teachers, lir teach- 
ers of needlewo)k, until promoted to the rank of principal teacher, with the 
sane ion of the commissioners. 

The commissioners have determined upon a course of study for each class, 
in which the teachers are to be examined as a test of their fimess for promo- 
tion : b'lt their s^'ueral conduct, the condition of their respective schools, their 
method of c )nd'icting them, and the daily average attendance of pupils, will 
aho be taken i.ato consideration. 

Every national teacher will be furnished with a copy of the program of the 
course of study above referred to. 

The commissioners require that a further income to the teachers be secured, 
either by local subscriptions or school fees. This rule will be strictly enforced. 

S.\t,ARIES PAID TO MONITORS. 

Mf7lFs and Femahs. — For the first year, £i ; for the second year, £b ; for the 
third year, .65 ; for the fourth year, £1. 

For the present the number of paid monitors is limited to four males and two 
females in each district, selected from among the best pupils in the national 
schools, and arpointed upon the recommendation of the district inspectors. 

When the district model schods are established, candidates for the othce of 
paid monitor must undergo a public examination by the inspectors, in a pre- 
scribed course, to be held in those schools. 

GENERAL, CONDITIONS FOR PROMOTIONS. 

All newly appointed teachers, who have not previously conducted national 
schools, are considered as Prohali oners, and must remain as such for at least 
one year, at the expiration of which time, they will be eligible for clas.sificati(!n, 
and may be promoted, even before being trained, to any class exc-pt I he first : 
if promoted, they will receive the full ammmt of salary to which, they may b"<ome 
enlit'e-I , from th^ commenemcnt of thz second year of their servicr under the Board. 

All teachers must remain at least one year in a lo\^er division of any class, 
before ihey are eligible fir promotion to a higher division of the same ; ard they 
must remain tvvo years in a lower class before they are eligible for promotion 
to a higher class. 

This regulation does not apply to probationary teachers, nor to teachers \\ ho 
may be promotel on the recommendation of the professors at the termination of 
the course of training. 

None but teachers trained at the Normal School of the commissioners are 
eligible for promotion lo any division of fhi first class, and only upon the recom- 
mendation of the professors, or of a hoard of inspectors. 

Examinations are to be held, at specified times, by the inspectors, with the 
view of promoting meritorious teachers, or of depressing others who may have 
conducted themselves improperly, or in whose schools the attendance has con- 
siderably decreased. 

No leather will bs admilt^'d to examiva'ion with a vieto to promotion, on whose 
s:hool a decidedly unfavorable report has been made by the district inspector within 
th^. pr^'i^inus year. 

Teachers will not be eligible for promotion unless, in addition to satisfactory 
answeiing in the course prescribed for the class to which they aspire, it appears 
from the reports of their respective district inspectors that their schools are pro- 



698 NORMAL AND MODEL SCHOOLS OF IRELAND. 

perly organized and well conducted ; that adequate exertions have been made 
by them to keep up a sufficient average attendance; that their junior classes 
are carefully taught, and that a fair proportion of the pupils of the higher 
classes, besides being proficients in the ordinary branches of reading, spelling 
and writing, are possessed of a respectable amount of knowledge in, at least, 
grammar, geography, and arithmetic. In female schools it will be further re- 
quisite that instruction in plain needlework, including sewing, knitting, and 
cutting-nut, be given to all girls capable of receiving it, and that they exhibit a 
due proficiency in this department. 

It must also appear from the reports of their inspectors, that their school ac- 
counts have been regulaily and correctly kept, that their schools and school 
premises have been pieserved with neatness and order, and that cleanliness in 
person and habits has been enforced on the children attending them. 

None can be appointed as assistant teachers whose qualifications are not 
equal to those lequired of probationers. 

Satisfactory certificates of character and conduct will be required of all can- 
didates. 

SCALE OF PREMIUMS TO THE MASTERS AND MISTRESSES OF NATIONAL SCHOOLS. 

The sum of £10 to be allocated to each of the school districts, to be divided 
into six premiums^one of je3; one of .£2; two of .£1 lOs. each, £3; two of £1 
each, X2.— XIO. 

These premiums are to be awarded annually on the recommendation of the 
district inspector, and paid at the end of the year to the masters and mistresses 
who are most distinguished by the order, neatness, and cleanliness observable 
in themselves, their pupils, and in the school-houses. 

No distinction to be made between vested and non-vested schools. 

No teacher eligible lor these premiums for more than two years in succession. 

These premiums will be awarded without reference to the class in which the 
teachers may be ranked ; but none will be deemed eligible to receive such pre- 
miums against whom there may be any well-founded charge of neglect in the 
performance of their duties, of impropriety in their conduct, or whose schools 
are not conducted in a satisfactory manner. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 



IRELAND. 



Arrangements are now made for a eysteniatic course of instruction in 
the science and practice of agriculture in Ireland, in connection with the 
Queen's Colleges, and the Commissioners of National Education. 

Professorship of Agriculture in the Queen's Colleges. 

In each of the Q,ueen's Colleges there is a professorship of agriculture, 
with a model and experimental farm, and botanical garden, all the helps 
and appliances of agricultural books and periodicals, and a laboratory 
for experiments in the scientific principles connected with this depart- 
ment. 

The colleges are situated in different sections of Ireland, viz. : at 
Galway, Cork, and Belfast, and the course of agricultural instruction in 
each, will be modified to some extent by the peculiarities of the country 
in which it is located. 

The course of study and of lectures extends through two years, Avhen 
the student receives a " Diploma of Agriculture." The courses of lec- 
tures embrace, in the first year, natural philosophy, chemistry, natural 
history, and the theory of agriculture; in the second year, geology and 
mineralogy, history and diseases of farm animals, land surveying and 
the practice of agriculture. 

On the model and experimental farm, and in the botanical gardens 
adjoining the colleges, and in connection with them, the students have 
an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the best kind of farm ani- 
mals and machines, and with the manual and mechanical operations of 
practical agriculture, horticulture and arboriculture, being accompanied 
in their visits to see such objects and processes, by their instructors, as 
well as in various excursions of natural history. 

Students who attend the agricultural lectures may be matriculated or 
non-matriculated. The former pay $33 each year to the college; the 
latter pay $9 for attendance upon any separate course of lectures. 
They also pay $3 annually for access to the library, which is well fur- 
nished with agricultural publications, to which the matriculated students 
have access without charge. 

In each of these colleges are four scholarships of Agriculture, of the 
value of $97, two for each year. Candidates for these undergo certain 
examinations. For the first year, they must have passed the matricula- 
tion examination, viz. : in English grammar and composition, the first 
four rules of arithmetic, vulgar and decimal fractions, involution and 
evolution, proportion and simple interest, mensuration, book-keeping, and 



YOO AGRICtTLTURAL EDCCATION IN IRELAND. 

outlines of modern geography. For the second year, the examinations 
are in the general principles of heat, chemistr}'^, mechanics and hydro- 
statics, elements of hotany and zoology, theory and composition of ma- 
nures, and feeding of farm animals. 

Candidates for the diplomas of agriculture pay to the college the first 
year, $33; for the second, $31. If they have scholarships, they pay 
only $20 the first year, and $18 the second. 

Agricultural Department of the System of National Education. 
The operations of the Commissioners of National Education embrace: 

1. Model Farm at Glasne.vin, near Dublin. 

2. Model Agricultural Schools under the exclusive management of 
the Commissioners. 

3. Model Agricultural Schools under the management of Local 
Patrons. 

4. Agricultural Departments in Workhouse Schools. 

The working operations of several schools, and the results of the ex- 
perimental model firming in coimection with each, are fully set forth 
each year in the report of the Inspector — who in 1852 was Dr. Kirkpat- 
rick. From his report for 1851. it appears that, besides the Model Farm 
and Agricultural School at Glasnevin, there were 28 Model Agricultural 
Schools and 37 ordinary Agricultural Schools. In these schools there 
were 90 boarders, and 173 pupils working on the farms, and paid out of 
the produce of the farms — most of whom were destined to be teachers in 
National Schools. The Inspector in his Report remarks: 

The reports of the conductors of the several Agricultural Schools in which In- 
dustrial Classes have as yet been established are most favorable as to the utility 
and efficiency of such classes, and generally speak of the pupils composing them 
as being the most rcgnbu- in their attendance at school, and the most protieient in 
literary and agricultural knowledge. The establishment of an Industrial Class of 
six pupils in every Agricultural School would be of gi'eat advantage in carrying 
out the different operations of the fai-m, and in diffusing more effectually the bene- 
fits of the agricultural department of the school. The labor of such a class for two 
hours each day on the farm, in performing the light work, (which can be more 
cmiveniently and economically done by boys than by men.) would b.' worth at 
least £8 per annum. Now assuming tliat of the 4,704 National Schools at pres- 
ent in operation 2,000 are favorably circumstanced for having small school farms 
attached to them, which might be principally cultivated by such classes, a sum of 
£16,0 '0 would be annually added to the national wealth. This would be an im- 
mediate and tangible benefit, but who can estimate the value and importance of 
the thrifty and industrious habits of which the foundation might thus be laid 
among the future )iroducers of the wealth of the country. A boy might thus, 
without any impediment to his literary education, earn nearly 30s. a year, and if 
his parents could afford to invest this in the purchase of a pig, a lamb, or a calf, 
which might be reared for his benefit, he paying for its maintenance with his 
future earnings — selling it at the proper time — investing the proceeds in additional 
young stock, and thus from year to year gradually adding to his little propert}', 
what a valuable step this would be towards improving the provident habits of the 
humbler cla.«ses ! What an improvement on the old and still too general practice 
of allowing young lads, whose laboring in this way would be so useful, to spend 
the greater part of their time before and after school hours in idleness or mischief. 

] think from the experience we now have had of the working of the system of 
agricultural education in this country, the practicability of combining agricultural 
with literary instruction in all schools favorably circumstanced for practically ex> 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 701 

emplifying the agricultural principles to be inculcated, can not be any longer ques- 
tioned. From all tlie inl'urmation I could acquire on this subject in the couise of 
my personal inspection, and tVom the statements of the local parties connected with 
the d fferent Agricultural Schools, 1 find that in almost eveiy instance the agricul- 
tural instruction does not in any way retard the progress of the pupils in literary 
studies. I have heretofore had occasion to refer to the case of the Larne School, 
as aflbrd'ng a gratifying instance of the truth of this statement ; and I have again 
the satisfaction of stating that its pupils have a second time given public, and I trust 
satisfactory proof that at the same time they have acquired a thorough and useful 
knowledge of agricultural principles, they have made as much proficiency in lite- 
rary instruction as if it formed the sole subject of their studies. Three of them 
were examined at Edinburgh, in September last, before the education committee 
of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and several noblemen and 
gentlemen interested in the agricultural education of the youth of that country, on 
a similar plan to that carried out in connection with the National Schools here; 
and from the public and private accounts I have received of their answering, I 
think they amply fulfilled the object of their mission by affiording a convincing 
proof of the practicability of combining agricultural and literary education in com- 
mon schools, where the Teachers are properly (jualified to communicate such, and 
to superintend the practical operations of a small farm. 

I beg to direct attention to a portion of the speech delivered by Sir John 
iM'Neill, G.C.B., who presided as chairman at a public breakfast given to Mr. 
Donaghy by the friends of agricultural education, at the conclusion of his lectures 
on that subject. After referring to the necessity for and advantages of agricultu- 
ral education, and the most suitable means of having it generally carried out, he 
thus proceeds : — " I have had occasion to visit the school conducted by your guest, 
Mr. Donaghy, at Glasnevin, in the vicinity of Dublin, and from the results of the 
e.Kperiments made in that institution, I should look vvith the greatest hope and con- 
fidence to the success of any scheme that might conciliate public support to enable 
it to be permanent. On looking to the schemes of improvement which are started 
every day, I think I see a disposition on the part of those who move them to look 
for too speedy results of their own labor. iNow 1 am perfectly satisfied that if we 
are to move in this matter with the prospect of conferring benefit on the country, 
we must be contented to sow that othei's may reap. All education, mind you, is 
founded on that principle. He who establishes a school for the education of youth 
does not expect to see all those ch'ldren, men, and women grown up. iHe does not 
expect to live to see the fruits of the labor that he has bestowed on them — or in 
many cases at least he can not expect it. He is satisfied to instill into the minds of 
youth those principles wlich are to guide their conduct in the manhood he will 
never see. If, therefore, we are to move in this matter let us not deceive ourselves. 
We, at least such of us as have the snows of many winters on our heads, are not 
to suppose that we are to see the result of our labors. We must be contented, if 
we are to do good, to drop into the ground an acorn, which may, at a distant 
period, produce a tree, under whose boughs many may hereafter find shelter and 
shade. If in this spirit you are prepared to move in this matter — if, without at- 
tempting to hold out the prospects of inmiediate results, you are prepared to es- 
tablish a national institution, which shall grow with the growth, and strengthen 
v^ith the strength, of the nation, I am prepared to go along with you in the amount 
of any influence or means which I possess. But if you are merely going to move 
for the sake of producing immediate effects — if you expect to seethe result of your 
own labors — if you are not prepared to take any measures of v^'hich you may not 
see the result, I look for no advantage from your labors." Dr. Anderson, the dis- 
tinguished chemist to the highland and agricultural society of Scotland, being 
called upon to express his views on the matter, said — " He had felt, ever since be 
had come into connection with the agriculturists of Scotland, that it was essential 
they should have some means of establishing a thorough and effectual agricultural 
education. He had thought of various plans, and had seen the great dithculty of 
making a commencement ; but the plan they were now met to-day to discuss was 
a most important and practical one ; as he believed the parish schools did afford 
them the means of carrying on this branch of education to a considerable extent. 
He confessed that, for his own part, he would like to see the system carried out 



702 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 

even more extensively than had been suggested at this meeting ; and that a 
thorough system should be introduced over the whole of Scotland. They could 
not have a better educated class, as regarded general knowledge, than the agrieul- 
tift'al classes of Scotland : but, as yet, they had no means of supplying them with 
that professional education which the present state of agriculture, and the rapid 
advances now making in it, rendered it necessary to possess." These remarks 
clearly and happily express the views that must be entertained by intelligent prac- 
tical minds as to the beneficial results of a system of education such as that admin- 
istered by the agricultural schools, and are admirably calculated to meet the ob' 
jectioris of those, who, because they can not see immediate and general improve- 
ment resulting from the operations of the agricultural schools, pronounce the sys- 
tem a failure. Improvement can not in this instance tread on the heels of educa- 
tion — the latter sows the seed of which the former will in due time be the fruit ; 
and as in ordinary cultivation some crops take only a short time to arrive at matu- 
rity, while others require a long period to attain perfection, so from the cultivation 
of the minds of our young farmers and laborers many beneficial results are already 
observable, but the general harvest of improvement will be slow in coming round. 

The conduct and efficiency of the agricultural teachers during the past year 
have been in general most exemplary and satisfactory. I am enabled to speak 
thus favorably, not only from my own experience acquired at my different visits, 
but from the accounts I have received from proprietors and others who feel an 
interest in, and have closely watched their proceedings. They do not confine their 
labors to the superintendence of their schools and farms, but not unfrequently dis- 
charge the duties of " Practical Instructors" in their respective localities. 

The results, in the shape of pecuniary profit, realized at the different school farms, 
as shown in the Appendix to this Report, differ materially ; but it must not be 
supposed that such results are an index to the efficiency or non-efficiency of the 
teachers. Various circumstances besides the industry and ability of the agricultu- 
rist, will combine to affect the result of his labors, and unless where the cases 
are equal iu respect to advantages and disadvantages, the pecuniary result of 
the year's operations does not afford a sure criterion whereby to judge of the 
merits or demerits of the system by which they were produced, although they can 
be useful in many other ways, such as showing the results obtained in differ- 
ent localities, and under different systems of management, and by comparing the 
results of any year with those of the preceding, the progress or retrogression in in- 
dividual cases may be ascertained. It may be observed, and perhaps unfavorably 
commented on by those unacquainted with all the circumstances, that in some of 
the schools, especially those under the immediate management of the Commission- 
ers, there has been a loss in the agricultural department ; but it must be borne in 
mind that most of these schools are but very recently established — that in almost 
every case the farms connected with them were in a most wretchedly exhausted 
condition — that most of the energies of the agriculturists are directed to the effect- 
ing of the preliminary and indispensable improvements, and to bringing them under 
suitable and i-egular rotations of cropping ; and until these preliminary measures 
are completed, and the farms in working order, it would be unreasonable to expect 
profitable pecuniary results. 

The following extract, taken from a recently published and highly interesting 
pamphlet, bears so strikingly and prominently on this peculiar point, that I can not 
refrain from giving it insertion here : — " When any one acquainted with the mul- 
tifarious risks which surround the farming business, takes a lease of land, he does 
not look for profit for several years, unless it happens to have been previously put 
in good condition ; on the contrary, he calculates on having a heavy expenditure 
and little income for a considerable time. When a farm has for a number of years 
been starved and badly managed, to look at it, the theorist might conclude that it 
would not take much to put it in the same state as those richly cultivated fields ad- 
joining. But than this there is not a more common mistake ; and when landlords 
are of opinion that farmers can give as much rent for a wasted farm, as they may 
seem inclined to offer for another, which perchance is in better condition, they are 
not looking at the matter in a proper light. In many cases, to put the individual 
who has become tenant of a ' run-out' farm in an equal position with his more for- 
tunate neighbor, who has got land exactly of a similar natui'e, at a rent nothing 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 703 

higher, but which happens to be less severely scourged, several hundred pounds 
would be required ; for, in improving an impoverished farm, large sums of money 
will be expended without malting any striking cliange in its appearance, or without 
immediately yielding a profit to the improver. — Morton^s Rich Farming. 

Model Farm and Agricultural School at Glasnevin. 

The Agricultural Department of the Commissioners of National Edu- 
cation at Glasnevin, consists of a Model Farm of 128 acres, with appro- 
priate buildings, a Model Kitchen Garden, and Nursery of fruit and for- 
est trees, shrubs, &c., and an Industrial School. The pupils are 
selected by the Commissioners from the most talented and deserving 
young men in the various agricultural schools in different parts of Ire- 
land ; and the number for the present is limited to fifty. 

The success of this great establishment in gradually diffusing over 
Ireland a knowledge of better methods of farming and gardening, is fully 
attested in the extracts which follow. 

President Hitchcock in a " Report concerning an Agricultural School" 
to the Legislature of Massachusetts, remarks: 

" This institution vt'as established in 1838, and its grand object is to train up 
teachers for other schools, several hundreds of whom have already been sent out, 
and are spreading the knowledge here gained in other parts of Ireland. The pres- 
ent number of pupils is about fifty ; but buildings are now in course of erection for 
one hundred. The pupils receive literary as well as agricultural instruction. The 
principal lectures are on practical as well as theoretic agriculture. The mornings 
as well as the evenings are devoted to study, but a large part of the day to labor. 
Most of the pupils, I should think, are above twenty years of age. It was vacation 
when I visited, yet some thirty or forty had remained to work on the farm, and I 
very thankfully accepted an invitation to listen to an examination of the young men 
in the studies they had been taught. More than twenty cheerfully came in from 
the field, and without changing their dress, passed a very creditable examination 
upon the various principles of practical and theoretical agriculture, in connection 
with its associated sciences. I am sure that they can not carry abroad such prin- 
ciples as they here presented without doing immense benefit to impoverished 
Ireland. 

On the farm the principles taught in the school are practically illustrated. I 
walked over the fields, and have never, in any country, seen crops as fine, taken 
as a whole, of wheat, oats, beans, flax, and potatoes. The oats would probably 
yield eighty bushels to the acre, and the potatoes bid fair to produce seven hun- 
dred bushels, the disease having not then shown itself The pupils have access to 
a good agricultural library, but I saw no collections in Natural History, nor in any 
other department, indeed. The place, however, being only three miles from 
Dublin, the pupils can resort thither for instruction in Natural History, and the 
inspection of specimens. There is a museum of economic geology there, which 
will, ere long, afford great facilities to puf)ils. If they can succeed in extending the 
skill and productiveness exhibited in this Model Farm, throughout Ireland, I am 
confident we should hear no more of her population as starving." 

Mr. Donaghy, in his Report on the Glasnevin Farm in 1852. makes 
the following judicious remarks on the educational workings of this 
establishment. 

So far as the numbers in attendance at the establishment may be considered as 
indicative of its continued prosperity, nothing, under the circumstances, can be 
more satisfactory ; and coupling with this the very favorable testimony left on 
record regarding it by the numerous visitors who have inspected its operations 
throughout the year, we have every reason to be satisfied that its usefulness is 
becoming gradually more developed, and its agency, in effecting an improvement 



704 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 

in our present agricultural management, better appreciated by all who take an in- 
terest in the real welfare of the country. 

Viewing the establishment, then, as an engine whereby extensive knowledge on 
improved agricultural practice is organized and disseminated ihroughout the differ- 
ent parts of the country — more particularly amongst those classes of the commu- 
nity whose circumstances debar them from acquiring such information otherwise — 
it recommends itself to the countenance and support of every true friend of Ireland, 
as an institution by means of which the amelioration of the different classes of the 
people, who come within the sphere of its influence, can be, so far as other exter- 
nal circumstances permit, ultimately effected. This it is capable of accomplishing, 
and that, too, " without money and without price," on the part, at least, of the re- 
cipients of its benefits. 

I need scarcely say that it would afford me, as I doubt not it would you, much 
gratification vsere I able to state that the Gla.snevin Model P'arm establishment is a 
self-supporting institution. But this it neither is, nor can be, under existing cir- 
cumstances. And it is very problematical, indeed, « hether or not, if it were such, 
it would be capable of accomplishing even a tithe of the good which it is at present 
effecting. Conmion sense will point out to any man fit to exercise a sound judg- 
ment, that no agricultural educational establishment in the world, having a limited 
quantity of land attached to it, would be able, from the sale of its produce, to board, 
lodge, educate, wash for, pay the traveli g expenses of, afford Is. &d. per week, to 
an indefiidU number o^ free pupils, and, at the same time, return a profit to the 
manager. In any self-supporting institution, a CL'rtain ratio must exist between the 
number of pupils boarded free of expense, and the extent and quality of the land 
cult vatcd ; else no result in the shape of a money profit can be realized, as may 
easily be perceived by conceiving that there may be a larger number of pupils in 
attendance — as in our own case — than the entire produce of the farm would be 
capable of maintaining. But though a money profit is desirable, if it can at all be 
produced, I v\ould ask, is a money profit, in reference to the affairs of an institu- 
tion such as this, the proper test wht-reby to judge of its utility and efficiency? 
Most decidedly it is not. The amount of good effected by the operations of a 
public institution, constitutes, for the most part, the sole and only element of jirofit 
derivable from the expenditure attendant upon its management. Does the state 
expect a direct money profit from the expenditure of the funds set apart for the 
support of the Queen's Colleges ? No ; but from the application of those funds a 
more important result is expected — the education of all who can conscientiously 
avail themselves of the privileges thus aflf()rded to them. Further, do the Com- 
missioners of education contemplate that a wonsy profit should emanate from the 
outlay consequent upon the efficient workii.'g of the Marlborough street schools ? 
No ; the object in view in this, as in the other case, is identically the same — the 
conferring of a great boon upon the lower ranks of the people, in the form of a 
good, useful, and liberal education. Well, in what does the Glasnevin Model 
Farm establishment differ from the cases just adduced ? Is it not also an educa- 
tional establishment, giving valuable gratuitous instruction to the sons of the small 
farmers, not only in the science and practice of husbandry, but also in general 
literary knowledge — matters of vital importance to the counti-y, and of course at- 
tended with extra expense as compared with an ordinary agricultural establish- 
ment ? The objects in view in each case, therefore are precisely similar^ — the 
aff()rding of extensive gratuitous advantages to promote the educational and social 
interests of Ireland out of the funds of the State — objects vvliich the Glasnevin 
Model Farm establishment have promoted, is promoting, and, I should hope, will 
promote. A money profit therefore, is not the proper criterion whereby to judge 
of its usefulness. If so, such should also be the case in refei'ence to the others. 

But whilst the Glasnevin Model Farm establishment, with its 128 acres attached, 
is admirably calculated, from its proximity to the city of Dublin, for affording to 
the Commissioners of education the greatest possible facility for carrying out their 
views extensively, as regards the dissemination of agricultural knowledge, the high 
rent which they have been obliged to pay for the land (£.5 per statute acre for one 
part of it, and 4 guineas per acre for the other,) in consequence, amongst other 
matters, of the enjoyment of this advantage ; the outlay for permanent improve- 
ments required to be effected ; the high charge for implements and repairs in the 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 705 

locality ; tlie amount of outlay for toll, cess, and other taxes ; and the cost attend- 
ant upon the purchase and keeping in proper repair the different sets of imple- 
ments for so many pupils, place it almost beyond the power of human exertion, 
under existing prices, to show a favorable balance sheet. 

But is the fact to be altogether overlooked in forming an estimate of the results 
of the working of this establishment, that the Commissioners of education are able 
from their arrangements, as regards the locality of the farm, not only to train a 
class of agricultural pupils — at present 50 —immediately upon it, but also to take 
advantage of the services of their agriculturist in delivering two courses of agricul- 
tural lectures in the year to about 200 of their schoolmasters when they are in 
training at their Model Schools in Dublin ? And still further to enhance the value 
of the information which these men thus receive in the lecture-room, they are 
called upon by the board to visit the Model Farm once in the week, where an ex- 
planation is given to them of the courses of cropping followed, the mode of per- 
forming the different farming operations, and, in short, of the entire management 
pursued. Could these advantages be obtained if their principal agricultural de- 
partment was situated at a considerable distance from their literary training depart- 
ment, without incurring much more trouble and expenditure than at present? 
The truth is, by this very arrangement — the proximity of the agricultural establish- 
ment to the literary training department — the Commissioners of education have 
been able to take the lead of all the educational institutions in Great Britain as 
regards the dissemination of agricultural information. Why has Scotland been 
heretofore unable to carry out agricultural education in connection with her pres- 
ent existing school system, notwithstanding an expressed desire on the part of 
some of her most enlightened men to effect this object? Simply, because she has 
no central agricultural training department in connection with one or other of her 
normal seminaries, at which her teachers could acquire, in addition to their other 
branches of education, a knowledge of agricultural science and practice. I would 
respectfully submit, therefore, that in forming an estimate of our transactions, 
throughout the year, the real and substantial advantages derived by the country 
from the working of the establishment should receive due consideration. 

The following notice of the Model Farm at Glasnevin, where the 
Normal pupils are required to take practical lessons in agriculture, is 
taken from Colman's " European Agriculture and Rural Economy.''^ 

"It is considered (by the Commissioners of National Education) and with 
good reason, that the great want, among the people, is a want of knowledge in 
applying and using the means of subsistence within their reach ; that there is no 
indisposition on their part to labor; that there is as yet an ample extent of un- 
cultivated land capable of being redeemed and rendered productive ; and that a 
principal source of the wretchedness, and want, and starvation, which prevail 
in some parts of this country, often to a fearful extent, is attributable to the 
gross ignorance of the laboring classes of the best modes of agriculture and of 
rural economy. With this conviction upon their minds, the commissioners 
have determined to connect with all their rural schools a course of teaching in 
scientific and practical agriculture, communicating a knowledge of the simple 
elements of agricultural chemistry; of the best modes and operations of hus- 
bandry which have been adopted in any country ; of the nature, and character, 
and uses, of the vegetables and plants necessary or useful to man or beast; of 
the improved kinds of live stock, and of the construction and use of the most 
improved and most approved farming implements and machinery. With these 
views, it is their intention to train their schoolmasters, and to send out such 
men as are apt and qualified to teach these most useful branches. For this 
purpose the government have established this model farm, which was begun in 
1838, and which has already, in a greater or less measure, qualified and sent 
out seven hundred teachers. To my mind it seems destined to confer the most 
important benefits upon Ireland, and I may add upon the world ; for so it hap- 

45 



706 NORMAL AND MODEL SCHOOLS OF IRELAND. 

pens under the benignant arrangemen*s of the Divine Providence, the benefits 
of every good measure or effort for the improvement of mankind proceed, by a 
sort of reduplication, to an unlimi;ed extent ; these teachers shall instruct iheir 
pupils, and these pupils become in their turn the teachers of others; and the 
good seed, thus sown and widely scattered, go on yielding its constantly-increas- 
ing products, to an extent which no human imagination can measure. Three 
thousand schoolmasters are at this moment demandedfor Ireland, and the gov- 
ernment are determined to supply them. Happy is it for a country, and honor- 
able to human nature, when, instead of schemes of avarice, and dreams ot 
ambition, and visions of conquest, at the dreadful expense of the comlbrt, and 
liberty, and lives, of the powerle.ss and unprotected, the attention of those who 
hold the destinies of their fellow-beings in their hands is luri;ed to their im- 
provement, their elevation, their comfort, and their substantial welfaie. 

The Model Farm and Agricultural School is at a place called Glasnevin, 
about three miles from Dublin, on a good soil. The situation is elevated and 
salubrious, embracing a wide extent of prospect of sea and land, of plain and 
mountain, of city and country, combining the busy haunts of men, and the 
highest improvements of art and science, with what is most picturesque and 
charming in rural scenery, presenting itself in its bold mountains and deep 
glens, in its beautiful plantations, its cultivated fields, and its wide and glitter- 
ing expanse of ocean. The scenery in the neighboihood of Dtiblin, wiih its 
fertile valleys, and the mountains of Wicklow, of singularly grand and beau;iful 
formation, hounding the prospect for a considerable extent, is among the richest 
which the eye can take in ; and at the going down of the sun in a fine summer 
evening, when the long ridge of the mountains seemed bordered with a fringe 
of golden fire, it carried my imagination back, with an emotion which those 
only who feel it can understand, to the most beautiful and picturesque parts of 
Vermont, in the neighborhood of Lake Chaniplain. I have a strong conviction 
of the powerful and beneficial influence of fine natural scenery, where theie is 
a due measure of the endowment of ideality, upon the intellectual and iT)oral 
character; and I would, if possible, surround a place of education with those 
object-; in nature best suited to elevate and enlarge the mind, and stir the soul 
of man from its lowest depths. It is at the shrine of nature, in the temple pil- 
lared by the loftv mountains, and whose glowing arches are resplendent with 
inextinguishable fires, that the human heart is most profoundly impressed with 
the unutterable grandeur of the great object of worship. It is in fields radiant 
with their golden harvests, and every where offering, in their rich fruits and 
products, an unstinted compensation to human toil, and the most liberal provi- 
sions for human subsistence and comfort, and in pastures and groves animated 
with the expressive tokens of enjoyment, and vocal with the grateful hymns of 
ecstacy, among the animal creation, that man gathers up those evidences of 
the faithful, unceasing, and imbounded goodness of the Divine Providence, 
which most deeply touch, and often overwhelm the heart. The Model Farm 
and School, at Glasnevin, has connected with it fifty-two English acres of land, 
the whole of which, with the exception of an acre occupied by the farm build- 
ings, is under cultivation, and a perfect- system of rotation of crops. The mas- 
ter of the school pays for this land a rent of five pounds per acre, and taxes and 
expenses carry the rent to eight pounds per acre. Twelve poor boys, or lads, 
live constantlv with him, for whose education and board, besides their labor, 
he receives eight shillings sterling per week. They work, as well as I could • 
understand, about six hours a day, and devote the rest of the time to study, or 
learning. The course of studies is not extensive, but embraces the most com- 
mon and useful branches of education, such as arithmetic, geography, natural 
philosophy, and agriculture, in all its scientific and practical details. They 
have an agricultural examination, or lecture, every day. I had the gratifica- 
tion of listening to an examination of Iburteen of these young men, brought out 
of the field from their labor; and cheerfully admit that it was eminently suc- 
cessful, and in the highest degree creditable both to master and pupil. Besides 
these young men, who live on the farm, the young men in Dublin, at the TNor- 
mal School, who are preparing themselves for teachers of the national schools, 
are required to attend at the farm and assist in its labors a portion of the time, 
that they may become thoroughly acquainted with scientific and practical agri- 
culture in all its branches, and be able to teach it; the government being deter- 
mined that it shall form an indispensable part of the school instruction through- 



NORMAL AND MODEL SCHOOLS OF IRELAND. ^qV 

ont the island. The great objects, then, of the establishment, are to qnaliiV 
these 3'oung men for teachers by a thorough ;md prficlical education in the 
science, so far as it has reached that character, and in the most itnproved 
methods and operations of agriculture. Besides this, it is intended to furnish 
an opporuinity to the sons of men of wealth, who may be placed here as pupils, 
to acquiie a practical knowledge of and a familiar insight into, all the details 
of farming. This must prove of the highest importance to them in the manage- 
ment of their own estates." 

LIST OF LECTURES AT GLASNEVIN. 

1. The rudiments of agricultural chemistry, geology, mineralogy, botany, and 
vegetable physiology, so far as they have a practical application to agriculture. 

2. The nature and improvement of soils. 

3. The nature, properties, and application of the several manures. 

4. The effects of heat, light, and water on soils, manures, animal and veget- 
able life. 

5. The nature, situation, and properties of farms in general. 

6. The proper divisioii of farms, with the crops suitable, according to soil and 
situation. 

7. The situation and construction of farm buildings. 

8. Rotations of crops, fencing and draining, according to the most approved 
principles. 

9. The scientific principles of ploughing, and the general construction and 
use of farm implements. 

10. The cultivation of green and grain crops, proper quantity of seeds, and 
best mode of culture. 

11. Haymaking and harvesting. 

12. Animal physiology and veterinary practice, and general management of 
horses. 

13. Cattle, their several breeds, management, diseases, and modes of cure; 
also of sheep and swine. 

14. Horse-feeding and fattening of cattle, with the improved modes of dairy 
management. 

15. Practical gardening, under the direction of Mr. Campbell. 

The results of this course of training with the teachers, are best seen 
in the following notice of the National School, at Larne, — an ordinary 
school in which agricultural chemistry and practical agriculture are pro- 
vided for in the course of'siudy. 

" This is not, properly speaking, an agricultural school, but a national 
school, where the common branches of education are taught; and there is 
connected with it a department or class of agricultural study, and a small piece 
of land, which the boys cultivate, and on which, in the way of experiment, the 
principles of agriculture, and its general practice, are, within a very limited ex- 
tent, ilhistra'ed and tested. The examination was eminently successful, and 
creditalile alike to the teacher and the pupils. It was from this establishment 
that a detachment of five pupils was sent for examination to the great meeting 
of the Agricultural Society of Scotland the last autumn, where their attainments 
created a great sensation, and produced an impression, on the subject of the im- 
portance of agricultural education, which is likely to lead to the adoption of 
some universal system on the subject. 

I shall transcribe the account given of the occasion : ' Five boys from the 
school at Lame were introduced to the meeting, headed by their teacher. They 
seemed to belong to the better class of peasantry, being clad in homely garbs; 
and they appeared to be from twelve to fifteen years of age. They were exam- 
ined, in the first instance, by the inspector of schools, in grammar, geography, 
and arithmetic; and scarcely a single question did they fail to answer correctly. 
They were then examined, by an agricultural professor, in the scientific 
branches, and tiv two practical farmers in the practical departments of asrricul- 
ture. Their acquaintance with these was alike delightful and astonishing. 
They detailed the chemical constitution of the soil and the effect of manures, 



708 NORMAL AND MODEL SCHOOLS OF IRELAND. 

the land best fitted for green crops, the different kinds of grain, the dairy, and 
the system of rotation of crops. Many of these answers required considerable 
exercise of reflection ; and as previous concert between themselves and the 
gentlemen who examined them was out of the question, their acquirements 
seemed to take the meeting by surprise ; at the same time they atlbrded it the 
utmost satisfaction, as evincing how much could be done by a proper system ot 
training.' 

I confess the establishment at Lame afforded me, in this respect, very high 
gratification. The agricultural studies are not made compulsory, but voluntary; 
and one hour per day is devoted to agricultural labcn'. The Board of Education 
in Ireland have now under their control three thousand teachers; and it is pro- 
posed, wherever it may be deemed useful, to make agriculture a standard branch 
of common school education. They already have seven agricultural training 
establishments; and it is in contemplation to have iwenty-hve, Avith which it is 
proposed shall be connected small inodel farms, so that every where, besides 
furnishing this most valuable instruction to the pupils of the schools, the farm- 
ers in the vicinity may be excited and instructed to improve their cultivation. 
Thus diffusive is the nature of all beneficence. A good deed, like a stone 
throAvn into the water, is sure to agitate the whole mass. Its strongest effects 
will be felt where the blow is given ; but the concentric circles are seen extend- 
ing themselves on every side, and reach much farther than the eye can follow 
them. In the moral as well as physical world, the condition of mutual attrac- 
tion and dependence is universal and indissoluble. We have reason to hope 
that no good seed is ever sown in vain, but will sooner or later germinate and 
yield its proper fruits. 

The.se establishments do certainly the highest honor and credit to the intelli- 
gence and philanthropy of Ireland, and their beneficent effects must presently 
be seen in alleviating the indescribable amount of wretchedness under which this 
beautiful country and fine-spirited people have been so long crushed to the earth 
— a wretchedness which, to be understood, must be seen." 

President Hitchcock, of Amherst in his Report to the Legislature of 
Massachusetts, in 1851, on Agricultural Schools, thus notices his visit 
to the National Agricultural School at Lame. 

The farm consists of only seven aores. Yet in 1848, the head master, Mr. 
M'Donnell, maintained on this small plot of ground, in the very best condition, 
three milch cows, two calves, four pigs, and one donkey, and raised besides 32^^ 
cwt. of wheat, 28 cwt. of oats, and 24 cwt. of potatoes. The crops growing this 
year, appeared unusually fine. 

The in-door pupils pay $54 a year, including instruction and board, or if upon 
scholarships, only $22. The out-door pupils pay for instruction, $17 annually. 
The boarders work on the farm from 6 to 8, and from 10 to 12 A. M., and from 
4 to 6 P. M. From 12 to 3 o'clock daily they study in the school-room, in agri- 
culture as a science as well as in literature ; also, from 6 to 8 P. M., in an even- 
ing class under the superintendence of a teacher. Tliey are not admitted under 
fifteen years of age, nor without a certificate of moral character. The course is of 
two or three years' duration, according to the age and aequirements of the pupils. 

The agricultural instruction "embraces the principles of chemistry; the forma- 
tion, nature, and difference of soils ; the rotations of cropping best suited to such 
varieties ; draining, trenching, and subsoiling, and the principles upon which their 
efficacy depends ; house feeding of cattle, and its advantages ; the constitution and 
properties of the different'manures ; the proper divisions of farms, &c., &c." To 
this is added a well grounded course of English education in reading, writing, 
arithmetic, Enghsh grammar, geography, book-keeping, mensuration, land sur- 
veying, gauging, geometry, trigonometry, algebra, and navigation. 

Such arrangements are made, that each class receives religious instruction from 
clergymen selected by the parents or guardians. If the teacher of the school 
wishes to communicate religious instruction, he gives public notice of the time and 
place, and the pupils can attend or not, according to the wishes of their parents, or 
their own. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 709 

DuNMANWAY Model Agricultural School. 

The Dunmanway Model Farm is situated in the county of Cork, and 
consists of twelve acres. The following extracts, taken from the Third 
Annual Report of Frederic W. Connor, head master of the school, 
shows its condition in 1852. 

The confidence placed b)' the public in the institution has not diminished. It 
has had a great increase of visitors. In the attendance of the pupils, an increase 
of 70 per cent, has taken place from among the various classes of society ; a 
greater number are still anxious to be admitted, but accommodation can not be 
found for their instruction. 

Agricultural Instruction, both of a scientific and practical nature, has been 
imparted regularly to the pupils during the past year, on the days a{)pointed for 
giving such. There are very few subjects bearing upon agricultural economy, 
that have not been brought before their notice. Agricultural instruction is given 
in the morning, from a quarter past six to half-past eight o'clock ; in the evening 
from nine to half-past nine ; and every second week-day from half-past two till a 
quarter past tliree, P. M., or an average three hours daily. Information is com- 
municated by lectures, and the study of approved works on agriculture and manu- 
scripts prepared by myself accompanied in every case by searching examinations. 
The mode of instruction adopted has proved most satisfactor^y. The pupils take 
notes during the reading of the lecture ; these they immediately transcribe while 
the subject is yet fresh in the memory. Then subsequently exchange their man- 
uscripts, mutually correcting each other's errors, (including those in spelling and 
composition,) after which I examine and classify their papers. Thus literary and 
agricultural instruction go hand in hand, and the agreeableness of the method 
forms no ordinarj' incentive to improvement. After my own examination of the 
class, which alternates with every lecture, I permit each pupil in his turn to ex- 
amine the class also ; at other times to read a lecture of his own composition. 
Again, I submit to the pupils a series of questions to be answered by them on 
paper — cause them monthly to write out essays on a given subject^ — and weekly 
discuss agricultural questions. As a proof of the interest evinced by them in the 
prosecution of their studies, I may be permitted to state, that many of them rose 
at three o'clock in the morning, during the summer, for the purpose of studying 
the subject of their lesson for that day. 

The Agricultural Boarders^ Class consists of four pupils, one of whom, being 
a free pupil, is supported gratuitously by the board. The want of accommodation 
prevents a greater number being admitted. The class continues to give every 
satisfaction. Since it was established five J'oung men have been advanced from it 
to the Glasnevin Model Farm. The selection of members for this class is gen- 
erally confined to the neighboring farmers' sons — the preference being given to 
those pi-eviously educated at a normal school. 

The Pupil- Teachers' Class continues to work well. 

The Industrial Class, the members of which are selected from the agricultu- 
ral class, aflx)rds great satisfoction by the order and good conduct of its members, 
and the efheient manner in which they perform their duties. 

The Agricultural Class consists on an average of 37 pupils, the highest num- 
ber we can conveniently find room for. The pupils composing this class are se- 
lected from the advanced classes of the school, who in conjunction with the agri- 
cultural boarders and pupil-teachers, receive agricultural instruction for the space 
of three-quarters of an hour every second week-day, and have also the privilege 
of attending the morning classes, where extra instruction is afforded. They are 
instructed in the leading principles of agi'icultural chemistry, geology, vegetable 
physiology, &c., and especially in those practical subjects bearing more directly 
upon their future employment. Of the 37 pupils composing the agricultural class, 
30 are the sons of farmers, holding from 20 to 200 acres of land respectively. 

The working pupils are required each to keep a journal of the various opera- 
tions going on on the farm, — the different periods at which crops are sown and 
harvested, — how managed, &c, — and many other remarks that will form a source 
of reUable information in after-life. Meteorological observations are also noted 



710 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 

down. They also take part in the preparation of the ground for the crops ; assist 
in the sowing, reaping, &c., of all crops ; in short, no operation is performed in 
which their assistance and attention is not so employed as to initiate them into a 
knowledge of those business habits required to fit them for the duties of afterlife. 
Permission is granted the pupils to assist their parents in sowing and managing 
their green crops ; and, in inquiring of their parents as to the assistance they re- 
ceive from the instruction of their children educated at this school, I was happy 
to find they are in the constant habit of exposing the errors of their fathers' and 
neighbors' husbandry, and contrateting the system pursued by them with that car- 
ried out on the Model Farm. 

Since the institution of the agricultural class, 12 young men have been ap- 
pointed out of it as Teachers of National Schools, and eight are giving assistance 
on their fathers' farms. 

These young men may be looked upon as so many practical instructors, who, 
feeling a zealous interest in the objects of their professions, will, in their inter- 
course with the neighboring farmers, be the means of materially improving the 
intelligence and industry of the district. 

Workhouse Agricultural Schools. 
One of the most interesting features of the present educational move- 
ment, both in England and Ireland, is the successful introduction of in- 
dustrial training for pauper children into workhouses. Tliere were 
seventeen workhouse schools in Ireland to which agricultural depart- 
ments were annexed in 1852. Respecting the operation of these depart- 
ments in the county of Antrim, Mr. Senior, one of the poor law com- 
missioners, says : 

" Each year shows an increased demand for the workhouse boys by the far- 
mers ; the age, therefore, at which the boy leaves the workhouse becomes a very 
early one ; it probably now averages ten years. Each year also shows increased 
good behavior on the part of the boys, who may, perhaps, be termed apprentices." 

Dr. Kirkpatrick in view of another year's experience adds : " Every 
year's experience convinces me more forcibly of the neces.«ity of a gen- 
eral and efficient system of industrial training for pauper children, and I 
am happy to find that this opinion is steadily gaining ground bbth here 
and in the sister country. The facts previously stated bear me out in 
this assertion with respect to this country, and the following extracts, 
which I take leave to quote from a Parlimentary docviment, will show 
its progress in England, and may be useful in other respects." 

Mr. Doyle, one of the poor law inspectors, m his Report, thus speaks of the pro- 
gress of industrial e;lucation for pauper boys, and of the success which has attended 
it wherever introduced : 

" The guardians of almost every union in this district in which there are upon 
an average a sufficient number of boys of an age capable of industrial occupation, 
either have already provided, or have determined to provide the means for their 
imlustrial training. The unions of this district being almost exclusively agricul- 
tural, the means of industrial training for boys consist chiefly in the cultivation of 
a few acres of land by spade husbandry. In those unions in vihich this system 
can be said to be fairly in operation, it has already been productive of much benefit, 
and it will be seen by the detailed accounts furnished from some of them that this 
mode of educating the children in habits of industry is attended with considerable 
profit to the guardians." 

The master of the Wrexham union workhouse, in a communication addressed 
by him to Mr. Doyle, after describing the lamentable state of things that existed 
among the youthful inmates previous to the adoption of a system of industrial 
training, thus proceeds : 

" It is these, and such like facts, which have impelled this board of guardians 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. ^U 

to adopt some plan, if possible, to put a stop to these evils ; and hence, in 1848 an 
acre of potato land was taken as a trial, to be cultivated chiefly by the boys. The 
success of the experiment was so sat.sfactor\' that the board was induced to rent, 
as a permanent appendage to the workhouse, a field of four acres, in which the 
schoolmaster in the afternoon of each working day trains the boys in spade hus- 
bandry. The profits of the first two years were comparatively small, still they 
have enabled us to lay in a good stock of tools ; and besides, when taken together 
with the present year's profits, have realized in whole, in form of pauper labor, 
nearly £90. The statement now sent shows the result of our second year's ope- 
rations in our own field, and as the general intelligence as well as the muscular 
capacity of the children is becoming equal to their work, we may expect greater 
pecuniary results ; but at last the moral results likely to flow from our endeavors 
are the most pleasing ; the children are more easily managed than formerly, are 
more contented and generally happier, and perform their work in a pleasing and 
cheerful manner. They are, 1 trust, in connection with the inculcation of sound 
principles, having those principles trained into habits, which, while they will for- 
tify against temptation, give promise of enabling the children readily to adapt 
themselves to the sphere in life in which their lot is likely to be cast, and of ulti- 
mately becoming wholly independent of parochial relief. I have great pleasure in 
being able to add, that not one boy who has gone out to service since we began 
these operations has been returned on our hands, or is likely to be so.'' 

Mr. Everest, clerk of the Atcham Union, writes' to Mr. Doyle as 
follows : 

" That the children of the poor may be efficiently taught, and so far as human 
means may produce the object, made useful and honorable members of society in 
a union workhouse, is a fact that I have long had the pleasure of witnessing in the 
union in which I have served from its commencement, as well as in one in which 
I previously served in the south of England. To illustrate the subject, I will now 
set forth, in as condensed a form as I can, the principles and practice maintained 
in the union school during the fourteen years of its operation. At first the num- 
ber of children was small, the guardians feeling it desirable not to crowd their 
workhouse until time had afforded all parties concerned in its government a little 
practical experience therein. A school was at once established ; but as no quali- 
fied schoolmaster applied in answer to an advertisement for such an officer, the 
situation was taken by a person who, though deficient in mental acquirements for 
such an office, was a practical agriculturist, of good moral character, and entered 
on his duties with a determination to do all he could for the welfare of the chil- 
dren put under his care. The first step was that of making the school a place of 
moral as well as physical training, to which I attribute its great success. For this 
purpose every thing that transpired was, to the extent of his ability, made the sub- 
ject of some practical and familiar observations, enforced by such illustrations as^ 
became weighty by example. Industry was fi-oni the first a marked characteris- 
tic of the school, to inculcate which various indoor occupations were and still are 
practiced, such as knitting, netting, plaiting straw, &c., by which means it became 
a natural habit in the claildren to be doing something that was useful, so that 
when fatigued with heavier toils the child sat down to rest, it was, I had almost 
said, an instinctive feeling that led him to take his straws or needles in hand, and 
yet the gratification afforded when he found he had enough plait for a hat, and 
the ])leasure evinced when by himself or his companions it was so formed, proved 
that his mind had received a correct bias as to production by his own application, 
nor was there ever occasion to enforce this practice when once begun, as it became 
a source of pleasure to be so engaged ; but whenever we found a lazy boy it 
became the subject of a moral lecture, and as work was and still is held to be its 
own reward in our school, if a boy is found idle the punishment is simple, take 
him away from his work to look at the others busily employed, and so severe is 
this in almost every case, that I have scarcely ever known a boy remain half an 
hour without petitioning for liberty to go to work, and I have been equally pleased 
to see that others, instead of making any taunting remarks, have become petition- 
ers in behalf of their schoolfellow. 

" These may appear trifling incidents, but let guardians and officers try the plan, 



712 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 

and watch the issue in future service, and they will find, as I have done, that they 
are important facts ; and I notice them because for the want of seeing this import- 
ant fact at the outset, that the child is to be trained to the principle of being useful, 
so much of the other eiforts are vain. Another important point we have always 
aimed at has been to teach the child to do his work well, to do that work in the 
right way, and then to make him understand why that particular way is best, and 
this gives them additional interest in their work, while it tends to make them 
good workmen in after-life. Our chief mode of employment is on the land we 
cultivate by spade husbandry, a portion of which has, from the opening of the 
school, been cultivated exclusively by the boys." 

" Having stated the nature and practice of our school for fourteen years, it only 
remains to speak of its success. It has been said that the tendency of workhouse 
schools is to make perpetual paupers, and such statements are made, no doubt, in 
the full belief of their truth ; but I am happy to say that, so far as fourteen years 
may serve for the data of calculation, it is without a shadow of foundation here. 
Our children go to service, and I would rather refer inquiriers to their employers 
for their characters as servants, than speak of it myself. Suffice it to say that, 
with a very few exceptions, (and those of characters the most vicious and thor- 
oughly formed before they came to us,) and one or two cases of serious illness, they 
have not returned, except, as is frequently the case, to visit the school where they 
were trained in the habits of virtue and industry, and leave behind them some 
trifle, either in money or otherwise, to the school fund. If we trained them up as 
paupers, I think many of them bid fair to forget the place of their training before 
they return. Scarcely a child who has been taught in our school leaves it without 
those feelings of affection for their associates which indicate most clearly that the 
mind lias been cultivated, and the assistance they affiird in procuring situations for 
those they left behind proves the genuine character of their attachments ; but to 
return to the workhouse after going to service is felt to be a disgrace, and will, I 
hope, as it has hitherto done, prevent such a circumstance ever occurring except 
in cases that are unavoidable ; and in such cases I hope that a sense of rectitude 
and the love of virtue will seek such an asylum in preference to crime." 

Mr. Farnall, another of the poor law inspectors, states: 

" On reference to the tables, it will be seen that fifty acres of land, cultivated by 
514 boys, have yielded in a year a net profit of £335 7s. Id. ; there is, however, 
a far more valuable benefit acquired than that sum of money represents, for 
these boys have, in the acquirement of this pecuniary profit, been under training 
for manual labor ; have been instructed in the value of labor, and in the con- 
nection which must be maintained between labor and property ; have been made 
acquainted, to some extent at least, with the natural world ; have felt pleasure in 
the contemplation of their own work ; and have been trained, as far as practi- 
cable, to meet the difficulties and distresses which may beset them in their way 
through life." 



THE QUEEN'S COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITY 



IRELAND. 



The national school system in which secular instruction is kept free 
from whatever could offend the most susceptible sectarianism, had 
proved so successful in diffusing a sound elementary education among 
the children of the peasantry and the working classes of Ireland, that in 
1845 the plan was extended so as to provide, under government endow- 
ment, the means of obtaining a liberal and professional education for the 
sons of the middle and upper classes — available to persons of every de- 
nomination. This was done by the establishment of the Queen's Col- 
leges at Belfast, Cork, and Galway — now combined and incorporated 
into the dueen's University, the Senate or governing body of which is 
seated or holds its meetings at Dublin. 

The entire system of United Education has been built up by the co- 
operation of the two great parties in the State ; upon this high ground 
their only rivalry has been which should contribute most to the common 
work, and carry out most efficiently its great principle. To the Whig 
government of Lord Grey, belongs the honor of having first had the 
courage to proclaim and put in action that principle by the appointment 
of the first board of commissioners in 1831 ; the charter which estab- 
lished the schools upon a permanent basis, by constituting the commis- 
sioners a body corporate, was a measure of the Tory government of Sir 
Robert Peel, in 1844 ; on the other hand, the completion and crowning 
of the edifice by the addition of the colleges was the idea and enact- 
ment of Sir Robert Peel, and has been the achievement, for the greater 
part, of Lord John Russell. At the opening of the session of parlia- 
ment on the 4th of February, 1845, her Majesty, in the speech from the 
throne, recommended to the consideration of the legislature " the policy 
of improving and extending the opportunities for academical education 
in Ireland ;" and on the 19th of March thereafter, Sir Robert Peel, in 
reply to a question by Sir Robert Inglis, took an opportunity of laying 
before the House of Commons an outline of the ministerial plan, both 
for the establishment of the three new colleges of secular learning and 
general instruction, and for the endowment of the Roman Catholic The- 
ological College of Maynooth, which had been established by an act of 
the Irish Parliament in 1795, and had been hitherto dependent for its 
support only upon an annual grant of very inadequate amount. The 
two measures thus simultaneously announced and proposed, as in some 
degree connected with and dependent upon one another, were both car- 
ried through parliament in that same session. The Maynooth endow- 
ment, however, was made to take the lead, as if to intimate to the |;en- 



714 THE QUEEN'S COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITY IN IHii >. M». 

eral population of Ireland — to what may be more peculiarly called the 
nationality of the country — that its interests and feelings were what the 
whole scheme primarily had regard to. If the portion of it relating to 
the Roman Catholic theological seminary had been defeated, the other 
portion of it also would probably have been withdrawn. The May- 
nooth bill encountered a vehement opposition, but it was ultimately 
passed in both Houses by great majorities. Tiie measure for establish- 
ing three secular colleges in Ireland, wholly independent of religious 
tests or creeds, for the education of the middle classes, was brought for- 
ward in the commons by Sir James Graham on the 9th of May. In 
proposing the second reading of the bill on the 30th, Sir James an- 
nounced certain alterations which ministers were disposed to make in 
it. with the view of affording facililies for the theological instruction of 
the students by clergymen, or lecturers, appointed lor that purpose by 
the several denominations to which they might belong. On the 2d of 
June, an amendment moved by Lord John Manners for the postpone- 
ment of the second reading of the bill was negatived, by a majority of 
311 to 46. On the 30th, when it was in commitiee, a proposition from 
Lord John Russell for making the apparatus of theological instruction 
in the colleges a part of the establishment to be founded and upheld by 
the Slate, was rejected by a majority of 117 to 42. Finally, on the 10th 
of July the third reading of the bill was carried, against an amendment 
of Sir Robert Inglis. by a majority of 177 to 126. In the Lords it 
passed through all its stages without a division. 

By this act. entitled "An Act to enable her Majesty to endow new 
colleges, for the advancement of learning in Ireland," the sum of 
100000/. was assigned out of the consolidated fund for purchasing the 
sites, and erecting and furnishing the buildings, of the three colleges. 
Her Majesty and her successors were made visitors, with power to 
appoint, by sign manual, pensons to execute the office. The appoint- 
ment of the presidents, vice-presidents, and professors, was intrusted to 
the Crown, until parliament should otherwise determine. The commis- 
sioners of the treasury were empowered to issue annually a sum not 
exceeding 7.000/., for the payment of salaries, and other expenses in 
each college; it being moreover provided that reasonable fees might be 
exacted li"om the students. Lecture rooms were directed to be assigned 
for religious instruction; and it was enacted that no student should be 
allowed to attend any of the colleges unless he should reside with his 
parent or guardian, or some near relation, or with a tutor or master of 
a boarding-house licensed by the president, or in a hall founded and 
endowed for the reception of students. 

A president and vice-president for each college were soon after nomi- 
nated, and the erection of the buildings was begun. The other appoint- 
ments were made in August 1849. and the three colleges were opened in 
the end of October following. An additional sum of 12.000/. had shortly 
before been granted by parliament for providing them with libraries, 
philosophical instruments and some other requisites. 



THE QUEEN'S COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITY IN IRELAND. 715 

Originally, it was intended that the number of professors in each col- 
lege, exclusive of the president and vice-president, should not exceed 
twelve, and letters patent constituting them upon that basis were passed 
for each under the great seal of Ireland in December, 1845. Afterwards 
it was determined that the number should be augmented for the present 
to nineteen, but that it should not at any time exceed tJiirty. The vice- 
president, however, is also a professor. New letters patent embodying 
that extended scheme were granted in favor of each of the three col- 
leges in November, 1850. 

Under the existing constitution, then, the body politic and corporate 
of each college consists of a president, with a salary of 800/. and a 
house ; a vice-president, with a salary of 500/. and a house ; and pro- 
fessors of Greek. Latin, mathematics, history and English literature, 
logic and metaphysics, chemistry, natural philosophy, (each with a 
salary of 250/. ;) modern languages, natural history, mineralogy and 
geology, (each with a salary of200/. ;) English law, jurisprudence and 
political economy, civil engineering, and agriculture, (each with a salary 
of 150/. ;) the Celtic languages, the practice of surgery, the practice of 
medicine, materia medica, and midwifery, (each with a salary of 100/.) 
There are also attached to each college a registrar, (with a salary of 
200/.;) and a bursar and librarian, (each with a salary of 150/.) A sum 
of 300/. annually is allowed for the payment of porters and servants. 
The total annual expenditure lor salaries is, thus, (deducting 250/. for 
the professorship held by the vice-president,) 5,500/. 

The remaining 1 500/. of the annual charge on the consolidated fund 
is allocated ro the payment of sciiolarships and prizes. The scholarships 
to be awarded at the commencement of the session of 1850-51 at Bel- 
fast, are 48 of 24/. each to students of the faculty of arts; 4 of 20/. each 
to students of the faculty of medicine; 2 of 20/. each to students of the 
faculty of law; 2 of 20/. each to students of civil engineering; and 4 of 
15/. each to students of agriculture; the number being equally divided 
in all cases between students of the first and students of the second year. 
The scholarships are all held for one year only. 

The session in all colleges extends from the third Tuesday in October 
to the second Saturday in June, and is divided into three terms by re- 
cesses of a fortnight at Christmas and at Easter. The fees for each 
class vary from 1/. to 21, 10s. ; and there is besides a payment from each 
matriculated student to the bursar on behalf of the college of 3/. at the 
commencement of the first year, and 21. at the commencement of every 
subsequent year. 

It had been all along contemplated that matriculation and attendance 
at these colleges, as at similar institutions established by public author- 
ity in our own and other countries, should conduct to graduation both 
in arts and in every other faculty, except only that of divinity; and all 
the regulations and arrangements of the academic curiculum in each 
have been moulded upon that understanding. It was a question for a 
considerable time whether, with a view to the conferring of degrees and 



716 



THE QUEEN'S COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITY IN IRELAND. 



other purposes, each college should be erected into a distinct university, 
or the three constituted into one university. The latter plan has been 
adopted, undoubtedly to the placing of the new establishments in a 
greatly superior position to what they would have held if they had been 
left each to its provincial insulation; for it could never have happened 
that a mere Belfast, Cork, or Galway Degree would have carried the 
same weight with one from the Queen's University in Ireland. The 
letters patent creating such an university have now received the royal 
signature. Her Majesty has therein been pleased to declare that ''gra- 
duates of our said university shall be fully possessed of all such rights, 
. priviliges, and immunities as belong to persons holding similar degrees 
granted them by other universities, and shall be entitled to whatever 
rank and precedent is derived from similar degrees granted by other 
universities." The following individuals constituted the government in 
1851: 

Chancellor — His Excellency George William Frederick, Earl op Clarendon, K.G. 
K.C B. Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. 
Vice- Chancellor — The Rt. Hon. Maziere Brady, Lord High Chancellor of Ireland. 

The Senate. 



His Grace Richard. Archbishop of Dublin. 

The Most Reverend Archbishop Daniel Mur- 
ray. DD. 

The Right Honorable William, Earl of Rosse. 
K.P. 

The Right Honorable Thomas Baron Mont- 
eagle, of Brandon. 

The Riglit Honorable Francis Blackburne, 
Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench. 

The Right Honorable Thomas Berry Cusack 
Smith, Ma.<ter of the Rolls. 

The Right Honorable David Richard Pigot, 
Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer. 



The Right Honorable Thomas Wyse. 

Sir Pliillip Crampton, Bart. 

The President of the Queen's College, Bel- 
fast, for the time being. 

The President of the Queen's College, Cork, 
for the time being. 

The President of the Queen's College, Gal- 
way, for the time being. 

Richard (Jriffith. l.L. D. 

Dominic John Corrigan, M.D. 

Captain Thomas Askew Larcom, R.E. 

James Gibson, Esq., Barrister-at-Law. 

Secretary— Robert Ball, Esq., LL.D. 



Statutes, By-Laws, and Regulations. 

The Queen's University, founded by Royal Charter, 15th August, 1850, has its seat, and 
holds its meetings, in the Castle of Dublin, until further order, by warrant of the Lord-Lieu- 
tenant. 

The Chancellor and Senate are a corporation under the title of the Queen's University in 
Ireland ; may sue, and may be sued, as a commo-j seal, and acquire property not to exceed 
ten thousand pounds a year. 

The government of the University vests in the Chancellor and the Senate. The Chancellor 
presides over its meetings, and authenticates its acts. 

The Senate is formed of the three Presidents of the Queen's Colleges for the time being, 
and certain other persons appointed by warrant under the sign manual ; in all not to exceed 
twenty. The vice-presidents of colleges may exercise the functions of senators in the absence 
of their respective presidents. Five members of the Senate constitute a quorum, the chair- 
man having a casting vole. 

A vice-chancellor is to be elected annually by the Senate, and when his election is approved 
of by the Lord-Lieutenant, he is empowered to exercise all the functions of Chancellor in the 
absence of the latter. 

The Senate, In the absence of both Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor, may elect a chairman 
to conduct ordinary business. 

The Senate appoint a secretary and such subordinate officers as may be necessary for 
dispatch of business. 

The Senate have full power to make and alter by-laws and regulations; these being 
approved by the Lord-Lieutenant, and sealed with the common seal, become binding upon 
the University. 

In all cases not provided for by charter, the Chancellor and Senate shall act in such man- 
ner as may appear best culculated to promote the purposes intended by I he University. 

Meetings of the Senate shall be convened by the secretary or acting secretary, on the 
authority of the Chancellor ; or, in his absence, of the Vice-Chancellor, or of the chairman of 
a meeting of the Senate, elected as provided in the charier. 

There shall be stated meetings on the 7th of January and 20th of June, in each year, or on 
the following day, when either of these days shall fall on a Sunday. 

TheQueen's Colleges of Belfast, Cork, and Galway, are constituted Colleges of the Queen's 
University, and their professors are considered professors of the University. 

Tlie power of the Dniversity Senate over the Colleges extends only to the regulation of 
qualification for the several degrees. 

The Quee^i reserves to herself and successors the office of Visitor, with power to appoint 
others to execute the duties. 



THE QUEEN'S COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITY IN IRELAND. 7 J 7 

The Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor is required to report annually to the Lord-Lieutenant 
on the condition and proiiress of the University. 

Tlie Cliancellor and Senate have power to found and endow scholarships, prizes, or exhi- 
b tioiis, lor wlhch funds may be supplied by grant or donation, under sucli rejinlations as 
tlicy may tliink fit to make, not interfering with the courses prescribed for scholars of 
Queen's Colleges, or lor matriculation Iherein. 

The Queen's University is empowered to grant degrees in arts, medicine, or laws, to 
stuiitnts ill the Queen's Colleges who shall have completed the courses of education pre- 
scr.bed by the ordinances. Persons who obtain these degrees shall be [lossessed of all rights 
and privileges pertaining to similar degrees granted by other universities or colleges. 

The Chancellor and Senate have power to atlmit, by special grace, graduates of other uni- 
versities to similar and equal degrees in the Queen's University. 

All degrees shall be granted and conferred publicly in tlie hall of tlie University. 

At all meetings of the Senate to confer degrees, the members shall appear in the full robes 
they may be entitled to wear in respect of any degrees they may have obtained, or offices (hey 
may hold. Any member not possessed of a degree or office, to wear the gown of a master 
of arts. 

Candidates for degrees shall wear the costume of their collegiate standing, and the hoods 
of the degrees sought. 

Candidates being presented to the Senate by the presidents of their colleges, and the secre- 
tary having certified that their fees have been paid, and that they have duly passed the exam- 
iners, they shall sign the roll of the University, when the Chancellor (or Vice-ChanceUor) 
shall admit them to degrees in the following manner : 

In virtue of my authority as Chancellor (or Vice-ChanceUor) I admit you ( ) 

to the degree of ( ). 

The Chancellor (or Vice-ChanceUor) .shall then proceed to present publicly any exhibition 
or medal which may have been awarded. 

Examiners are expected to attend the public meeting of the Senate. 

The present courses of study required by the University are prescribed in the ordinances 
which were prepared by the presidents of the colleges, approved of by the Lord-Lieutenant, 
and adopted by the Senate at its first meetings. These ordinances remain in force until 
altered by the Senate : such alterations to be subject to tlie approval of the Lord-Lieutenant. 

The qualifications of candidates for degrees shall be examined into at a special meeting of 
the Senate. 

Each candidate is required to fill up, with his own hand, a certificate of his name, birth- 
place, age, and qualifications. 

All certificates of candidates to be sent to the secretary fourteen days before examination. 

The Senate will receive certificates of medical education for two-thirds of the required 
courses, from the professors of universities and chartered bodies, and from schools and hos- 
pitals, which have sought for and obtained the recognition of the Senate; but it is essential 
that one-third, at least, of the medical lectures prescribed in the course for the degree of M.D., 
be attended in some one of the Queen's Colleges. 

Examinations for degrees, and for scholarsh ps and prizes, shall be appointed and directed 
by the Senate, who shall elect examiners annually. 

In no case shall any member of the Senate, or any Vice-President of a college (liable to be 
called upon to fulfill the duties of a member,) be elected an examiner. 

The salaries of examiners shall commence from the next quarter-day after election. 

Examinations shall be by printed papers. 

Each examiner shall be present during the whole time that the candidates are engaged in 
writing answers to the papers set by him ; but if a paper be set by more than one examiner, 
the presence of one examiner shall be deemed sufBcient ; If, from unavoidable necessity, any 
examiner be unable to attend, the secretary shall be present. 

Every member of the Sfnate shall have the right of being present during examinations, but 
only the examiner specially appointed to conduct examinations shall have the right to put 
questions. 

No candidates shall be present except those under examination. 

The examiners shall rejiort to the Senate the result of their examination, and shall deliver 
in at the same time, in sealed packets, the answers to the examination papers of the classes 
which they have si verally examined. 

The amount of fees to be paid on the granting of degrees shall be directed from time to 
time by the Chancellor and Senate, with the approbation of the Lord's Commissioners of Her 
Majesty's Treasury. 

For the present, the fee on the degree of M.D. has been fixed at5i., and the fee on the diploma 
of agriculture, at 21. Fees on other degrees are not yet settled. 

The fees are to be carried to the general fund. 

Accounts of income and expenditure of the University shall once in each year be submitted 
to ttie treasury, subject to such audit as may be directed. 

The Hank of Ireland has been appointed treasurer. 

Payments shall be made by drafts signed by the Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor, counter- 
signed by the secretary. 

Although much clamor has been raised against the Glueen's Colleges, 
because, in the distracted state of Ireland in religious matters, the 
British Parliament has at last attempted to establish a plan of liberal 
education, the special purpose and profession of which is to communicate 
instruction in certain branches of human knowledge to classes whicb 
may be composed of young people belonging to various religious denom 



718 THE QUEEN'S COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITY IN IRELAND. 

inations, we believe there is no ground for alarm, or distrust, for the 
safety of the rehgious principles of the students who may resort to 
them. On the other hand, securities are provided, more protective and 
and conservative than exist in any other academic institution in the 
empire, which are open to other than students of one reUgious denom- 
ination. 

At the ancient national universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and 
Trinity College, Dublin, there are no arrangements which even recog- 
nize the existence of any form of religious belief but that of the Estab- 
lished Church; not only is the student who may hold any other creed 
(in so far as such dissenting students are admitted at all) left without 
any spiritiml superintendence whatever, but the entire system of teach- 
ing and di.-?cipiine i.s in the hands of members of the churcli established 
by law, and is regulated and administered in all respects in conformity 
with the doctrines and ritual of that church. Yet, Roman Catholics 
generally have long been in the habit of sending their sons without 
her^itation or scruple to the university of Dublin; freedom of admission 
to Oxford and Cambridge has always been one of the demands which 
Protestant dissenters have urged most clamorously; and no non-con- 
formist community has ever put forth an authoritative denunciation of 
either the demand or the practice. 

In the Scottish universities the professors are all by law members of 
the Presbyterian Established Church; any seasoning of theology, there- 
fore, that may insiiiuate itself into the lectures delivered by them, or 
their mode of teaching, must be Presbyterian ; it may be Presbyterian 
of the strongest and, to all but the disciples of Calvin and John Knox, 
of the most otfensive flavor. On the other hand, at least at Edinburg 
and Glasgow, there is no religious superintendence of the students 
whatever. So here is the extreme of rigor and exclusivencss, combined 
with the extreme of laxity and neglect. Yet these universities are 
attended by members of all communions; and certainly it is not the 
liberality of the system in giving free admission to all sects which any 
body of dissenters has ever made matter of complaint. 

In University College. London, there is the same freedom of admis- 
sion for students of all descriptions as at the Scotch colleges, with the 
same entire absence of reliyious superintendence as at Edinburg and 
Glasgow; and no religious test is applied to the professors anymore 
than to the students Many religious fathers of all denominations, nev- 
ertheless, have been accustomed ever since it was established to send 
their sons to be educated in all the great branches of human learning at 
University College. 

In the first place, every professor in these Irish colleges, upon enter- 
ing into office, signs a declaration promising and engaging that, in his 
lectures and examinations, and in the performance of all other duties 
connected with his chair, he will carefully abstain from teaching or ad- 
vancing any doctrine, or making any statement, either derogatory to 
the truths of revealed religion, or injurious or disrespectful to the relig- 



THE QUEEN'S COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITY IN IRELAND. 719 

ious convictions of any portion of his claps or audience. And it is en- 
acted, that, if he shall in any respect violate this engagement, he shall 
brt summoned before the College Council, where, upon sulficient evi- 
dence of his having so transgressed, he shall be formally warned and 
reprimanded by the president; and that, if he shall be guilty of a repe- 
tition of said or similar offense, the president shall forthwith suspend 
him from his functions, and take steps officially to recommend to the 
Crown his removal from office. The appointments of the professors are 
all held during the pleasure of the Crown. A triennial visitation of 
each college is ordained to be held during the college session by a 
Board of Visitors which has already been appointed by the Crown, and 
which comprises the heads of the Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and 
Roman Catholic churches in Ireland. 

But further, every student is actually subjected to an extent of relig- 
ious superintendence such as is enforced nowhere else, unless it be oulj'' 
at Oxibrd and Cambridge. No matriculated student under the age of 
twenty-one years is permitted to reside except with his parent or guard- 
ian, or with some relation or friend to whose care he shall have been 
committed by his parent or guardian, and who shall be approved of by 
the president of the college, or in a boarding-house licensed by the 
president upon a certificate, produced by the person keeping it, of moral 
and religious character from his clergyman or minister. The relation 
or friend to whose care a student is committed must in all cases formally 
accept the charge of his moral and religious conduct. Clergymen, each 
approved by the bishop, moderator, or constituted authorily of his 
church or religious denomination, are appointed by the Crown Deans 
of Residences, to have the moral care and spiritual charge of the 
students of their respective creeds residing in the licensed boaidiiig- 
houses; and it is provided that they shall have authorily to visit such 
board ing'houses for the purpose of affording religious instruction to such 
students, and shall also have power, with the concurrence of the presi- 
dent of the college, and of the authorities of their respective churches, 
"to make regulations for the due observance of the religious duties of 
such students, and for securing their regular attendance on divine wor- 
ship." Finally, at the head of the list of offenses in the statutes of 
each college for which it is enacted that any student shall be liable to 
expulsion, are the following: •' 1. Habitual neglect of attendance for 
divine worship at such church or chapel as shall be approved by his 
parents or guardians; 2. Habitual neglect of attendance on the relig- 
ious instruction provided for students of his church or denomination in 
the licensed boarding-house in which he may reside." 

The above account of ihe Q,ueen's University in Ireland is drawn up 
principally from an article in the Companion to British Almanac for 
1851, and from the London Educational Register for 1852. 



ENGLAND. 



We propose to introduce an account of several of the best training 
schools of England, the most efficient and hopeful agency now at work 
in the educational field, with a brief sketch of the histo%r of public 
schools in that country, drawn from various sources.* 

I. The earliest mention of a school in England, dates back to the per- 
manent introduction of Christianity ; and for many centuries afterwards, 
schools even of the most elementary character, were only found in con- 
nection with monasteries and cathedrals. Even these were mostly swept 
away by the Danish invasion, so that King Alfred, about the year 880, 
was obliged to invite learned prelates from abroad, — John of Saxony 
from Corbie, Asserof St. Davids, and Grimbald the provost of St. Omer, 
in Normandy, to establish schools for his own subjects, and especially 
such as were destined for the service of church and state. To the sup- 
port of these schools, and particularly the one connected with the mon- 
astery of Ethelingey, he set apart one-ninth of his revenue. To the 
centuries immediately following, we may trace the foundation of many 
existing educational establishments, by eminent prelates — to the " song 
scole" where poor boys were trained to chant, and the " lecture scole" 
where clerks were taught to read in the service of the church. Samp- 
son, Abbot of St. Edmunds, himself a poor boy, founded a school at 
Bury St. Edmunds for forty boys, in 1198. Langfranc and Anselm, 
archbishops of Canterbury, had both exercised the profession of teacher 
in the schools of their monasteries, and both established schools. Joffrid, 
Abbot of Croyland, procured teachers from Orleans where he was edu- 
cated, and established them at Cotenham in 1110, which is thought to 
be the origin of the university at Cambridge. William of Wykeham, 
Bishop of Winchester, to relieve poor scholars in their clerical education, 
and for the support and exaltation of the Christian faith, and the im- 
provement of the liberal arts, founded a college in 1382 at Oxford, and 
in 1387 at Winchester, as a nursery of the former. In schools thus 
established, the dignitaries of the church, while they trained up poor 
youth for the service o^ the altar, and made the clergy respected by 

* Companion to the British Almanac for 1847. Sir James Kay Shuttleworth's Public Edu- 
cation from 1846 to 1852. Low's Charities of London. 

46 



722 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLANTi 

their learning, in reality introduced a new power into society, to soften 
and control the influence of birth and wealth. Few of the laity could 
read, and the law which existed in England till within the last twenty 
years, by which the severity of the statutes against felony was modified 
by what was called '• benefit of clergy," shows how gradually the ability 
to read was extended beyond the religious orders. In early times, 
clergymen claimed the privilege of being exempt in certain cases from 
criminal punishment by secular judges. They appeared in clerical 
habits, and claimed the frivilegium clericale. At length the ability to 
read was of itself considered sufficient to establish the privilege, and all 
oflTenders who claimed their •' clergy" had to read a passage from the 
Psalms, which came to be humorously called " the neck verse." This 
was no merely theoretical privilege, for ihe ability to read, absurd as it 
may appear, saved an offender in the first instance from the full penalty 
of his crime. There is a curious case recorded in the Paston Letters, 
as happening in 1464. Thomas Gurney employed his man to slay •' my 
Lord of Norwich's cousin." They were both tried and convicted of the 
crime. Thomas Gurney pleaded his clergy, and was admitted to mercy 
as "clerk convict;" the less guilty servant, being unable to read, was 
hanged. But the rank of Thomas Gurney gave no assurance that he 
possessed any knowledge of letters. Some amongst the highest in rank 
affected to despise knowledge, especially when the invention of printing 
had rendered the ability to read more common than in the days of pre- 
cious manuscripts. Even as late as the first year of Edward VI. it was 
not only assumed that a peer of the realm might be convicted of felony, 
but that he might lack the ability to read, so as to claim benefit of 
clergy; for it is enacted that any Lord of the Parliament claiming the 
benefit of this act (1st of Edward VI. cap. 12.) ^^ though he can not 
read, without any burning in the hand, loss of inheritance, or corruption 
of his blood, shall be judged, deemed, taken, and used, for the first time 
only, to all intents, constructions, and purposes, as a clerk convict." 
That the nobility were unfitted, through ignorance, for the discharge of 
high offices in the State at the time of the reformation, is shown by a 
remarkable passage in Latimer's '• Sermon of the Plough," preached 
II 154S : ■• Why are not the noblemen and young gentlemen of Eng- 
and so brought up in knowledge of God, and in learning, that they may 

e able to execute offices in the common weal 1***1^ the nobility be 
ivell trained in godly learning, the people would follow the same train : 
pr truly such as the noblemen be, such will the people be. * * * 
Therefore for the love of God appoint teachers and schoolmasters, you 
.hat have charge of youth, and give the teachers stipends worthy their 
lains." Honest old Latimer thus demanded that '• the young gentle- 
nen" of England should be educated ; that the hundreds should be 

well brought up in learning and the knowledge of God," so that " they 
vould not, when they came to age, so much give themselves to other 
•anities." 
II. The suppression of the monasteries by Henry VIII., and the 



ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND (723 

diversion of the funds left by charitable persons for the education and 
support of the poor, was followed by the destruction of a large portion 
of the schools of the kingdom, for which a partial atonement was made 
by the endowment out of these funds of a class of schoolsj now known 
as grammar schools. That all the lands and buildings of the Catholic 
church were not thus appropriated, is evident from the following extract 
from a sermon preached by Thomas Lever, a master of St. John's Col- 
lege, Cambridge, before king Edward VI., in 1550: '"Your majesty 
hath given and received by act of Parliament, collfeges, chantries, and 
guilds, for many good considerations; and. especially, as appears in the 
same act, for erecting of grammar schools, to the education of youth in 
virtue and godliness, to the further augmenting of the universities, and 
better provision of the poor and needy. But now, many grammar 
schools, and much charitable provision for the poor, be taken, sold, and 
made away, to the great slander of you and your laws, to the utter dis- 
comfort of the poor, to the grievous offense of the peopte, to the most 
miserable drowning of youth in ignorance, and sore decay of the univer- 
sities." The same plain speaker accuses the rapacious courtiers with 
having applied the fiinds for the maintenance of learning to their own 
profit: ''Yea, and in the country many grammar schools, which be 
founded of a godly intent, to bring up poor men's sons. in learning and 
virtue, now be taken away by reason of a greedy covetousness of you, 
that were put in trust by God and tlie king to erect and make grammar 
schools in many places, and had neither commandment nor permission 
to take away the schoolmasters' livings in any place." And yet, accord- 
ing to Slrype, the ecclesiastical historian who quotes these passages, the 
creatures of the crown did not altogether succeed in their career of ra- 
pacity; for the " good king was so honest and just" as to apply the 
spoils of the religious houses and chantry lanfls, "in a considerable man- 
ner." to " pious ends." Twenty-one grammar schools are enumerated 
as thus founded by Edward VI. ; and several of these are still amongst 
the most flourishing institutions of the country. The example con- 
tinued to be followed during a century and a half; and many free gram- 
mar schools were established for the instruction of poor children in the 
learned languages. * * * From these often humble and unpretending 
edifices has issued a series of names illustrious in the annals of their 
country — a succession of men, often of obscure parentage and stinted 
means, who have justified the wisdom of the founders of grammar 
schools in providing education for those who would otherwise have been 
without it, and thus securing to the State the services of the best of her 
children. 

According to the digests of the reports made by the commissioners 
for inquiry into charities, presented to Parliament in 1842, the annual 
income of the grammar schools of England and Wales, amounted to 
152,047/. ; but some schools were exempted from the inquiry. 

About the time of the revolution the commercial classes, who had 
grown into wealth and consequent importance, began naturally to think 



724 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. » 

that schools in which nothing was taught but Latin and Greek were not 
altogether fitted for those who were destined to the Hfe of tratfic. Un- 
educated men who had pushed their way to fortune and honor gener- 
ously resolved to do something for their own class ; and thus we came 
to see in every town, not a free grammar school, but a free school, over 
whose gates was generally set up the effigy of a boy in blue or green, 
with an inscription betokening that by the last will of alderman A. B. 
this school had been founded for twenty poor boys, to be clothed, and 
taught reading, wfiting, and arithmetic. With a comparatively small 
population these free schools, were admirable beginnings of the educa- 
tion of the poorer classes. While the grammar schools were making 
divines and lawyers and physicians out of the sons of the professional 
classes and the wealthier tradesmen, the free schools were making clever 
handicraftsmen and thriving burgesses out of the sons of the mechanics 
and the laborers; and many a man who had been a charity-boy in his 
native town, when he had risen to competence, pointed with an honest 
pride to the institution which had made him what he was, and he drew 
his purse-strings to perpetuate for others the benefits which he had 
himself enjoyed. 

The annual income of the schools we have described, distinguished 
in the digests qf the commissioners as " Schools not Classical," is re- 
turned as 141,385Z. With the addition of 19,1 12Z. for general educational 
purposes, the total income of endowed charities for education in Eng- 
land and Wales is 312,545Z. 

Comparing all the returns, we may say in round numbers that the in- 
come of the endowed schools is 300,000/. ; the number of schools 4,000 ; 
and the number of scholars 150,000. 

The 300,000Z. thus derived from the rent of land, rent charges, funded 
securities, &c.. during thr&e centuries, has been the foundation upon 
which has been built up much of the sterling worth of the English 
character. One hundred and fifty thousand children have been receiv- 
ing, for a long series of years, — some the most liberal education, some 
the commoner rudiments of worldly knowledge, all of them religious 
instruction. 

They have kept alive the liberal studies which have nourished a race 
of divines, lawyers, physicians, statesmen, that may challenge compari- 
son with those of any nation. They have opened the gates of the 
higher employments to industry and talent unsupported by rank and 
riches. They have mitigated the inequalities of society. They have 
ploughed up the subsoil of poverty to make the surface earth stronger 
and richer. What the grammar schools have done for the higher and 
middle classes, the free schools have done for the lower in a diflferent 
measure. They were the prizes for the poor boy who had no ambition, 
perhaps no talent, for the struggles of the scholar ; they taught him 
what, amongst the wholly untaught, would give him a distinction and a 
preference in his worldly race, — and he was unenvied by the less fortu- 



ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 725 

nate, b^ause they knew that there was no absolute bar to their children 
and their kindred running the same course. 

III. With the beginning of the present century a new era in popular 
education in England commenced by the formation of voluntary asso- 
ciations to extend the blessings of knowledge, human and divine, to the 
great mass of the people. Prior to this, there had been individuals in 
advance of their age, who had advocated universal education. 

Sir Thomas More, in his " Utopia," professedly written to describe 
"the best state of a public weal," says, '• Though there be not many 
in every city which be exempt and discharged of all other labors, and 
appointed only to learning — that is to say, such in whom, even from 
their very childhood, they have perceived a singular towardness, a fine 
wit, and a mind apt to good learning — yet all in their childhood be in- 
structed in learning. And the better part of the people, both men and 
women, throughout all their whole life, do bestow in learning those spare 
hours which we said they have vacant from bodily labors.^' This is the 
condition to which the people of England are surely tending — the con- 
dition o[ elementary instruction for all children — the habit oi self-culture 
for all adults. 

In his celebrated " Wealth of Nations," first published in 1766, Adam 
Smith, advocating the instruction of almost "the whole body of the peo- 
ple" in •' the most essential parts of education," says, " The public can 
facilitate this acquisition by establishing in every parish or district a 
little school, where children may be taught for a reward so moderate, that 
even a common laborer may afford it ; the master being partly, but not 
wholly, paid by the public ; because if he were wholly, or even princi- 
pally paid by it, he would soon learn to neglect his business. In Scot- 
land, the establishment of such parish schools has taught almost the 
whole common people to read, and a very great proportion of them to 
write and account. In England, the establishment of charity schools 
has had an effect of the same kind, though not so universally, because 
the establishment is not so universal." This seed was altogether sown 
upon barren ground. The establishment of parochial schools, whichwould 
have taught the children of the laboring classes habits of foresight and 
independence, could not be thought of whilst the easier system was at 
hand to keep them in the condition of degraded pauperism. 

The state of education in England at the commencement of the pres- 
ent century, is described in ^ew words by Malthus. in his celebrated 
" Essay on Population," published in 1803 : " We have lavished im- 
mense sums on the poor, which we have every reason to think have 
constantly tended to aggravate their misery. But in their education, 
and in the circulation of those important political truths that most nearly 
concern them, which are perhaps the only means in our power of really 
raising their condition, and of making them happier men and more peace- 
able subjects, we have been miserably deficient. It is surely a great 
national disgrace, that the education of the lower classes of the people 
in England should be left merely to a few Sunday schools, supported by 



726 



ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 



a subscription from individuals, who can give to the course o|k instruc- 
tion in them any kind of bias whicii they please. And even the im- 
provement of Sunday sclioois (for, objectionable as they are in some 
points of view, and imperfect in all, I can not but consider them as an 
improvement) is of very late date." 

At the time when Malthus wrote this, Sunday schools had not been 
in efficient existence more than twenty years. The indefatigable 
founder of these valuable institutions, Mr. Raikes of Gloucester, wrote 
in his newspaper, in 1783, " Some of the clergy in ditferent parts of this 
country, bent upon attempting a reform among the children of the lower 
class, are establishing Sunday schools for rendering the Lord's Day sub- 
servient to the ends of instruction, wliich has hitiierto been prostituted 
to bad purposes." From the hour when Mr. Stock, the benevolent rector 
of St. John's, Gloucester, met Mr. Raikes at his own door, where they 
talked of the necessity of doing something to ameliorate the deplorable 
state of the poor children around them, the system of Sunday schools 
has gone on most surely and rapidly developing. In 1785, " the Society 
for the Support and Encouragementof Sunday schools;" and in 1803, the 
" Sunday School Union,''^ were established. We can overrate the posi- 
tive benefits which have been arrived from the extension, and unjust to 
depreciate the importance of these schools as part of a great system 
of national progress. There were in 1852, 2,000,000 scholars in 20,000 
schools. 

In the absence alike of any old parochial system of education, and of 
endowments for popular instruction worthy of mention, it is not surprising, 
however, that, thus sustained, the Sunday school, during the last half 
century, should have become a great institution in the manufacturing 
districts, where the old parochial system of religious ministration was 
equally defective. The feelings of employers, parents, and teachers, all 
united in the erection and support of the Sunday school ; not in most 
instances, without a high regard for its secular as well as religious uses, 
which is now however gradually giving way to a desire to make its 
duties more purely spiritual. The first step usually taken in further- 
ance of this dQsire, is to teach writing and arithmetic on two or three 
evenings of the week, instead of a part of the Sunday. The next step, 
seeing that the great majority of the children, especially in poor neigh- 
borhoods, are still occupied on the Sundays chiefly in learning the mere 
art of reading though the Scriptures and Scripture extracts are the text- 
books, is to endeavor by the establishment of public day schools within 
the same walls, or in the same neighborhoods, gradually to get the 
young prepared for a higher task on the Sunday, — that of possessing 
themselves more fully of the truths unfolded in the words Avhich they 
have elsewhere learned to decipher. The first step has generally been 
taken ; the second, but partially ; and yet with effects upon the Sunday 
school itself which will challenge the deepest feelings of gratitude, in 
observing the labors of the best Sunday schools of the manufacturing 
towns. 



ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 



727 



In 1807. Mr. Whitbread came forward in the House of Commons, to 
propose a plan for the '■ exakalion of the character of the laborer" by 
the establishment of parochial schools. On this occasion Mr. Whit- 
bread, said, " 1 can not help noticing to the house that this is a period 
particularly favorable lor the institution of a national system of educa- 
tion, because within a few years there has been discovered a plan for 
the instruction of youth which is now brought to a state of great per- 
fection, happily combining rules by which the object of learning must 
be infallibly attained with expedition and cheapness, and holding out 
the fairest prospect of utility to mankind." This plan was the Monito- 
rial SYSTEM, propounded nearly at the same time by Dr. Bell and Mr. 
Lancaster. Mr. Whitbread's proposal for parochial schools was hon- 
ored by no very favorable reception by the legislature of that day. It 
proposed as limited an amount of education as might have mitigated the 
jealousies even of those whose confidence in the stability of our institu- 
tions was founded upon the possibility of keeping the people in ignorance. 
It proposed that the poor children of each parish should receive two 
years' education, between the age of seven and fourteen. The advan- 
tages of education even of this limited kind were weighed in the money- 
balance and the moral-balance of the opinions of that day ; and some 
said that it was monstrous to think of taxing the occupiers of lands and 
houses in order that all the children of the country should be taught to 
read and write ; and some that it tended to give an education to the 
lower classes above their condition. Mr. Windham, came forward with 
the often repeated assertion, that " if the teachers of the good and the 
propagators of bad principles were to be candidates for the control of 
mankind, the latter would be likely to be too successful." Mr. Whit- 
bread's bill was of course laid on the shelf 

The origin of the monitorial system is attributed to Andrew Bell and 
Joseph Lancaster — by the friends of each, the latter founding the Brit- 
ish and Foreign School Society in 1805, and the latter, the National 
Society in 1811 — the origin of which is thus described by Sampson Low 
in his '• Charities of London." 

Whilst superintendent of the Military Orphan Asylum at Madras, in 
1791, Dr. Bell one day observed a boy belonging to a Malabar school 
writing in the sand ; thinking that method of writing very convenient, 
both as regards cheapness and facility, he introduced it in the school of 
the asylum, and as the usher refused to teach by that method, he em- 
ployed one of the cleverest boys to teach the rest. The experiment of 
teaching by a boy was so remarkably successful, that he extended it to 
the other branches of instruction, and soon organized the whole school 
under boy teachers, who were themselves instructed by the doctor. On 
his return to England, he published a report of the Madras Orphan Asy- 
lum, in which he particularly pointed out the new mode of school or- 
ganization, as far more efficient than the old. 

The publication took place in 1797, and in the following year Dr. Bell 
introduced the system into the school of St. Botolph's, Aldgate, London. 



728 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 

He afterwards introduced it at Kendal, and made attempts with small 
success to obtain its adoption in Edinburgh. Settling down soon after 
as rector of Swanage in Dorchester, he was secluded from the world for 
seven years; yet he retained his strong opinion of the value of the new 
system of education, and had the school at Swanage conducted on that 
system. 

In the meanwhile Joseph Lancaster, son of a Chelsea pensioner, in 
the Borough-road London, opened a school in his father's house, in the 
year 1798, at the early age of eighteen. He had been usher in schools, 
and being of an original, enterprising, and ardent character, he had 
himself made improvements in tuition. Dr. Bell's pamphlet having fal- 
len in his way, he adopted the Madras system with eagerness, making 
various alterations in its details. In the year 1802. he had brought his 
school into a very perfect state of organization, and found himself as 
well able to teach 250 boys with the aid of the senior boys as teachers, 
as before to teach 80. His enthusiasm and benevolence led him to con- 
ceive the practicability of bringing all the children of the poor under 
education by the new system, which was not only so attractive as to 
make learning a pleasure to the children, but was so cheap as exceed- 
ingly to facilitate the establishment and support of schools for great 
numbers of the poor. He published pamphlets recommending the plan, 
and in one of them ascribes the chief merit of the system to Dr. Bell, 
whom he afterwards visited at Swanage. His own school he made free, 
and obtained subscriptions from friends of education for its support. 
The Duke of Bedford, having been invited to visit it, became a warm 
and liberal patron of the system. Lancaster pushed his plan with the 
ceaseless energy of an enthusiast; nothing daunted or discouraged him; 
he asked subscriptions for new schools from every quarter ; and at 
length he was admitted to an interview with the king (at Weymouth 
in 1806.) Being charmed with what he heard of his large designs, the 
admirable order and efficiency of his schools, and also with the sim- 
plicity and overflowing benevolence of the man, his majesty subscribed 
£100 a year, the queen £50, and the princess £25 each, to the extension 
of the " Lancasterian system." The king also declared himself to be 
the patron of the society which was soon afterwards formed to promote 
education on this system. Such was the origin of the " British and 
Foreign School Society."* 

Dr. Bell's method thus publicly brought forward and advocated, in 
process of time was adopted in the Lambeth schools, by the Archbishop 
of Canterbury : and in the Royal Military School, by the Duke of York's 
authority ; numerous schools forthwith springing into existence upon 

* Originally designated " The Royal Lancasterian Institution for promoting (he Education 
of the Children of the Poor." In 1808, Lancaster resigning his affairs into the hands of trus- 
tees, it assumed more of the character of a public institution. Mr. Lancaster died in 1838, 
supported, in his latter days, solely by an annuity purchased for him by a few old and attached 
friends. Dr. Bell died in 1832, leaving the princely sum of jei20,000 for the encouragement 
of Uierature and the advancement of education. 



ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. ^29 

what is known to this day as the- Madras system ; the distinctive features 
between these and such as were founded by Lancaster's party, consist- 
ing in the extent to wliich the religious instruction should be mixed with 
the secular j the former, as a clergyman of the established church, advo- 
cating the inculcation of the truths of Christianity as held in the church 
articles and formularies; the latter, representing the dissenting interests, 
admitted the reception of the Bible as the foundation of all instruction, 
but without any note or comment. This still remains the essential dif- 
ference between the two societies and the schools conducted on their 
principles. In 1808, Dr. Bell endeavored to induce the government to 
take up his plans, and to establish " A National Board" of education, 
with schools placed under the management of the parochial clergy. In 
this he failed, but friends of the established church rallied round him, 
and, through their efforts and under the patronage of the bishop and 
clergy, the National Society was eventually formed in 1811. 

The earliest voluntary agency of popular education was "the Society 
for Promoting Christian Knowledge" founded in 1698, to aid in the es- 
tablishment of charity schools, and the publication and circulation at a 
low price of religious books. By 1750, the society had aided in the es- 
tablishment of sixteen hundred Church Charity Schools. From 1733, 
when the society began to report its annual issues of publication, to 
1840, it had distributed upwards of 94,000,000 millions of books and 
tracts. The annual returns for publication is about £55,000, and its in- 
come from dividends, contributions and legacies, about £33,000. 

The Religious Tract Society was instituted in 1799, for circulating re- 
ligious works of its own, in the British dominion and foreign countries, 
under the direction of a committee of churchmen and protestant dissen- 
ters. Its total distribution to March, 1849, was nearly 500,000,000 of 
copies of its publication. Its gross income is £60,000 per annum, of 
which £12,000 was derived from annual subscription. 

The first school established in Great Britain, exclusively for adults, 
was at Bala, a village in Merionethshire, in 1811, by Rev. T. Charles, 
minister of the place. This was so successful as to induce their estab- 
lishment in other places. In 1812, William Smith, aided by Stephen 
Prout, commenced a similar school in Bristol, which led to the establish- 
ment of the " Bristol Institution for instructing the adults to read the 
Holy Scriptures." In 1813 the object was extending to teaching writ- 
ing. In 1816, a similar society was founded in London. These schools 
were introduced into over thirty towns in the course of a few years. 

The first evening school was established in Bristol in 1806, by tlie 
" Benevolent Evenings School Society" to afford gratuitous instruction 
to the sons of the laboring poor, who from the nature of their circumstan- 
ces are obliged to work hard during the day for their subsistence. In- 
struction was confined to reading, writing, and arithmetic. Up to 1849, 
13,002 persons had been enrolled as members of the schools. 

Both adults and evening schools accomplished much good, and pre- 
pared the way for the gradual extension of the system of Mechanic 



730 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 

Institutes, into which they have been merged. Through their instruc- 
tions, upward.s of 30,000 of the poor of England. 180,000 of Wales, 
30.000 of Ireland, and a large number in the Highlands of Scotland, 
making an aggregate of over 250,000 adult persons were taught to read. 
In 1815 the first infant school* was established by James Buchanan 
at New Lanark, under the auspices of Robert Owen; and in 1819 at 
London, under the patronage of Mr. Brougham and Lord Lansdowne, 
and others ; and through the labors of one of the first teachers, Mr. 
Wilderspin, its methods were widely disseminated throughout the king- 
dom. These methods were greatly improved and more wisely applied 
in the model schools of the Home and Colonial Infant School Society, 
Ibunded in 1836.' The objects of the society are, 1. To qualify masters 
and ministers, by appropriate instruction and practice. 2. To visit and. 
examine .schools when required. 3. To circulate information, and pre- 
pare books and fixtures appropriate to these .schools. 

The history of the Mechanics'' Institution through all its phases of 
development, from the earliest young men's mutual improvement society 
established in London, in 1690, w{th encouragement of Defoe, Dr. 
Kidder, and others, under the name of " Society for the Reformation of 
Manners" — the Society for the Suppression of Vice — "the Reformation 
Society of Paisley" in 1787; the Sunday Society in 1789, the Cast Iron 
Philosophers in 1791, the first Artisans' Library in 1795, and the Bir- 
mingham Brotherly Society in 1796. all among the working classes of 
Birmingham ; — the popular scientific lectures of Dr. John Anderson, to 
tradesmen and mechanics in Glasgow, in 1793 — the establishment of the 
Anderson's University at that place in 1796, and the Incorporation into 
it of a gratuitous course of elementary philosophical lectures by Dr. 
Birbeck in 1799, for the benefit of mechanics. — the Edinburgh School 
of Arts in 1821, the Glasgow Mechanics' Institute, the Liverpool Me- 
chanics' and Apprentices' Library, and the London Mechanic Institution 
in 1823 — which from this date, through the labors of Dr. Birbeck, Mr. 
Brougham and otl:)^|prs, spread rapidly all over the kingdom until there 
are nOw over 700 societies scattered through every considerable village, 
especially every manufacturing district in the kingdom, numbering in 
1849, 120,000 members, 408 reading-rooms, and 815,000 volumes — con- 
stitute one of the most interesting chapters in the educational or social 
history of Great Britain. They have created a demand for a system 
of national education, which found its first expression in Parliament in 
1833, in a grant of £20,000, on motion of Lord Althorpe. 

In 1825, as one of the direct results of the extended and growing in- 



* The founder of infant schools was J. F. Oberlin, Pastor of Waldbach in the Ban de la 
Roche, In the north- eastern section of France, who in his educational reform in his parish ap- 
pointed females, (paid at his own expense,) to gather the poor children between the ages of 
2 and 6 years, and instruct and interest them by pictures, maps, and conversation, and to 
teach tnem to read, knit, and sew. In Germany there is now a class of schools called Krib- 
ben — or Cradle — and Garden Schools where literally infant children, whose mothers are 
obliged to go out to work by day, are received and properly cared for and instructed during 
their absence. 



ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 73]^ 

terest in mechanic institutions and popular libraries, the " Society for the 
Diffusion of Useful Knowledge" was formed, which commenced immedi- 
ately a series of cheap and useful publications in a great variety of 
subjects, and thus lead the way to a new era in English literature— the 
preparation of books adapted in subject and mode of treatment, as well 
as in price, to the circumstances of the great mass of the people. In 
1831, this society commenced a quarterly journal of education, which 
was discontinued in 1836, at the close of the tenth volume. In 1836, two 
volumes of essays on education, several of them delivered as lectures 
before the American Institute of Instruction, was published by this 
society. These twelve volumes, and the four volumes* published by 
the Central Society of Education, composed of several ot' the most active 
and liberal-minded members of the former society, contributed a large 
mass of valuable information as to the organization, administration, and 
instruction of public schools in different countries, and prepared the way, 
in 1839, for the appointment of the Committee of Privy Council on Educa- 
tion. Before noticing briefly the action of Parliament, and the meas- 
ures of this government committee, we will conclude our sketch of the 
voluntary agencies in behalf of popular education. 

Among the most important agencies now at work in Great Britain, 
are the Industrial, Raggedf and Reform Schools, designed for pauper, 
neglected, and criminal children. 

Ragged schools in London had their origin in the operations of the 
London City Mission — the first school being founded in 1S37, in West- 
minster, by Mr. V\ alker, an agent of that society. Its success led to 
the establishment of similar schools in the most debased and debasing 
streets of the metropolis, and gathered in mendicant and ragged chil- 
dren, already sunk in ignorance and vice, and unfit to mix with the 
scholars of an ordinary school. In 1844, the Ragged School Union was 
formed to encourage and assist those who teach in this class of schools, 
and to suggest plans for their extension and more efficient management. 
In 1852, the union embraced 60 schools with 13,000 children, and had an 
income from subscription and contributions of about 814.000, in addition 
to the sums contributed in each locality for its own schools. 

The most systematic and successful enterprise of this class was insti- 
tuted and carried out by William Watson, Sheriff-substitute of Aber- 
deenshire in Scotland, who organized, in 1841, a system of industrial 
schools which embraced in its operations all classes of idle vagrant chil- 

* The fourth volume entitled the Educator, cousisted of the prize essay, written by John 
Lalor, " On the necessity and means of elevating the social condition of ttie Educator," and 
other essays by .lames Sampson, Rev. E. Higginson, and others. 

t The first Ragged School was instituted by John Pounds, a poor cripple in Portsmouth, 
who, while pursuing his vocation as a shoemaker in a vicious neighborhood near the dock- 
yards in that town, gathered into a school in his shoj), such outcasts as he could by kind 
word, and needful food, until before his death in 1839, he had instructed over five hundred 
children wlio would otherwise have grown up in ignorance, and led lives of vice and crime. 
He died leaving — 

For epitaph, a life well spent, 
And mankind, for a monument. 



732 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 

dren, and cleared a large town and county of juvenile criminals and beg- 
gars — lliereby establishing an enviable reputation as a wise political 
economist, an efficient magistrate, and a practical benefactor of his 
country and race. His plan, whiuh was developed gradually, embraced, 
first, gratuitous education. This succeeded only partially. He next, 
held out, three substantial meals a day, and four hours of useful but 
selt-imposed occupation. This was a stronger inducement; but all the 
vagrant children did not come. Then, under the police act, all street 
begging was prohibited, and all found begging were sent to the indus- 
trial school lor food, insi ruction, and work. And to reform those who 
still gained their bread by thieving, a child's asylum was founded, to which 
these young criminals were sent to school, or be taught useful knowledge 
and a trade, instead of to a prison. By these various agencies, street 
vagrancy and juvenile crimes has been annihilated. Some of the fea- 
tures of this system have been tried in all of the large towns in the 
kingdom, and with great success ; and the success has been greater or 
less, as the plan adopted embraced more or less of the Aberdeen system. 
The whole number of ragged schools in the kingdom in 1852, was about 
180, with about 20,000 pupils ; of these about 4,000 attend industrial 
classes. 

The first reform school was instituted by the Philanthropic Society, 
in 1788, for criminal and vagrant children in London, which was re- 
moved in 1848-9, to Redhill, near Reigate, and farm labor substituted 
for industrial training in shops. More than 3,000 boys have been ad- 
mitted, of which number over two-thirds were reclaimed from criminal 
and vicious habits, and permanently improved. Similar schools have 
been from time to time formed by other societies with the same object 
in view, for particular sections of the country ; the most succe.ssful of 
which, are the Refuge for the Destitute at Hoxton, and the Warwick 
County Asylum at Stratton. 

The system of discipline and instruction adopted in these professedly 
reform schools, has been introduced into county gaols, and houses of 
correction, and with good results, especially into the County House of 
Correction at Preston, of which Rev. John Clay has been chaplain for 
many years. The success of these schools aqd methods of instruction, 
and the enormous increase of juvenile delinquencies in the large towns 
of England, induced Parliament in 1836, to make provision for the es- 
tablishment of a governmental institution for young criminals at Park- 
hurst, in the Isle of Wight, which was opened in 1839. Although the 
system of discipline adopted, partook too much of that of a prison, and 
the industrial training was confined almost exclusively to shop labor, in 
which large numbers were employed together on the silent system, and 
the reformatory results were not, in consequence, so satisfactory as in in- 
stitutions conducted on the Family and Farm School plan at Mettray, in 
France, and other places on the continent, still enough has been done, 
to awaken a desire and determination to extend and improve all existing 
means, not only of reforming, but of preventing the growth o(^ juvenile 



ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND 1733 

destitution and crime. Committees of Parliament, and conferences of 
those interested, have taken the subject into serious consideration, and 
there is now reasonable ground to believe that efficient steps will be 
taken to improve the physical condition and homes of the poor gener- 
ally, to establish infant and elementary schools in the " infested districts" 
of large towns, to infuse the industrial and religious element into ele- 
mentary schools for all classes, and above all to infuse the law of kind- 
ness, and restore the affections and relations of the family among those 
in whom, by the accident of birth, these affections and relations have been 
extinguished or perverted. 

Schools of the same general character under the name of Schools 
of Industry, not only for vagrant children, and in connection with pris- 
ons for juvenile ofl'enders, but for children of the poor and laboring 
classes generally, had been previously established. One of the earliest 
was instituted by Mr. Joseph Allen, in Linfield, and another at Ealing 
Grove, by Lady Byron, in which the regular occupation of the pupils in 
shop, garden, and farm labor, is found to be both economical, and highly 
conducive to their intellectual and moral culture. 

In 1840, the Poor Law Commissioners, reported the extraordinary 
fact that there were 64,570 children in the workhouses of England, under 
16 years of age, and 58,835 between the ages of 2 and 16. These chil- 
dren were chiefly orphans, illigitimate, or deserted, or the childern of 
persons physically or mentally incapable to discharge the duties of guar- 
dianship. From the wretched system of providing for the education and 
industrial habits of this class of children, it was ascertained by inquiries 
conducted by Mr. Hickson, into the previous history of the inmates of gaols, 
that both crime and pauperism recruited their ranks to a large extent from 
the workhouses. Mr. Hickson urged the immediate establishment of 
District Industrial Schools ibr workhouse children, and of wholly sepa- 
rating them from the contaminating influence of adult pauperism. The 
experiment was commenced at Norwood, in 1836, by Mr. Aubin, with 
over 1,000 children of all ages under fifteen, and was continued and per- 
fected by him. under the superintendence of Dr. Kay, the assistant Poor 
Law Commissioner for the Metropolitan District. The success of the 
enterprise was such as to induce Parliament in 1846, to provide for the 
formation of school districts or Parochial Unions, within which all the 
pauper children should be collected into district schools, to be trained to 
industrious habits, and instructed in such useful knoAvIedge as is suita- 
ble to their condition. To carry out this plan, the sum of £30,000 
($150,000) was voted in 1847, for the salaries of schoolmasters in these 
schools, and the government has since erected a Normal School,* at 
Twickenham, twelve miles out of London, for the special purpose of 
training teachers for workhouse and reform schools, at an expense of 
over £41,000 ($200,000.) The good influence of these improved schools 
is already felt, and that influence will be increased as soon as better 

* For a description of Kneller-Hall Training School, see page 791, et. seq. 



734 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND 

trained teachers are introduced into all the workhouse, district, and 
reform schools of the-liingdom. There are now over five hundred work- 
house, and district schools under the charge of the Poor Law Coramis- 
sioners in which there are nearly one thousand teachers employed. 

The beneficial results of introducing drawing into the evening classes, 
and day schools of the Mechanic Institutions and the acknowledged 
dependence of English manufactures in ornamental work on the taste 
and invention of neighboring countries in consequence of the special ed- 
ucation provided by the government of these countries, for all who ob- 
tain employment in the various branches of artistic manufacture — in- 
duced the government to establish, in 1837, Schools of Design — a central 
school at Somerset House in London, and provincial schools in several 
of the principal manufacturing towns ; and an annual grant of about 
$30,000 was made" towards their support. The government in 1852, 
extended its plan so as to aid in giving elementary instruction in the 
arts of drawing and modeling, in any class or grade of educational in- 
stitutions, which will conform to the regulations of the Board of Trade, 
by whom the parliamentary grant is expended. 

In 1847, the '• Lancashire Public School Association," was formed at 
Manchester, and promulgated a plan for establishing schools for the 
county upon the basis of local representation and taxation, and non-inter- 
ference with religious instruction. The objects of the association were 
'set forth in public addresses, pamphlets, and newspapers, until the 
local agitation expanded into a national movement. A conference was 
held at Manchester on the 30th October, 1851. at which over 2,000 
persons, many of them delegates from different parts of the kingdom, 
were present when it was agreed to convert the Lancashire Society into 
a " National Public School Association, to promote the establishment, 
by law, in England and Wales, of a system of free schools, which, sup- 
ported by local rates,* and managed by local committees, especially 
elected for that purpose by the rate-payers, shall impart secular instruc- 
tion only ; leaving to parents, guardians, and religious teachers, the in- 
culcation of doctrinal religion, to afford opportunities forAvhich, it is pro- 
posed that the schools shall be closed at stated times in each week." 
Both the county and national association have been instrumental in 
bringing before the public mind of England the right and duty of taxa- 
tion, by the people themselves, for the support of a system of public edu 
cation, and of subjecting schools established under authority of law, and 
aided by parliamentary grant, or local taxation, to the management of 
such officers as the people may elect, whether of the clergy or laity. 

* At this meeting a letter was read from Edward Lombe, Esq., the owner of an estate ot 
15,000 acres in the neighborhood of Norwich, transmitting a draft for jE500 ($2,500) " in aid of 
the objects of the association — the protestant right of private-judgment in matters of religion, 
and the old Saxon right of local representation — 

The holiest cause of pen or sword, 
That mortal ever lost or gained." 



ELEMENTARY EDli CATION IN ENGLAND. 735 

The principles asserted by the association will be embodied in the report 
of a select committee of the House of Commons appointed to consider a 
bill to promote education in Manchester and Sallbrd. The bill on 
which the committee was raised, was not introduced by the association, 
but as a substitute for it, by parties which are in favor of extending 
and improving the plan of governmental aid and inspection to schools 
in connection with religious communions now in operation. 

IV. The first movement in parliament toward a system of national 
education, was made in 1807, by Mr. Whitbread who introduced a bill 
into the House of Commons to establish a school in each parish for poor 
children, between the ages of seven and fourteen. The bill met with no 
favor. 

On the 21st of May, 1816; Mr. (now Lord) Brougham, a member of 
Winchelsea moved for the appointment of a select committee of the House 
of Commons "to inquire into the state of education of the lower orders 
of the metropolis," and to consider what may be fit to be done with re- 
spect to the children of paupers who shall be found begging in the 
streets, or whose parents have not sent such children to any of the 
schools provided for the education of the poor. Mr. Brougham had 
already taken an active interest in the educational movements of the 
day. So early as 1808, he had assisted in extending the institution of 
Mr. Lancaster, and in organizing the British and Foreign School 
Society, and had contributed two very able articles to the Edinburgh 
Review in 1810, and 1812, on the education of the poor, and in vindication 
of the methods of Lancaster, and the plan on which that society was 
proceeding in establishing schools without any religious test. He en- 
tered on the business of the committee with so much zeal and industry 
as to be able to submit a report on the 19th of June, which was followed 
by four additional reports — by which^a flood of hght was thrown on the 
educational destitution of the metropolis, on the inefficient manner in 
which many public schools were conducted, and the misapplications of 
funds destined to education. In 1818, the committee was revived with 
more extensive powers, which enabled it to inquire into the education of 
" the lower orders" through the whole of England and Scotland, and by 
construction, into educational charities generally, including the universi- 
ties and great public schools. This committee addressed circulars to 
every parish in England, Scotland, and Wales, by which materials 
were collected for a statistical exhibit, filling three folio volumes, of the 
state of education in the whole kingdom. The labors of this committee 
were closed by presenting a plan for national education, countenanced 
and supported by the State, in which an attempt was made to accomo- 
date the new system to the existing order of things, so as to improve 
and confirm schools already established, and harmonize the administra- 
tion of .schools composed of children of all denominations with a con- 
ceded deference to the authority of the church of England. The bills 
embodying this plan were introduced in 1820, and were lost between the 
conflicting jealousies, selfishness, and hatred of ecclesiastical authorities, 



730 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 

and professing religious communions — and the whole subject was post- 
poned for nearly fifteen years before its consideration was again re- 
sumed in the English parliament. 

Mr. Brougham was more immediately successful in his attempts to 
induce parliament to turn its attention to the abuses of educational chari- 
ties. The reports of the committee appointed in 1816 and 1818, had 
brought to light a great body of curious and interesting information re- 
specting the state and conduct of many schools founded by charitable 
persons in and near the metropolis. At the close of the session in 1818. 
he brought in a bill for the appointment of a commission to inquire 
into charities in England for the education of the poor. The disclosures 
of the committees on education had excited a public jealousy, which no 
device of persons interested in maintaining venerable abuses, could lull 
or elude ; and although the field of inquiry was at first narrowed down 
to a particular class of endowments, a commission was appointed, 
which has been continued, enlarged, and renewed, until their reports fill 
thirty folio volumes, and cover 28.840 charities ; and the work is not yet 
done. The total value of these charities reported on, is estimated at 
£75,000,000, and the annual income at £1,209,395. By the publicity 
already given to the management of these charities, the income has 
been increased, and it is calculated that by the improved system of ad- 
ministration, this income can, be raised to £4,000,000 — or ^20,000,000, 
a large portion of which, dan by act of parliament, without any violence 
to the will, but in the spirit of the original devises, be appropriated to 
promote the education of the people. 

The year 18.33 was signalized by an Education, Inquiry, undertaken 
on motion of Lord Kerrj', into the existing means of education for the 
poorer classes ; and an annual grant* of £20,000, voted by the House of 
Commons on motion of Lord Althorpe, for the building of school-houses in 
England and Wales, under the direction of the Lords of the treasury. 
This sura was applied by the treasury in aid of private subscriptions for 
the erection of schools for the education of poor children, in connection 
with the National Society, and the British and Foreign School Society. 

In 1834, a select committee was appointed by the Commons " to 
make inquiries into the present state of education in England and Wales, 
and into the application and effects of the grant made in the last session 
for the erection of school-houses, and to consider the expediency of fur- 
ther grants in aid of education." This committee reported the minutes 
of evidence taken before them, respecting schools in connection with the 
two great societies, and the school system of Prussia, Ireland, Scotland, 
France, together with the views of distinguished educationists, such as 
Lord Brougham, Dr. Julius, Prof Pillans, and others. 

In 1835 Lord Brougham brought the subject of national education 
before the House of Lords, by moving a series of resolutions, which 

* A similar grant of JEIO.OOO was voted for the same purpose in Scotland. A grant of 
JE4,328 had been previously made (in 1831) to the Commissioners of National Education in 
Ireland, which has been gradually increased to the sum of j6125.000, in 1851. 



ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. tj^tj 

contemplated among other things the encouragement of infant Bchools, 
the establishment of seminaries, where good teachers might be trained, 
and the appointment of a board of commissioners, to estabhsh and su- 
perintend the teachers' seminaries, and the just application of the funds 
voted by parliament for the promotion of education, and for the protec- 
tion of all charitable trusts for the same purpose. The resolutions were 
read and ably advocated by the mover, but no action was had respecting 
them. During this year the sum of £10.000 was voted by parliament 
toward the erection of normal, or model schools. 

In 1836, Lord Brougham brought two bills before the House of Lords, 
and renewed the same in 1837, embodying the principles set forth in his 
resolutions of 1835. and providing in addition for a local school commit- 
tee, to be appointed by the town council in corporate towns, and the 
voters of the agricultural districts, as well as the imposition of a tax on 
property by the rate payers. These bills were fully explained and the 
reasons for their adoption eloquently urged, both in 1837, and in 1838, 
but without success. 

This defeat of his favorite measure, was followed soon after by a pub- 
lished letter to the Duke of Bedford, in which Lord Brougham urges on 
the friends of an independent system of national education, to unite in 
support of the measures which the government would soon propose — 
by which aid would be extended to schools supported by religious de- 
nominations, as the only practicable scheme which there was any 
chance of carrying, 

" For the first time we have had the attention of parliament fully di- 
rected to the subject of education ; attracted, no doubt, by other motives 
than the mere zeal for popular improvement, led by sectarian animosity, 
whetted by factious rage, yet still pointed, for whatever reason, to this 
great question, which, as it never before had obtained any share of par- 
liamentary favor, so. I presume to think, never henceforth can, with its 
prodigious intrinsic merits, cease to occupy the Legislature, for its own 
sake, until it is finally and satisfactorily di^osed of by some great na- 
tional measure becoming the law of the land. It is thus that the wis- 
dom of an overruling Providence, bringing general good out of partial 
evil, orders so as some superficial irritation, some flying ache, shall ex- 
cite our attention to the deep-seated mischief that is preying upon our 
vitals, lead us to probe its hidden source, and enable us to apply the 
needful remedy, long after the superficial feeling that first gave us the 
warning shall have been passed away and been forgotten. The igno- 
rance of the people, the origin of all the worst ills that prey upon our 
social system, has become at length the object of Legislative regard ; 
and I defy the constituted authorities of this free country to delay much 
longer in applying the appropriate cure, by eradicating a disease, as 
easily cured as it is fatal if neglected. 

For do not let it be imagined that ignorenee is as harmless now as it was before 
any men were well informed, or any were misled by half knowledge, and set on to 
mislead others ; in times when, without any change, " one generation passed away 

47 



Y38 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 

and another came up," but the established order of things under which the earth 
was ruled, seemed as if it abode for ever ; when " France before the ark adored 
and slept." Even in those peaceful days we were taught to believe " that the soul 
be without knowledge, it is not good." But in our own times, to leave the peo- 
ple uninformed, or half informed, is to leave the edifice of our social system rest- 
ing upon a quicksand, if its foundation be not rather like the sides of a volcano. 
Should there, however, be any that deem such apprehensions chinierical, I will 
come to a very practical view of the matter. I am not inquiring how far the hap- 
piness of a rational creature can be secured even in this world, without drawing 
away his mind from the contemplation of sensual objects, winning over his affec- 
tions from the taste for gross and groveling indulgence. On that subject, indeed, I 
have no kind of doubt ; but let us come to the more common-place topic of the 
Gaol Roll, the Assize Calendar. 1 pretend to prove that, without waiting for the 
comparative!}' slow progress of general improvement by the operation of knowl- 
edge universally diffused, six or seven years would not elapse before every prison, 
and every circuit, and every sessions in the country felt the blessed effects of infant 
schools, if the State did its duty, and took that etitr-etual, that only effectual mode 
of preventing crime, instead of vainly trusting to the Gibbet, the Convict ship, 
and the Hulks, for deterring by the force of example, — that feeble, because misap- 
plied force, which operates only on the mind at a moment when the passions arc 
still, and has no more power to quell their tempest, than the rudder has to guide 
the ship through a hurricane which has torn every sail to rags. If Infant Schools 
were planted for the training of all children between three and seven years of age, 
so as to impress them w'ith innocent and virtuous habits, their second natures thus 
superinduced, would make it as impossible to pervert them, as it is to make men 
and women of the upper classes rush into the highways each time they feel the 
want of money. 

It is certain, that as things now stand, the two great parties into which the com- 
munity is unhappily split upon this mighty question, are resolved that we should 
have no system of education at all, — no National Plan for Training Teachers, and 
thereby making the schools that stud the country all over, deserve the name they 
bear, — no national plan for training young children to virtuous habits, and thereby 
rooting out crimes from the land. And this interdict, under which both parties 
join in laying their country, is by eacli pronounced to be necessary for the sacred 
interests of religion. Of religion ! Oh, gracious God ! Was ever the name of 
thy holy ordinances so impiously profaned before ? Was ever before, thy best 
gift to man, his reason, so bewildered by blind bigotry, or savage intolerance, or 
wild fanaticism — bewildered so as to curse the very light thou hast caused to shine 
before his steps — bewildered so as not to perceive that anyand^very religion must 
flourish best in the tutored mind, and that by whomsoever instructed in secular 
things, thy word can better be sown in a soil prepared, than in one abandoned 
through neglect to the execrable influence of the evil Spirit? 

Let the people be taught, say I. I care little, in comparison, who is to teach 
them. Let the grand machine of national education be fiamed and set to work, 
and I should even view without alarm the tendency of its first movements toward 
giving help to the power of the clergy. How ? Just as my friend .lames Watt, 
when he has constructed some noble steam-engine, which is to bear the trade of 
England, and with her trade, the light of science and helps of art, into the heart 
of a distant continent, views without discomposure the piston-rod swerve from the 
perpendicular, well assured that the contrary flexure, of the circles, his illustrious 
father's exquisite invention, has provided a speedy adjustment; and sees with still 
less apprehension the divergency of the balls, aware that the yet more refined pro- 
vision of the .same great mind has rendered that very centrifugal force the cause 
of its own counteraction, and prepared a remedy in exact proportion to the disturb- 
ance, — just so should I see unmoved the supposed teiylency of a Nation.il School 
Bill to increase clerical ascendancy, being quite sure that the very act of spreading 
knowledge, which seems to increase the disturbing influence, must, in exact pro- 
portion to its own operntion, control its evil efTects upon our socinl system. 

I know that nothing like a provision has been any where made for infant train- 
ing, by far the most essential branch of tuition, — the one to provide which is the 
duty of our rulers, above every other duty imperative upon them, and which, if 
they discharge not, they forfeit their title to rule. But if they have not discharged 



ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 1739 

that duty, if they have planted no schools where the habits of virtue may be in- 
duced, stretched forth no hand to extirpate the germs of vice — they have kept open 
other schools where vice is taught with never-failing success — used both hands in- 
cessantly to stitle the seeds of virtue ere yet they had time to sprout — laid down 
many a hot-bed where the growth of crime in all it« rank luxuriance is assiduously 
forced. The infant school languishes, which a paternal government would 
have cherished ; but Newgate flourishes — Newgate, with her thousand cells to cor- 
rupt their youthful inmates ; seducing the guiltless, confirming the depraved. The 
INFANT SCHOOL IS CLospD, whicli a paternal government would have opened wide 
to all its children. But the penitentiary, day and night, yawns to engulph the vic- 
tims of our stepmother system, — the penitentiary where repentance and penance 
should rather be performed by the real authors of their fall. The infant school 
RECEIVES NO INNOCENTS whoni it might train or might hold fast to natural virtue; 
but the utterly execrable, the altogether abominable hulk, lies moored in the face 
of the day which it darkens, within sight of the land which it insults, riding on 
the waters which it stains with every unnatural excess of infernal pollution, tri- 
umphant over all morals ! And shall civilized, shall free, shall Christian rulers, 
any longer pause, any more hesitate, before they amend their ways, and attempt, 
though late yet seriously, to discharge the first of their duties ? Or shall we, call- 
ing ourselves the friends to human improvement balance any longer, upon some 
party interest, some sectarian punctilio, or even some refined scruple, when the 
means are within our reach to redeem the time and do that which is most blessed 
in the sight of God, most beneficial to man ? Or shall it be said that between the 
claims of contending factions in church or in State, the Legislature stands par- 
alyzed, and puts not forth its hand to save the people placed by Providence under 
its care, lest oflense be given to some of the knots of theologians who bewilder its 
ears with their noise, as they have bewildered their own brains with their contro- 
versies? Lawgivers of England I I charge ye, have a care ! Be well assured, 
that the contempt lavished for centuries upon the cabals of Constantinople, where 
the council disputed on a text, while the enemy, the derider of all their texts, was 
thundering at the gate, will be as a token of respect compared with the loud shout 
of universal scorn which all mankind in all ages will send up against you, if you 
stand still and suffer a far deadlier foe than the Turcoman, — sutler the parent of 
all evil, all falsehood, all hypocrisy, all discharity. all self-seeking, — him who covers 
over with pretexts of conscience the pitfalls that he digs for the souls on which he 
preys, — to stalk about the fold and lay waste its inmates— stand still and make no 
head against him, upon the vain pretext, to soothe your indolence, that your action 
is obstructed by religious cabals — upon the far more guilty speculation, that by 
playing a party game, you can turn the hatred of conflicting professors to your 
selfish purposes ! 

Let us hope for better things. Let us hope it through His might and under His 
blessing who commanded the little children to be brought unto Him, and that none 
of any family of mankind should be forbidden ; of Him who has promised the 
choicest gifts of His Father's kingdom to those who in good earnest love their 
neighbors as themselves !" 

In 1838, Mr. Wyse in the House of Commons made a motion for an 
addres.? to the Q,ueen to appoint a Board of Commissioners to provide 
for the impartial and careful distribution of the government grants, and 
for the immediate establishment of schools for educating teachers. The 
motion was lost by only a majority of four against it. 

In 1839, in her speech at the opening of the session, the Q,ueen pre^ 
pared the country to expect some legislation on the subject, by express- 
ing the hope that parUament would do something for the religious edu- 
cation of the people. Before the close of the session, Lord John Rus- 
sell, in a letter to the president of the Privy Council, communicated the 
desire of the Q,ueen, that he and four other members of the council, viz., 
the Lord Privy Seal, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Secretary 



Y40 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 

of State for the Home Department, and the Master of the Mint, should 
form a Board, or Committee for the consideration of all matters affect- 
ing the education of the people. 

The Committee of Council on Education were fortunate in their select- 
ion of Dr. James Phillip Kay, (now Sir James Kay Shuttleworth) as 
Secretary. Dr. Kay had early interested himself in improving the con- 
dition of the manufacturing population, and in 1832 published an elabo- 
rate essay on the "Moral and Physical condition of the working classes 
employed in the cotton manufacture of Manchester." He was soon 
after made one of the Assistant Commissioners of the Poor Law Board. 
While acting in tliis capacity in the Norfolk or Suffolk district, in 1836, 
he submitted to that board a report on the evils of the system of ap- 
prenticeship education under the old Poor Law, and, in 1838, " a plan for 
the proper training of pauper children, and on district schools," which 
was made the basis for a reorganization and improved management of 
schools for this class of children. In 1839, having been removed to the 
superintendence of the Metropolitan district, he was specially charged 
with the improvement of schools in workhouses, and in maturing the 
school of industry at Norwood, into an example of what district schools 
for pauper children might become. To accomplish this. Dr. Kay made 
himself personally acquainted with the best methods of school manage- 
ment and teaching, as practiced in the schools of Scotland, Belgium, 
Holland, and France, and entered on the difficult task of training up a 
class of teachers moved by Christian charity to the work of rescuing by 
an appropriate physical, industrial, intellectual and religious education, 
the outcast and orphan children, from the mischief wrought by vicious 
parentage and cruel neglect. This was the origin of the training school 
at Battersea,* which was sustained until its success was beyond ques- 
tion, mainly, by the personal efforts and large pecuniary sacrifices of its 
projectors. While maturing the plan of this institution, Dr. Kay was 
appointed Secretary of the Committee of Council on Education ; and 
to his industry, enthusiasm in the work, and great administrative talents, 
may be attributed the large measure of success which has attended the 
efforts of that committee to extend and improve the means of elemen- 
tary education, and especially the system of governmental inspection, and 
training of teachers in 1843, he assumed the name of Shuttleworth, in 
consequence of receiving a legacy from a person of that name, and in 
1849. on retiring from the office with shattered health, he was knighted 
by the Q^ueen for his services to the cause of popular education — the 
first and only instance of honorary distinction conferred for this grade 
of public service. 

Under his able administration the measures of the Committee of 
Council have been framed, and under his instructions and correspond- 
ence, these measures have become almost a system of national 
education. 

* A full description of the Battersea Training School will be found on page 791, et. seq. 



ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 



•741 



What — and how extensive — these measures of Government for the ad- 
vancement of education really are, is not, we believe, generally known; 
we have therefore collected the following particulars in respect to them 
from the volume of Minutes for the years 1848-9-50, which is now before 
us. They appear to be framed with a due regard to the rights of conscience 
and the diversities of religious opinion; and, with a wise and statesman- 
like precaution on the part of the Government, to avail itself of local sym- 
pathies, and to stimulate voluntary contributions. 

1. Aid is offered by these minutes towards the erection of school build- 
ings ; and since the year 1839 Government has contributed under this 
head an aggregate sum of £470,854, towards the erection of 3782 school- 
houses, drawing out, thereby, voluntary contributions to, probably, four 
times that amount, and alFording space for the instruction of 709,000 more 
children than could before be taught. These grants have been distributed 
as follows : — 





Amount of 
Grant. 


Number of 
Schools aided. 


Number of Children 

for whom 

Accommodation is 

Provided. 


England 


£399,368 

41,563 

27,418 

2,505 


3255 
302 
198 

27 


622,823 

47,814 

33,198 

5,165 


Scotland 

Wales 


The Islands 



Eighty-two per cent, of the whole amount granted under this head has 
been paid to Church-of-England schools. 

2. Aid is offered toward the erection of normal schools for the training 
of teachers or for the improvement of the buildings of such schools ; and the 
total amount thus granted in aid of eighteen normal schools, is £66,450 ; 
of which £35,950 is to the Church of England; £12,000 to the British 
and Foreign School Society and the Wesleyan body ; and the rest to the 
Scotch Church. 

3. Aid is offered towai'ds the maintenance of such students in these nor- 
mal schools, as shall appear, on examination, to possess the qualities and 
attainments likely to make them good teachers, in sums varying from £20 
to £30 annually for each student. The total sums so contributed to thirteen 
training schools were, in the year 1847. £1705 ; in 1848, £2138; in 1849, 
£2373. 

4. Annual grants are paid in augmentation of the salaries of such teach- 
ers of elementary schools as, upon examination, have been judged worthy 
to receive certificates of merit, such certificates being of three different 
classes, and the augmentations varying from £15 to £30. The number of 
teachers so certificated is 681, and the total amount payable annually in 
augmentation of their salaries £6133. 

5. Stipends are allowed to apprentices to the office of teacher, increasing 
during the five years of their apprenticeship from £10 to £18. The num- 
ber of schools in which such apprentices have been appointed being 1361, 
and the number of apprentices, 3581. 

6. Provision is made for the instruction of these apprentices by annual 
payments to the teachers to whom they are apprenticed, being at the rate 
of £5 annually for one, and £4 for every additional apprentice, their com- 
petency to instruct them being tested by annual examinations. The sums 
payable under the three last heads are stated in the following table : — 



1i2 



Elementary education in England, 



Denomination of School. 


Number 

of 
Schools. 


Number 

of Cer- 
lificated 
Toacliers. 


Numbf 


r of Apprentices. 


Amount condi- 
tionally award- 
ed for year end- 
ing 31 Oct. 1850. 


Boys. 


Girls. 


Total. 


National, or Church of 












£ s. d. 


England Schools. . 

British, Wesleyan,and 

other Protestant 


973 


482 


1,638 


910 


2,593 


49,472 10 


Schools, not con- 














nected with the 














Church of England, 
Rom. Cath. Schools. . 
Schools in Scotland, 


181 
32 


69 
10 


434 
46 


159 
33 


593 
79 


10,356 10 
1,323 10 


connected with the 














established Church, 
Schools in Scotland, 


82 


39 


161 


28 


189 


3,492 


not connected with 














theEstab. Church. 
Total . . . 


93 


81 


100 


27 


127 


3,467 


1,361 


681 


2,424 


1,157 


3,581 


68,111 10 





7. They offer supplies of book.s, apparatus, and school fittings, at redu- 
ced rates, the reduction being effected by the purchase of large quantities 
at wholesale prices ; and by grants to the extent of one-third of these 
reduced prices. The total reduction thus effected averages sixty-two per 
cent, on the retail price : and, the total amount of the grants so made by the 
Government being £6664, it is probable that the retail price of the books, 
maps, &c.. so distributed, is not less than £17,500. 

8. They provide for the annual inspection of normal schools, and of all 
elementary schools in which apprentices are appointed, or which are taught 
by certificated teachers. Also for the annual examination of apprentices 
and of candidates for the office of apprentice, and of teachers who are can- 
didates for certificates of merit. 

For this purpose they maintain a staff of twenty-one inspectors of schools, 
— of whom eleven are inspectors of church schools; two of British and 
Foreign, and Dissenters' schools ; and two of Scotch schools ; one of Ro- 
man Catholic, and five of Workhouse schools. The cost of this inspection, 
in 1849, for salaries and travelling expenses, was £16.826. The schools 
at present liable to inspection are 12 normal schools, 4296 elementary 
schools, and about 700 workhouse schools. 

The general result of this action of the Government on the education of 
the country, in respect to quantity, may be gathered from the fact, that in 
the ten years from 1837 to 1847, the number of cliildren under education in 
Church .schools had increased from 558,180 to 955,865, being an increase 
of eight elevenths. 

It was not, however, so much in respect to the quantity of the education 
of the country, as in regard to its quality, that an alteration was needed : 
and it is in this respect that most has been done. The two questions of 
quality and quantity have, however, a relation to one another, for a good 
school is almost always a full one. This relation of tlie number of the 
scholars to the quality of the school is strikingly illustrated in the returns 
made from schools in which certificated teachers and appi-cutices have been 
appointed, and which are, therefore, regularly inspected. These schools 
may be reasonably supposed to have improved from year to year : and it 
appears that the numbers of children who attend them have, in like man- 
ner, steadily advanced. In the first year after these measures came into 



ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 743 

operation, 1847-8, the total number had thus increased 74' 5 per cent. ; in 
the second year, 1666 percent. No third year's apprenticeships are yet 
completed. 

The whole question of the quality of the instruction, after all that regu- 
lations can do, will be found to be involved in the character of the teacher; 
for such as is the teacher, such invariably is the school. The first step 
towards tiie formation of a more efficient body of teachers was taken by 
Sir J. P. Kay Shuttleworth and Mr. E. Carleton Tutfnell, when, in the 
year 1840, they founded a school at Battersea for training Masters for the 
schools of pauper children,- — maintaining it at their private cost, aided by 
some of their friends. That, no personal exertions might be wanting to its 
success. Sir J. P. ICay Shuttleworth went to reside in it; adding to his 
duties as Secretary to the Committee of Council on Education the cares 
and difficulties of a position, in wiiich, surrounded by youths but recently 
the inmates of workhouses, he sought to lay the foundation of a new and 
improved state of education throughout the country. This honorable ex- 
ample of private benevolence has been followed by various public bodies. 
The National Society soon afterwards established St. Mark's College, Chel- 
sea, — an institution for the training of a superior class of Church school- 
masters, — and Whiteland's House School, for the training of mistresses : 
And within four years of that time there had sprung up no less than seven- 
teen diocesan schools for the tiaining of teachers of Church schools. These 
are now increased to twenty, of which Chester, York, Durham, Chelten- 
ham, and Caerinarthen are the principal. The Battersea school having 
been transferred to the National Society in 1844. there are now twenty- 
three or twenty-four training schools in the country for the education of 
Church schoolmasters. 

The existence of these training schools, the people of England and the 
Church of England owe to the Committee of Council. Their importance 
is not to be measured by the amount of good they have been able up to this 
time to do, or are now doing. They are poorly supported ; the number of 
students who attend them is small, not exceeding in the whole from four to 
five hundred, and the education pursued in them at present appears to be 
but iniperfectly adapted to the formation of the character of the teacher. 
But our conception of that character is as yet very imperfect in England: 
and in all that concerns the formation and development of it, we have no 
experience to guide us. Each of the training schools admits of develop- 
ment ; and the State would do well to lend its aid to this end with a more 
liberal hand (we should say a less sparing hand) than it has hitherto at- 
tempted ; — respecting, as far as is consistent with guarantees for the proper 
application of its aid, the independence of each, and allowing them to 
manifest themselves under that distinctive character towards which they 
may severally tend. Each, taken with its individuality, might thus become 
a depositary of local educational sympathies and a centre of local action. 
And looking to the progress which the whole question of education is mak- 
ing, and to the fact that, whenever the country is. properly supplied with 
parish schools, not less than 2000 students will, probably, require to be 
kept within the walls of these training schools to supply tlie vacancies for 
teachers which will annually arise in Ciiurch schools alone, there can be no 
doubt of the importance of tiiis part of the system. 

Far more important, however, than any aid which the Government has 
yet given to the establishment and maintenance of training schools, is that 
which it has rendered in providing that candidates shall be properly edu- 
cated and prepared for admission to them. Nothing has so interfered with 
the success of such in.stitutions as the impossibility of finding a sufficient 
number of qualified candidates. The office of the national schoolmaster is 



744 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 

but little in repute ; and but few persons have, hitherto, been accustomed 
to seek it, except such as, for the want of sufficient ability, or energy, or 
industry, have been unsuccessful in other callings, or wlio labor under 
infirm health or bodily deformities. These were considered indeed good 
enough for the purpose ; until that inveterate prejudice was got rid of, that 
.education is a privilege of men's social condition, and to be graduated 
according to it. It is a legitimate deduction from this principle, that a 
teacher of the lowest standard iif attainments and skill is competent to the 
instruction of children of the lowest class. The converse proposition is to 
rule the future of education. The education of those children who are the 
most degraded, intellectually and morally, being the most difficult task, — is 
to have the highest qualities of the teacher brought to bear upon it. 

The three or four thousand pupil teachers, having been selected as the 
most promising children in the scliools in which they have been brought up, 
and having been apprenticed to the work of tlie school for five years, and 
educated under the careful superintendence of the clergy and the inspec- 
tors of schools, will when they have completed their apprenticeship, pre- 
sent themselves for admission to the training schools. So selected and so 
trained from an eafly age, they cannot fail, after two or three years' resi- 
dence in them, to form a body of teachers such as have never before entered 
the field of elementary education in England. The worst training of the 
normal schools cannot mar this result ; and we have reason to hope for the 
best. This, then, is the bright future of education. If the apprenticeship 
of new pupil teachers is continued at the same rate as heretofore, from 1000 
to 1500 will annually complete their apprenticeship ; and nearly as many 
will complete annually their training in the normal schools ; so that nearly 
that number of teachers will every year be prepared to enter on the charge 
of elementary schools. 

The following are the conditions annexed to grants : — 

1. In respect to grants for the building of schools, it is stipulated that 
the site shall be legally conveyed to trustees, to be used for ever for the 
purposes of a school. 

2. That the buildings should be substantial and well adapted to the uses 
of a school. 

3. That the State, by its inspector, shall have access to the school, to 
examine and report whether the instruction of the children is duly cared for. 

4. To these conditions there have been added, since the year 1 848, cer- 
tain others, well known as ' the Management Clauses ;' having for their 
object to secure to the laity, in all practicable cases, what appears to be a 
due share in the management of the schools. 

5. To grants for the augmentation of teachers' salaries, and for the sti- 
pends of pupil teacher.-;, it is made a condition that certain examinations 
shall be passed, the subjects of examination being specified beforehand. 
These subjects include, with secular instruction, a detailed course of ele- 
mentary religious instruction, to be conducted in Church schools in strict 
accordance with the formularies of the Church of England. 

6. To grants for apparatus and books, no other conditions are annexed 
than that the Committee of Council shall be certified on the report of one 
of its inspectors, that the assistance is needed ; that the books and appara- 
tus sought are proper to the use of the school ; and that the teachers are 
competent to make the proper use of them. 

These measures of the Committee of Council appear excellently calcu- 
lated to promote the interests of education. But the best measures depend 
for their success upon their execution ; and these have been so adminis- 
tered as to secure the cordial acceptance of the various parties locally 
interested in schools. 



ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. ^45 

These measures were not adopted without encountering the most 
violent and determined opposition. Even the appointment of the Com- 
mittee of Council, was denounced in the House of Lords by the Arch- 
bisliop of Canterbury, who carried an address to tlie crown, praying for 
its revocation by a majority of 111 votes; and in the House of Com- 
mons, Lord Stanley, the author of the system of national education in 
Ireland, missed carrying a similar motion in the first instance by five, 
and on a second occasion by only two votes. Even the continuance in 
office of Lord Melbourne's administration was periled by his declaration 
in favor of these measures. By degrees the jealousies and opposition 
of the different religious communions has been conciliated, and a system 
of elementary education, under the local direction and support of religi- 
ous bodies, and the general supervision and pecuniary aid (mainly in 
the qualification and encouragement of teachers,) of the Committee of 
Council, has grown up to the proportions represented in the following 
table : 



Denominaiion of Schools. 


Number of Schools. 


Number of Pupils. 


ToUl Income. 


Church of Englaud Schools. . . 


17,015 


955,865 


£817,081 


British and Foreign 


do ... 


1,500 


225,000 


161,250 


Weslevan 


do ... 


397 


38,623 


27,347 


Congregational 


do ... 


89 


6,839 


4,901 


Roman Catholic 


do ... 


585 


34,750 


16,000 


Ragged 

Totals 


do ... 


270 


20,000 

1,281,077 


20,000 
£1,046,579 


19,856 





The following are the educational statistics of England and Wales, 
gathered from the census of 1851 : 

Public day schools, 1 5,473 

Number of persons on the school books, , Males, 791,548 

Females, 616,021 

Total, 1,407,569 

Attending at the schools on the 31st March, 1851, Males, 635,107 

Females, 480,130 

Private day schools, 31st March, 1851, 29,425 

Number on the school books, Males, 347,694 

Females, 353,210 

Attending on March 3lst, 1851, Males, 317,390 

Females, 322,349 
Proportion of scholars on the books to the (1 scholar in 8^ persons) population, 
11.76 per cent. 
Number of scholars in attendance to school on books, 83i per cent. 

The progress of elementary education is exhibited in the following 
table : 



In 1818 

1833 

1851 


Da; geholars. 


Population. 


Proportion of 
Day scholars 
toPopiilaljon. 


674,883 
1,276,947 
2,108,473 


11,398,167 
14,417,110 
17,922,768 


1 to 17 
1 to lU 
1 to 8i 



Increase of population from 1818 to 1851, 57 per cent. 
Increase of day scholars from 1818to 1851, 212 per cent. 



746 • ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 

In view of these facts Lord John Russell, and Sir James Kay Shut- 
lleworth, the former in a speech in the House of Commons, and the lat' 
ter in a volume just published, (1853,) advocate an extension of the 
measures now in operation, in preference to a system of National Ed- 
ucation, based on municipal management and taxation. Sir James thus 
speaks of the policy of parental contribution in connection with public 
grants and private subscription. 

A weekly payment from the parents of scholars is that form of taxation, the 
justice of which is most apparent, to the humbler classes. Everyone who has 
even an elementary knowledge of finance is aware, that no tax can be largely pro- 
ductive from which the great mass of the people are exempt. 

The mora! advantage of a tax on the poor in the form of school pence is, that 
it appeals to the sense of paternal duty. It enforces a lesson of domestic piety. 
It establishes the parental authority, and vindicates personal freedom. The child 
is neither wholly educated by religious charity, nor by the State. He owes to his 
parents that honor and obedience, which are the sources of domestic tranquillity, 
and to which the piomise of long life is attached. Let no one rudely interfere 
with the bonds of filial reverence and affection. Especially is it the interest of the 
State to make these the primal elements of social order. Nor can the paternal 
charities of a wise commonwealth be substituted for the personal ties of parental 
love and esteem, without undermining society at its base. 

The parent should not be led to regard the school as the privilege of the citizen, 
so much as another scene of household duty. Those communities are neither 
most prosperous, nor most happy, in which the political or social relations of the 
family are more prominent than the domestic. That which happily distinguishes 
the Saxon and Teutonic races is, the prevalence of the idea of " Ao7ne." To 
make the households of the poor, scenes of Christian peace, is the first object of the 
school, ^^'hy then shuuld we substitute its external relations for its internal — the 
idea of the citizen, for that of the parent — the sense of political or social rights, foi" 
those of domestic duties — the claim of public privilege, for the personal law of 
conscience ? 

Parliament has not been entirely neglectful of the education, as well 
as the health of children employed in factories. The first act in their 
behalf was passed in 1802. This proving insufficient, other provisions 
were adopted from time to time, after very minute inquiries into the con- 
dition of this class of children, and protracted contests in parliament, 
until by the law as it now stands, every child (between the ages of 8 
and 13 years) employed in a factory, must attend school three hours 
every day, between the hours of eight o'clock in the morning, and six 
o'clock in the afternoon. The person, whether parent or employer, who 
receives any direct benefit from the wages of a child, must take care that 
the child attend ; and to show that this attendance is regular, the em- 
ployer must obtain from the schoolmaster, on Monday of every week, a 
certificate in a form prescribed by the statute, showing the number of 
hours the child was at school on each day of the week previous. This 
certificate must be preserved for six months, and produced to an inspec- 
tor on demand. The law imposes a fine for every case of neglect on 
the part of the employer. Inspectors are appointed by the Home Office, 
to visit factories and schools, with full powers to examine any person 
upon oath on the premises, employ surgeons to examine into the condi- 
tion and arrangements for liealth, to cause defective machinery to be re- 
paired, to set up a school for factory children, where none exist, and to 
report annually, and when required to the Home office. 



ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 747 

Among the resplendent names of modern English literature, Thomas 
Babbington Macauley and Thomas Carlyle stand preeminent, and in 
their writings, both Mr. Macauley and Mr. Carlyle appear the earnest 
advocates of popular education. 

In his place in the House of Commons, in 1847, Mr. Macauley came 
forward to defend the minutes of the Committee of Council on Educa- 
tion, to which, as Member of the Privy Council, he had given his assent. 

I hold that it is the right and duty of the State to provide for the education of 
the common people. I conceive the arguments by which this position mdy be 
proved are perfectly simple, perfectly obvious, and the most cogent possible. * * * 
All are agreed that it is the sacred duty of every government to take effectual 
measures for securing the persons and property of the community ; and that the 
government which neglects that duty is unfit for its situation. This being once 
admitted, I ask, can it be denied that the education of the common peoplt is the 
most effectual means of protecting persons and property? On that subject I can 
not refer to higher authority, or u.se more strong terms, than have been employed 
by Adam Smith ; and I take his authority the more readily, because he is not very 
friendly to State interference ; and almost on the same page as that 1 refer to, he 
declares that the State ought not to meddle with the education of the higher 
orders ; but he distinctly says that there is a difference, particularly in a highly 
civilized and commercial community, between the education of the higher classes 
and the education of the poor. The education of the poor he pronounces to be a 
matter in which government is most deeply concerned; and he compares igno- 
rance, spread through the lower classes, neglected by the State, to a leprosy, or 
some other fearful disease, and says that where this duty is neglected, the State is 
in danger of falling into the terrible disorder. He had scarcely written this than 
the axiom wa.s fearfully illustrated in the riots of 1780. I do not know if from all 
history I could select a stronger instance of my position, when I say that ignorance 
makes the persons and property of the community unsafe, and that the govern- 
ment is bound to take measures to prevent that ignorance. On that occasion, 
what was the state of things? Without any shadow of a grievance, at the sum- 
mons of a madman, 100,000 men rising in insurrection — a week of anarchy — 
Parliament beseiged — your predecessor, sir, trembling in the Chair — the Lords 
pulled out of their coaches — the Bishops flying over the tiles — not a sight, I trust, 
that would be pleasurable even to those who are now so unfavorable to the church 
of England — thirty-six fires blazing at once in London— the house of the Chief 
Justice sacked — the children of the Prime Minister taken out of their beds in their 
night clothes, and laid on the table of the horse guards — and all this the effect of 
nothing but the gross, brutish ignorance of the population, who had been left 
brutes in the midst of Christianity, savages in the midst of civilization. Nor is 
this the only occasion when similar results have followed from the same cause. 
To this cause are attributable all the outrages of the Bristol and Nottingham riots, 
and all the misdeeds of General Rock and Captain Swing ; incendiary fires in 
some district, and in others riots against machinery, tending more than anything 
else to degrade men to the level of the inferior animals. Could it have been sup- 
posed that all this could have taken place in a community were even the connnon 
laborer to have his mind opened by education, and be taught to find his pleasure 
in the exercise of his intellect, taught to revere his Maker, taught to regard his feb 
low-creatures with kindne-ss, and taught likewise to feel respect for legitimate 
authority, taught how to pursue redress of real wrongs by constitutional methods? 

* * * Take away education, and what are your means? ^lilitary force, 
prisons, solitary cells, penal colonies, gibbets — all the other apparatus of penal 
laws. If, then, there be an end to which government is bound to attain — -if there 
are two ways only of attaining it — if one of those ways is by elevating the moral 
and intellectual character of the people, and if the other vi'ay is by inflicting pain, 
who can doubt which way every government ought to take? It seems to me that 
no proposition can be more strange than this — that the State ought to have power 
to punish and is bound to punish its subjects for not knowing their duty, but at the 
same time is to take no step to let them know what their duty is. 



V48 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 

I say, therefore, that the education of the people ought to be the first concern 
of a St^ite, not only because it is an efficient means of promoting and obtaining 
that which all allow to be the main end of government, but because it is the most 
efficient, the most humane, the most civihzed, and in all respects the best means 
of attaining ihat end. This is my deliberate conviction ; and in this opinion I am 
fortified by thinking that it is also the opinion of all the great legislators, of all the 
great statesmen, of all the great political philosophers of all ages and of all nations, 
even including those whose general opinion is, and has ever been, to restrict the 
functions of government. Sir, it is the opinion of all the greatest champions of 
civil and religious liberty in the old world and in the new ; and of none — I hesi- 
tate not to say it — more emphatically than of those whose names are held in the 
highest estimation by the Protestant Nonconformists of England. Assuredly if 
there be any class of men whom the Protestant Nonconformists of England re- 
spect more highly than another-t-if any whose memory they hold in deeper venera- 
tion — it is that class of men, of high spirit and unconquerable principles, who in 
the days of Archbishop Laud preferred leaving their native country, and living in 
the savage solitudes of a wilderness, rather tlian to live in a land of prosperity and 
plenty, where they could not enjoy the privilege of worshipping their Maker freely 
according to the dictates of their conscience. Those men, illustrious for ever in 
history, were the founders of the commonwealth of Massachusetts ; but though 
their love of freedom of conscience was illimitable and indestructible, they could 
see nothing servile or degrading in the principle that the State should take upon 
itself the charge of the education of the people. In the year 1642 they passed 
their first legislative enactment on this subject, in the preamble of which they dis- 
tinctly pledged themselves to this principle, that education was a matter of the 
deepest possible importance and the greatest possible interest to all nations and to 
all communities, and that as such it was, in an eminent degree, deserving of the 
peculiar attention of the State. I have peculiar satisfaction in referring to the case 
of America, because those who are the most enthusiastic advocates of the volun- 
tary principle in matters of religion, turn fondly to that land as affording the best 
illustration that can be any where found of the successful operation of that princi- 
ple. And yet what do we find to be the principle of America and of all the 
greatest men that she has produced upon the question ? " Educate the people," 
was the first admonition addressed by Penn to the commonwealth be founded — 
" educate the people" was the last legacy of Washington to the republic of the 
United States — " educate the people" was the unceasing exhortation of Jefferson. 
Yes, of Jeffi?rson himself ; and I quote his authority with peculiar favor ; for of 
all the eminent public men that the world ever saw, he was the one whose 
greatest delight it was to pare down the functions of governments to the lowest 
possible point, and to leave the freest possible scope for the exercise of individual 
exertion. Such was the disposition — such, indeed, might be said to be the mission 
of Jefferson ; and yet the latter portion of his life was devoted with ceaseless 
energy to the effort to procure the blessing of a State education for Virginia. And 
against the concurrent testimony of all these great authorities, what have you, who 
take the opposite side, to show ? * * * Institutions for the education of the 
people are on every ground the very description of institutions which the govern- 
ment, as the guardians of the people's bests interests, are bound to interfere with. 
This point has been powerfully put by Mr. David Hume. * « » After laying 
down very emphatically the general principle of non-interference and free compe- 
tition, Mr. Hume goes on to make the admission that there undoubtedly may be 
and are some very useful and necessary matters which do not give that degree 
of advantage to any man that they can be safely left to individuals. Such mat- 
ters, he says, must be effected by money, or by distinctions, or by both. Now, 
sir, if there ever was a case to which that description faithfully and accurately 
applies, I maintain that it is to the calling of the schoolmaster in England. That 
his calling is a necessary and an useful one, is clear ; and yet it is equally clear 
that he does not obtain, and can not obtain, adequate remuneration without an 
interference on the part of government. Here, then, we have the precise case, 
if we are to adopt the illustiation of JIume, in which the government ought to 
interfere. Reasoning a priori, the principle of free competition is not sufficient 
of itself, and can not supply a good education. Let us look at the facts. What 
is the existing state in England ? There has, for years, been nothing except the 



ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 749 

principle of non-interference. If, therefore, the principle of free competition were 
in reality a principle of the same potency in education as we all admit it to be in 
matters of trade, we ought to see education as prosperous under this system of 
free competition as trade itself is. If we could by possibility have had the principle 
of free competition fairly tried in any country, it would be in our own. It has been 
tried for a long time with perfect liberty in the richest country under the heavens, 
and where the people are not unfriendly to it. If the principle of free competi- 
tion could show itself sufficient, it ought to be here ; our schools ought to be the 
models of common schools ; the people who have been educated in them ought to 
show the most perfect intelligence ; every school ought to have its excellent little 
library, and its mechanical apparatus ; and, instead of there being such a thing as 
a grown person being unable to read or to write, such an individual ought to be one 
at whom the people would stare, and who should be noted in the newspapers ; 
while the schoolmaster ought to be as well acquainted with his important duties 
as the cutler with knives, or the engineer with machinery ; moreover, he ought 
to be amply remunerated, and the highest respect of the public ought to be ex- 
tended to him. Now, is this the truth ? Look at the charges of the judges, at 
the resolutions of the grand juries, and at the reports made to every public de- 
partment that has any thing to do with education. Take the reports of the 
inspectors of prisons. In Hertford House of Correction, out of 700 prisoners, 
about half were unable to read, and only eight could read and write well. In 
JVIaidstone jail, out of 8,000 prisoners, 1,300 were unable to read, and only fifty 
were able to read and write well. In Coldbath-fields, out of 8,000, it is not said 
that one could read and write well. If we turn from the reports of the inspectors 
of prisons to the registers of marriages, we find that there were nearly 130,000 
couples married in the year 1844, and of those more than 40,000 of the bride- 
grooms and more than 60,000 of the brides could not sign their names, but Tnade 
their marks. Therefore one third of the men and one half of the women, who 
are supposed to be in the prime of life, and who are destined to be the parents 
of the next generation, can not sign their names. What does this imply ? The 
most grievous want of education. * * * And it is said, that if we only wait 
with patience, the principle of free competition will do all that is necessary for 
education. We have been waiting with patience since the Heptarchy. IIow 
much longer are we to wait? Are we to wait till 2,847, or till 3,847 ? Will you 
wait till patience is exhausted ? Can you say that the experiment which has 
been tried with so little efileet has been tried under unfavorable circumstances ? has 
it been tried on a small scale, or for a short period ? You can say none of these 
things. * * * It was at the end of the 17th century that Fletcher of Sal- 
toun, a brave and able man, who fought and suffered for liberty, was so over- 
whelmed with the spectacle of misery his country presented, that he actually pub- 
lished a pamphlet, in which he proposed the institution of personal slavery in 
Scotland as the only way to compel the common people to work. Within two 
months after the appearance of the pamphlet of Fletcher, the Parliament of Scot- 
land passed in 1696, an act for the settlement of schools. Has the whole world 
given us such an instance of improvement as that which took place at the begin- 
ning of the 18th century ? In a short tiine, in spite of the inclemency of the air 
and the sterility of the soil, Scotland became a country which had no reason to 
envy any part of the world, however richly gifted by nature ; and remember that 
Scotchmen did this, and that wherever a Scotchman went — and there were few 
places he did not go to — he carried with him signs of the moral and intellectual cul- 
tivation he had received. If he had a shop, he had the best trade in the street ; 
if he enlisted in the army, he soon became a non-commissioned officer. Not that 
the Scotchman changed ; there was no change in the man, for a hundred years 
before, Scotchmen of the lower chisses were spoken of in London as you speak of 
the Esquimaux ; but such was the difference when this system of State education 
had been in force for only one generation ; the language of contempt was at an 
end, and that of envy succeeded. Then the complaint was, that wherever the 
Scotchman came he got more than his share ; that when he mixed with English- 
men and Irishmen, he rose as regularly to the top as oil rises on water. * * * 
Under this system of State education, whatever were its defects, Scotland rose 
and prospered to such a degree that I do not believe a single person, even of 
those who now most loudly proclaim their abhorrence of State education, would 



750 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 

venture to say that Seotlaijd would have become the fi-ee, civilized country it is, if 
the education of her people had been left to free competition without any inter- 
ference on the part of the State. Then how does this argument stand ? I doubt 
whether it be possible to find, if there be any meaning in the science of induction 
as applied to polities, any instance of an experiment tried so fully and so fairly, 
tried with all the conditions which Lord Bacon has laid down in his Novum Or^ 
ganon, and of which the result was so evident. Observe, you take these two 
countries so closely resembling each other in many particulars — in one of these 
two countries, by far the richer of the two, and better able to get on with free 
competition, you have free competition ; and what is the result ? The Congrega-. 
tional Union tell you that it is a result, indeed, to make us ashamed, and every 
enlightened foreigner that comes amongst us, sad. In the other country, little 
favored by nature, you find a system of State education—not a perfect one, but 
still an efficient one-^and the result is an evident and rapid improvement in the 
moral and intellectual character of the people, and a consequent improvement in 
security and in prosperity such as was hardly ever seen before in the world. If 
this had been the case in su)'gery or in chemistry, and such expei'iments and 
results had been laid before you, would it be possible for you not to see which was 
the wrong course and which the right ? These arguments have most fully con- 
vinced me of a truth which I shall not shrink from proclaiming in the face of any 
clamor that may be raised against it — that it is the duty of the State to educate 
the common people, 

Mr. Carlyle has uttered many indignant rebukes of the niggardly 
policy of the English governnnent in respect to the education of the 
people. 

Who would suppose that education were a thing which had to be advocated on 
the ground of local expediency, or indeed on any ground ? As if it stood not on 
the basis of everlasting duty, as a prime necessity of man. It is a thing that should 
need no advocating ; much as it does actually need. To impart the gift of think- 
ing to those who can not think, and yet who could in that case think ; this, one 
would imagine, was the first function a government had to set about discharging, 
Were it not a cruel thing to see, in any province of an empire, the inhabitants 
living all mutilated in their limbs, each strong man with his right arm lamed? 
How much crueller to find the strong soul, with his eyes still sealed, its eyes ex^ 
tinct, so that it sees not! Light has come into the world, but to this poor peas- 
ant, it has come in vain. For six thousand years, the sons of Adam, in sleepless 
effort, have been devising, doing, discovering, in mysterious, infinite indissoluble 
communion, warring, a little band of brothers, against the great black empire of 
necessity and night ; they have accomplished such a conquest and conquests ; and 
to this man it is all as if ft had not been. The four and twenty letters of the al- 
phabet are still Runic enigmas to him. He passes by on the other side ; and that 
great spiritual kingdom, the toil-worn conquest of his own brothers, all that his 
brothers have conquered, is a thing non-extant for him ; an invisible empire; he 
knows it not ; suspects it not. And is it not his withal ; the conquest of his own 
brothers, the lawfully acquired possession of all men ? Baleful enchantment lies 
over him from generation to generation ; he knows not that such an empire is his, 
that such an empire is at all ? O, what are bills of rights, emancipations of black 
slaves into black apprentices, lawsuits in chancery for some short usufruct of a bit 
of land ? The grand " seed-field of time" is this man's, and you give it him not. 
Time's seed-field, which includes the earth and aH her seed-fields and pearl-oceans, 
nay her sowers too and pearl-divers, all that was wise and heroic and victorious 
here below ; of which the earth's centuries are but furrows, for it stretches forth 
from the beginning onward even unto this d.ay ! 

" My intieritance, how lonilv. wide and fair ; 
Time is my fair seed-field, to time I'm heir !" 

Heavier wrong is not done under the sun. It lasts from year to year, from cen- 
tury to century; the blinded sire slaves himself out, and leaves a blinded son ; and 
men, made in the image of God, continue as two legged beasts of labor; and in 
the largest empire of the world, it is a debate whether a small fraction of the 
revenue of one day (30,000/. "is but that) shall, after thirteen centuries, be laid out 
on it, or not laid out on it. 



NORMAL SCHOOLS, OR TRAINING COLLEGES 



ENGLAND AND WALES. 

The germ of all the institutions for training teachers for elementary 
schools in England, must be found in the model school, and teachers' 
class of the British and Foreign School Society in the Borough-road, 
London. So early as 1805, the " training of schoolmasters." in the 
methods of this school, was made the ground of a subscription in 
its behalf, and in 1808, it was set forth as one of the cardinal objects of 
the society. From that time, persons have been admitted every year to 
the school to observe, learn, and practice the methods of classification 
and instruction pursued there. Its accommodations as a normal school 
were insufficient even on the plan of observation and practice pursued 
there, until 1842, when the present building was completed at an ex- 
pense of £21,433, toward which the Committee of Council extended a 
grant of £5,000. In the mean time, the national society was pursuing a 
similar plan in its model school at Westminster ; and the necessity of 
training well qualified teachers by means of a special course of 
instruction and practice was ably discussed, and the mode and results of 
such training as exhibited on the continent, and especially in Prussia, 
were ably advocated in parliament, pamphlets, reviews, and the daily 
press. The Q,uarterly Journal of Education, and the publications of the 
Central Society of Education, and especially the Prize Essay of Mr. 
Lalor, set forth this necessity, and the experience of other countries 
in a very able manner. Lord Brougham, in his whole public life the 
early and eloquent advocate of popular education, in a speech in the 
House of Lords on the education of ihe people on the 23d May, 1835, 
remarked — " These seminaries for training masters are an invaluable 
gift to mankind and lead to the indefinite improvement of education. 
It is this which above all things we ought to labor to introduce into our 
system. * * Place normal schools — seminaries for training teachers, 
in few such places as London, York. Liverpool. Durham, and Exeter, 
and you will yearly qualify five hundred persons fitted for diffusing a 
perfect system of instruction all over the country. These training sem- 
inaries will not only teach the masters the branches of learning and 
science in which they are now deficient, but will teach them what they 
know far less, the didactic art — the mode of imparting the knowledge 
they have, or may acquire — the best method of training and dealing 
with children, in all that regards temper, capacity, and habits, and the 
means of stirring them to exertion, and controlling their aberrations " 
The speaker, although he failed in this, as well as in former, and subsC' 



Y52 NORMAL SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 

quent efforts in parliament, to establish a system of national education, 
according to his own views, has lived long enough to see thirty-six normai 
schools, or training colleges in England and Wales, four in Scotland, 
and one in Ireland, in successful operation ; and both the quantity and 
quality of elementary instruction greatly improved. These results 
have been reaHzed mainly through the action of the Board, or Commit- 
tee of Council on Education, first appointed in 1839. 

One of the first objects proposed for the consideration of the Board, 
was a normal, or model school, in organizing which they were advised 
that " it is her Majesty's wish, that the youth of this kingdom should be 
religiously brought up, and that the right of conscience sliould be re- 
spected." The committee experienced so much difficulty in devising the 
plan of a normal school, under their direction, and in reconciling conflict- 
ing views of religious communions, that the subject was postponed, and 
the sum of £10,000 granted by parliament in 1835 towards the erection 
of such school, was distributed in equal proportions to the National 
Society, "and the British and Foreign School Society, to be applied by 
them for this purpose. 

With the aid of this grant, the British and Foreign School Society 
proceeded to provide suitable accommodations for a class of eighty nor- 
mal pupils, in connection with the model schools in the Borough-road. 
The building was completed in 1842 at an expense of £21,433. The 
National Society commenced in 1840, the erection of a training college 
for seventy-four masters of schools in connection with that society at 
Stanley Grove in Chelsea, two miles from Hyde Park Corner. The 
building was completed in 1842, at an expense of £23,651. In the mean- 
time. Dr. James Phillips Kay, Secretar}' of the Committee of Council 
on Education, and E. C. Tufnel, Esq., Assistant Poor Law Commis- 
sioner, commenced at Battersea a Training School, to supply schools of 
industry for pauper children and reformatory schools for juvenile crimi- 
nals with properly qualified teachers, and at the same time to give an ex- 
ample of normal education, comprising the formation of character, the 
development of the intelligence, appropriate technical instruction, and 
the acquisition of method and practical skill in conducting an elemen- 
tary school. The founders commenced their labors in 1840, and in 1843, 
after the methods and results had received the repeated, and emphatic 
commendation of the Q,ueen's inspectors, they transferred the institu- 
tion to the management of the National Society. 

The success of these experiments, dissipated the vague apprehen- 
sions, which the first announcement of normal schools, as a foreign insti- 
tution had created, and inspired general confidence in their tendencies, 
and conviction of their necessities. The different religious communions, 
by whose exertions and jealousies, the plan of the Committee of Coun- 
cil, had been defeated in 1839, now came forward to found Training Col- 
leges for teachers of schools in their several connections. The Commit- 
tee of Council encouraged the erection of suitable buildings by grants of 
money, and contributed toward their support and usefulness by the es- 



NORMAL SCHO<^S IX. ENGLAND AND WALES. ^53 

tablishment of the system of pupil teachers, and Q,ueen's scholarships 
by wliich young men and young women of the right character as pre- 
pared f >r these institutions, and enabled to remain in them for a suffi- 
cient length of time to profit by the extended course of instruction, and 
practice prescribed. 

..^To stimulate and aid the elementary schools, and to prepare pupils for 
the Training Schools, stipends from £10 to £18, increasing from year to 
year for five years, are allowed to a certain number of the most vigorous 
intelligent, well-behaved and proficient scholars in any school, subject to 
the inspection of the government, who shall pass in a satisfactory man- 
ner, the examination prescribed by the Committee of Council, for an ap- 
prenticeship to tlie office of teaching. These pupil teachers, as they 
are called, receive daily one hour and a half of separate instruction from 
the master of the schools, to which they belong, (who receives an an- 
nual addition to his salary according to the number of such pupils besides 
spending about the same period in diligent preparation; and during five 
hours each day, are familiarized with the management and instruction 
of an elementary school, by having charge of one of its classes. After 
spending five years in this way, and passing satisfactorily the annual 
written and oral examination on subjects presented by the committee, 
these pupil teachers are then allowed to enter on a vigorous competition 
for admission in any of the Training Schools, as Queen's scholars. In 
all of the Training Schools, aided and inspected by the Committee of 
Council, the government allows £25 for the first year, £20 for the second, 
and £30 for the third year, towards the cost of maintenance and educa- 
tion of a given number of pupil teachers who can pass in a satisfactory 
manner the examination prescribed by ihe committee. Each Training 
School receives a grant, varying from £20 to £30 on each Q,ueen scholar 
instructed during the year. To each graduate of a Training College, 
who shall pass a satisfactory examination, a certificate of merit is 
awarded, which entitles the holder to a stipend, varying from £20 to 
£30 a year, in augmentation of the salaries, which they may receive as 
teachers of elementary schools. The subjects and method of examina- 
tion, and the standard of attainments required, are determined by the 
committee ; and the examination papers are prepared by the inspectors 
of the Training Schools, and revi-sed at a conference of all the inspec- 
tors of schools, over which the secretary presides. This system of an 
annual and strict examination, and of an annual grant to deserving pu- 
pils to aid them in obtaining the requisite knowledge of the principles and 
practice of teaching, before entering on the responsibilities of a school, 
and of rewarding afterwards, those who prove faithful and successful, is 
changing the whole aspect of elementary education in England. The 
full results will not be seen, until after the 5,000 pupil teachers, who 
have served an apprenticeship of five years in the best elementary 
schools of the kingdom, have spent three years in the Training Colleges, 
and having gained the certificates of merit, are actively engaged as 
teachers. 

48 



Y54: NORMAL SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 

In 1852, there were thirty-four Normal Schools or Training Colleges 
in England and Wales, erected at an expense in building alone of over 
£350,000, of which sum the government contributed about one half 
These institutions provide the means of residence for about 1,000 males 
and seven hundred females at an annual outlay of about .£80,000, of 
which the government will contribute, in grants for Q,ueen's scholars, 
about one half 

These institutions are now sending abroad such schoolmasters, as 
Lord Brougham alluded to in his famous declaration on the omnipotence 
of popular intelligence — "Let the soldier be abroad if he will; he can 
do nothing in this age. There is another personage abroad, a person 
less imposing, — in the eyes of some, perhaps insignificant. The school 
MASTER IS abroad; and I trust to him armed with his primer, against the 
soldier in full uniform array." On another occasion, the same speaker 
glorifies the mission of the schoolmaster: "We are called school- 
masters, — a title in which I glory, and never shall feel shame." * * 
But there is nothing which these adversaries of improvement are more 
wont to make themselves merry with, than what is termed the '■^ march 
of inlellect;" and here I will confess that I think, as far as the phrase 
goes, they are in the right. It is little calculated to describe the opera- 
tion in question. It does not picture an image at all resembling the pro- 
ceeding of the true friends of mankind. It much more resembles the 
progress of the enemy to all improvement. The conqueror moves in a 
march. He stalks onward with the " pride, pomp, and circumstance of 
war," banners flying, shouts rending the air, guns thundering, and mar- 
tial music pealing, to drown the shrieks of the wounded and the lamen- 
tations for the slain. Not thus the schoolmaster in his peaceful vocation. 
He meditates and prepares in secret the plans which are to bless man- 
kind ; he slowly gathers round him those wiio are to further their exe- 
cution; he quietly, though firmly, advances in his humble path, laboring 
steadily, but calmly, till he has opened to the light all the recesses of 
ignorance, and torn up by the roots the weeds of vice. His is a prog- 
ress not to be compared with any thing like a march ; but it leads to a 
far more brilliant triumph, and to laurels more imperishable than the 
destroyer of his species, the scourge of the world ever won. 

Such men, — men deserving the glorious title of teachers of mankind, 
I have found laboring conscientiously, though perhaps obscurely, in their 
blessed vocation, wherever I have gone. I have found them, and shared 
their fellowship, among the daring, the ambitious, the ardent, the indom- 
itably active French; I have found them among the persevering, reso- 
lute, industrious Swiss ; I have found them among the laborious, the 
warm-hearted, the enthusiastic Germans ; I have found ihem among the 
high-minded but enslaved Italians; and in our own country, God be 
thanked, their numbers everywhere abound, and are every day increas- 
ing. Their calling is high and holy; their fame is the property of na- 
tions ; their renown fill the earth in after ages, in proportion as it sounds 
not far off in their own times. Each one of these great teachers of the 



NORMAL SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND AND WALES. ^SS 

world, possessing his soul in peace, performs his appointed course, 
awaits in palience the fulfillment of the promises, resting from his 
labors, bequeathes his memory to the generation whom his works have 
blessed, and sleeps under the humble, but not inglorious epitaph, com- 
memorating '• one in whom mankind lost a friend, and no man got rid of 
an enemy !" 

In Scotland, the first attempt to train teachers in the principles and 
practice of their art. was made by the Education Committee of the 
Church of Scotland, in 1826, by placing a f*»w teachers appointed to 
their sclioois in the Highlands, for a short course of observation, instruc- 
tion and practice, in one of their best conducted schools in Edinburgh. 
This plan was etdarged and improved in 1838 ; and in 1846, a building 
was erected for a Normal School in Castle Place, in Edinburgh, at an 
expense of XIO.OOO. In the mean time, Mr. Snow, in 1836, commenced 
at Glasgow, a similar enterprise at his own risk to exemplify, and finally, 
to train teachers on a system of instruction somewhat peculiar. He 
was subsequently aided by a voluntary society, and finally the building 
was completed by the Genft-al Assembly Comniittee in 1840. The dis- 
ruption of the church of Scotland, and the organization of the free 
church, has led to the establishment of two other Normal Schools, one 
at Edinburgh, in 1849, and the other at Glasgow, in 1852, at an aggre- 
gate expense of over £20,000. The buildings for Normal Schools, in 
Scotland, have cost over £45 000 (ii^225,000,) and will accommodate 
about 300 resident pupils, besides the schools of practice. 

Of the forty Training Colleges in England and Scotland, twenty- 
seven are connected with the Church of England, two with the estab- 
lished Church of Scotland, two with the Free Church ol" Scotland, one 
with the Roman Catholic Church, one with the Wesleyan. one with the 
Congregational denomination ; and in the six others, the Church of Eng- 
land has a virtual ascendency- 
Sir James Kay Shutlleworth, in his recent work on " Public Educa- 
tion." written to explain and defend the measures of the Committee of 
Council, and "to exemplify the mode in which the school, transferred bythe 
reformation from the priesthood to the congregation, can continue under 
religious government, consistently with the privileges of the laity, the 
right of conscience, and the duty of the civil power to fit its subjects for 
the discharge of their functions as citizens," makes the following re- 
marks on the Training Colleges, of which in their present form and re- 
lations to government, he may be justly considered the author. 

The English Normal Training College has thus received a definite constitution, 
in liannoiiy with the separate religious organization of elementary schools, and 
forty such establishments have been incorporated into a scheme of administrative 
actiiin, in vvhieli the tducation of the future schoolmaster commences in the infant, 
is pursued in the elementary school, developed during liis apprenticeship, and com- 
pleted as a Queen's scholar in the Training College. In every part of this career, 
he IS subject to the direct and independent influence of the religious conmiunion to 
which he belongs, through the managers of the schools or college. But his ex- 
ertions are inspected and rewarded by the government. He passes through a 



YSO NORMAL SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 

graduated series of examinations, by which every portion of this system is brought 
into harmony, and made to subserve one common end. The principle of self- 
government is thus reconciled with the claim of the executive to full security fijr 
the efficient application of the public money. The religious communion and the 
civil power have each separate spheres of action : religion is most jealously 
guard-d from the intrusion of secular authority, without suffering any divorce from 
the school. The schoolmaster will have had all the experience of his scholars and 
his apprentices, as well as of their future course as Queen's scholars. He will 
belong to the class for which he ought to have the deepest sympathy. His expe- 
rience will not be limited to that of domestic life in his parent's cottage, nor will 
it be likely that, after five years' practical training in the school, the corporate life 
of his college can so deeply stamp its own device upon his mind, as not to leave it 
susceptible of impressions which his education will fit him to receive from society. 
Plis instruction will be neither too special nor too meagre: too genei'al nor too 
Collegiate. From its commencement to its close, it will be under the influence of 
religion in his own communion, and it will be at all times under the vigilance of a 
department to which the civil interests of education are confided. 



SCHOOL MANAGEMENT AND THE ART OF TEACHING. 757 



Papers on School Management and the Art of Teaching, given in 
England at the Examination of Teachers. 

School Management and Notes of a Lesson. — 1849. 

Sect. T. — 1. If you have been in a Training Institution, state the chief features of the 
system on which you have heen trained ; or if otherwise, state clearly how you obtained 
a knowledge of the system in which you are now giving instruction. 

2. Describe as far as you can, or show liy a drawing, the internal arrangements of 
your school-room, the positions of the desks, gallery, (if any,) Teacher's seat, stoves or 
fire|)laces, floors and windows. 

Sect. 11. — 1. What "furniture" do you conceive to be necessary for a well-appointed 
school-room. 

2. Name the subjects of instruction in your school, mentioning the text-books made 
use of, and the number of hours per week allotted to each subject. 

3. State the [)rinciples on which you think a " lime-table" should be formed, and 
show their reasonableness. 

Sect. 111. — Explain clearly the method on which Religious Instruction is given in 
your school. 

Sect. IV. — Write the heads of two lessons on one of the following subjects; observ- 
ing carefully the circumstances under which each lesson is to be given, and staling 
the lime which it is to occupy. 

, f~, , f T-. , J HI.) Physical, to a lower Class. 

1. Geography of England. ^ ^^, ^ Political, to Pupil-Teachers. 

2. Natural History of Water j (1.) Gallery lesson to young children. 



HI.) Galk 
\ (2.) UsuH 



Birds. ( (2.) Usual lesson to highest Class. 

3. English History — j (1.) Collective lesson to 3 Classes. 

Reign of King John. ( (2.) Moral to be drawn from it to Monitors' Class. 

4. Object Lesson — J (' ) '^" young Children. 

Wool. ( (2.) Use in manufacture, to highest Class. 

5. Obedience to Parents. { jj } JoHect? ve'l esson to 3 upper Classes. 

6. English Grammar — j 0) '^° •* ^^ Class. 

The Noun. ( C"^-) To Pupil-Teachers in their private instruction. 

Sect. V. — 2. Upon what principle would you organize (1,) a large school with the 
allowed number of Pupil-Teachers; (2,) the same school without a Pupil-Teacher; 
(3,) a mixed school in a rural district, where the attendance of the children is generally 
irregular ; and (4,) a school of 200 infants in a manufacturing town ? 

1850. 

Sect. I. — Sketch the ground plan of your school, showing the position of the desks and 
benches ; stale the subjects of instruction, the number of hours employed in each dur- 
ing the week, and the method which you adopt in imparling instruction in (a) writing, 
(i) spelling, (c) geography, (d) arithmetic, (e) grammar. 

Sect. II — Wriie the heads of a collective lesson for the lower classes in an elemen- 
tary school, on the life of — 

1. David. 2. Jeroboam. 3. John the Baptist. 

Sect. HI. — Write the heads of a collective lesson for the upper classes in an elemen- 
tary school, on — 

1. The operations of agriculture. 2. The nature and use of the horse. 3. The reign 
of Queen Elizabeth or William III. 

Sect. (V, — 1. How would you employ Pupil-Teachers in instructing the upper and 
lower classes of your school respectively ? 

2. How would you arrange for the .special instruction, out of school hours, to be given 
to three Pupil-Teachers, all of different standing, engaged in your school at the same 
lime '! 

Sect. V. — Explain how yon would treat the following cases : — 

1. Unseen, you observe two young boys fighting in the play-ground ; they are urged 
oil by the elder lads, and the Pupil-Teacher takes no notice. 

2. A boy has been brought to you by his parents as an incorrigible thief, and they 
have beaten him well. 

3. A big boy has been ill using a little one. 

t For Masters. — 1851. 

Sect. I. — State at length what you understand by the term " School -management." 
Sect. II. — 1. In a school of 150 boys, say exactly how you would arrange five classes, 

(a) for a reading lesson, (6) for writing, (c) for arithmetic, to be going on at ibe same 

time. 
2. Show the use and abuse of the blackboard. 



758 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT AND THE ART OF TEACHING. 

3. Name the different methods in which writing is taught in our elementary schools. 
State which you believe lo lie the liest, and give your reasons. 

Sect. III.— 1. Define caiefuliy "Notes of a Lesson;" state how you prepare thera ; 
and show on paper their mechanical arrangement. 

2. Show by siinjile instances the diti'erence between giving a lesson to a class igno- 
rnnt of the subject, and examining the same class when in some degree informed on it. 

.3. In what way, and lo what extent do you instruct your apprentices in the art of 
teaching ? Describe this carefully. 

Sect. IV. — Write notes of a lesson on one of the following subjects: Filial affec- 
tion — Self-denial — Falsehood — Loyalty — Wheat — Soap — Sugar — Cotton — King Alfred 
— Christo[)her Columbus — William Shakspeare — and Charles 1. 

Sect. V. — 1. Describe at length your method of giving and correcting an exercise in 
dictation. 

2. State how you deal with children of the following description respectively — igno- 
rant, inattentive, rude, deceitful, unpunctual, irregular in attendance. 

3. Slate fully and accurately the part which you take in the work of your school. 

For Mistresses. — 1851. 
Sect. I — Write an essay on one of these subjects : — 

1. The formation of moral habits in young girls. 

2. The peculiar difficulties of training Pupil-Teachers. 

Sect. II. — 1. What time in each week should be given to the following subjects in a 
school of girls between seven and twelve years old : — 

Grammar, English History, Writing from Dictation, Arithmetic, Sewing. 

2. State also the best method of teaching each of these subjects. 

Sect. III. — What apparatus and furniture are required for such a school (containing 
ninety scholars .') State exactly what use should be made of parallel desks, and of the 
blackboard. 

Sect. IV. — What branches of domestic economy can be taught theoretically in all 
girls' schools ? What manual or book of reference would you recommend to your 
Pupil-Teachers on this subject ? 

Training Schools for Masters. — School IManagement, and Notes of a 
Lesson. — 1849. 
General Questions. 
Sect. I. — 1. In what respects, chiefly, do schools in manufacturing districts differ 
from those in agricultural, and schools in town from those in villages of the same dis- 
trict ? What peculiar arrangements do you conceive necessary for each ? 

2. What is your opinion as to the advantages or disadvantages of " mixed schools" 
(of boys and girls '.) How should you organize such schools, and arrange the children 
when saying their lessons, and when seated ? Give your reasons plainly, but concisely. 

3. Describe a "good school- room" — particularizing its aspect, size, shape, means of 
ventilation and warming, furniture, apparatus, and internal arrangements. 

Organization, Discipline, Method. 
Sect. II. — 1. State briefly what steps you would take in opening a new school, or in 
undertaking an old one, divided, as was not uncommon, into ten or twelve classes. 

2. What parts of school-management do you conceive to be included in the term 
"discipline.'" To what chief causes do you attribute " want of discipline ?" How 
should you attempt to remedy such an evil. 

3. What registry books do you conceive to be necessary, in order that the condition 
and circumstances of a school may be accurately known — (1st.) to the master — (2d.) 
to the managers — (3d.) to the public, by means of special and statistical reports ? 
Give your reasons. 

School Work. 

Sect. III. — 1., State at length your method of teaching young children to read. 

2. Is il desirable, underthe present circumstances of schools, that the children should 
read poetry ? Give your reasons for or against this exercise ; and if favorable lo it, 
state what authors you prefer. 

Sect. IV. — 1. What arranfdement of desks do you consider the best for instruction 
in writing/ Give your reasons. 

2. Describe a lesson in simple subslracfion to a junior class. 

3. State your nieihod of giving a lesson in dictation to young children. Should you 
always make use of a book '. What sort of a book should you use ? 

4. For what lessons, and to what extent, would you make use of the "blackboard?"* 
Give an instance in a geography lesson. 

Pupil- Teachers. 
Sect. V. — 1. At what time of the day would you give your Pupil-Teaobora Haair pri- 
vate ioaUucuoDS of 1 i bour ? State your reaaooa. 



8CHOOL MANAGEMENT AND THE ART OF TEACHING. 759 

2. State plainly what duties you would allot to Pnpil-Tearhers in your school, for 
what length of lime you would instruct a class to each, and why. 

3. In a school where Pupil-Teachers are apprenticed, what are the chief benefits to 
be expected, and what tlie chief evils to be guarded against, by the Master as well as 
the apprentices ? 

Notes of a Lesson. 
Sect. VI.— 1. What obvious points of difference are there between a collective les- 
son and a clas.s-lesson ? Mention them, and ilhistrate your answer by notes of a les- 
son (of each kindi on the '• Birth of our bie.ssed Saviour." 

2. Give the notes of a lesson to your Pupil-Teachers, in the last year of their appren- 
ticeship, on "prosody," making quotations at length from approved authors. 

3. VVhat do you understand hy the expression, " Notes of a Lesson f" What is their 
object and use ? State the principal on which they should be arranged, and show it 
practically in the notes of an object-lesson on "cloth." 

School M.4nagement. — 1850. 
Sect. I.— -1. How would you organize a school of 60 children, from seven to thirteen 
years of age, supposing that you had a Pupil-Teacher in his fourth year ? Draw a plan 
of the school-room you would prefer, showing the arranaement of the classes, and the 
forms and desks. What part would you yourself take in the instruction of such a 
school, and what would you assign lo your Pupil-Teacher ? 

2. What different methods have l)een devised for organizing elementary schools? 
Illustrate your descriptions ofthe.se by diagrams, state whichof them you yourself pre- 
fer, and the reasons for that preference. 

3. What objects should specially be kept in view in the organization of a school ? 
What are the advantages resulting from a good organization, and what are those ele- 
ments of a school which no organization, however good, will secure ? 

Sect. II. — 1. VV hal expedients should be adopted to secure a regular attendance of 
the children in a school ? What are those qualities of the Master wiiich are most likely 
to promote this regular attendance? 

2. Show the divisions of the page of a register, by which the date of the transfer of 
each boy in a school from class to class may be recorded and easily referred to? What 
would be the advantages of such a register ? What other means could you devise for 
recording the progress which each child is making? 

3. VVhat are the most important statistics to be recorded in a school : 1st, to aid the 
Schoolmaster in his work; 2d, for the information of the School Managers; 3d, for 
the information of the Legislature? 

Sect. 111. — I. Give examples of the questions in mentrd arithmetic which you would 
propose to a class of children of about eight years of age, and of those which you would 
give to your highest class. 

2. What different methods have been proposed for teaching children to read, and on 
what grounds ? 

3. On what principle is the method of Pestalo'zzi in teaching arithmetic founded? 
Describe the table used in teaching by that method, and the way in which they are 
applied. 

Sect. IV. — 1. Describe some of the characteristic defects of teaching in elementary 
schools. 

2. What are the ad vantaees of ora? instruction, and what its disadvantages ? What 
are the advantages of making this instruction collective, what are its disadvantages, 
and how can they best be guarded against ? 

3. What are the advantages oi questioning as a method of teaching ? Is it expedient 
to limit all oral teaching to lliat ' If not, in what manner, and to what extent, may ex- 
position best be united with it ? 

4. What relation ought oral teaching to have to the teaching of hooks ? 

Sect. V. — 1. Write the heads of a lesson on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, 
with a special reference to the practical instruction which it is intended to convey. 

2. What are the faculties of children w hich it is the object of education to exercise 
and cultivate, and what exi)e(iienls of instrurtion li:ne a special application to each ? 

3. What are the characteristic dangers of the Schoolmaster's profession; 1st, with 
reference to himself; 2d, with reference to his scholars; 3d, to the parents of his 
scholars ; 4lh. to the managing of his school? 

Sect. VI. — 1. Show that the happiness of children ought to be respected in a school. 

2. In what respects may the selfishness of a Teacher be prejudicial to the interests 
of his scholars and to his own? What facilities are afforded him for the indulgence 
of it? 



NORMAL SCHOOL 



BRITISH AND FOREIGN SCHOOL SOCIETT, BOROUGH ROAD, LONDON. 



The following account of the Borough Road Normal School of the Bri- 
tish and Foreign School Society is compiled from a report of Joseph Flet- 
cher, Esq., one of her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, to the Committee of 
Council on Education, submitted April 7, 1847, and from documents pub- 
lished in the Annual Pueports of the Society. , 

The Normal establishment of the British and Foreign School Society is 
situated in Borough Road, at the corner of Great Union Street, London, and 
consists of two Normal Schools, one for male, and the other for female 
teachers, and two large model schools, one for boys and the other for girls, 
in which one thousand pupils are daily under instruction, on the monitorial 
system. These latter schools, while incidentally benefiting the neighbor- 
hood in which they are situated, are mainly sustained for the purpose of 
exhibiting in actual practice the most improved methods of instruction, and 
as a means of training in the art of teaching, and in the management of 
children the various classes of persons who enter the institution for this 
purpose. This was the leading object of the school, the nucleus of the 
present establishment, originally organized by Joseph Lancaster, near the 
present site, in 1798. At first it was attefnpted to raise a number of moni- 
tors into pupil teachers, and in 1805 the sum of $400 was raised, by dona- 
tions, expressly as a capital "for training school masters" by boarding 
youths of the right character, at the institution. This was the germ of all 
subsequent normal schools for training elementary teachers in England. The 
attempt to erect a plain building to accomodate the young men and lads, 
whom Mr. Lancaster undertook to qualify for schoolmasters, led to a series 
of embarrassments, from which he was relieved in 1808 by the generous 
subscription of Joseph Fox, and others, who organized, for this purpose, (in- 
cluding the King and Royal Family,) an association called the " Royal Lan- 
casterian Institution for promoting the Education of the Poor," which was 
afterwards changed to the " British and Foreign School Society," as more 
descriptive of its widening aim and influence. Regarding the instruction 
of the people as a national object, it has always maintained that it ought 
to be treated nationally, as belonging to towns rather than to churches, to 
districts rather than to congregations. So early as 1808 the cardinal object 
of the society is thus set forth in one of its rules. 

The institution shall maintain a school on an extensive scale to educate children- 
It shall support and train up young persons of both sexes for supplying properly, 
instructed teachers to the inhabitants of such places in the British dominions, at 
home and abroad, as shall be desirous of estabhshing schools on the British system. 
It shall instruct all persons, whether natives or foreigners, who may be sent from 
time to time for the purpose of being qualified as teachers in this or any other 
country. 

Every year, from the enactment of this rule, persons were admitted to the 
school for a longer or a shorter period of time, to observe, learn, and prac- 
tice the methods of classification and instruction pursued therein. In 1818, 
forty-four teachers were trained, and subsequently recommended to schools; 
in 1828, the number had increased to eighty-seven ; in 1838, it amounted 
to one hundred and eighty-three, and in 1846, it wa« over two hundred. 



762 BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL. 

The committee of the society were painfully conscious that many teachers 
who resorted to the school, were but poorly prepared in energy of cliarac- 
ter, tact, and christian spirit, to make good teachers; or if qualified in these 
respects, would stay long enough, in training to acquire the requisite attain- 
ment and practical skill. '' For such persons a period of two years, rather 
than three months, is required ; and until this can he afforded, the quality 
of the instruction imparted in country schools, must of necessity be very 
unsatisfactory. In the absence of better provision, however, these conside- 
rations only enhance the importance of that which has been already affec- 
ted ; and afford additional reasons for sustaining and enlarging, as far as 
may be practicable, the facilities which are now afforded by your training 
department for the preparation of teachers." 

In 1839, the Committee Of Council on Education was formed, and in the 
course of the year, they proffered to both the National Society, and the 
British and Foreign School Society, a grant of £5000 towards the erection 
of two Normal Schools. This society therefore resolved to improve an 
opportunity which presented itself for the purchase of land adjoining to 
tlieir premises in the Borough Road ; and having obtained from the Corpo- 
ration of the City of London an extension of the ground lease, which was 
cheerfully accorded on the most liberal terms, they determined to erect, 
thereupon, buildings capable of accommodating at least sixty resident can- 
didates, together with libraries and lecture-rooms sufficiently extensive for 
the instruction of a much larger number, so that fifty or sixty more may, if 
it should be found desirable, lodge and board in the neighborhood, and 
attend as out-door pupils. 

The new normal schools were completed in 1842, at an expense of 
£21,433 7s. 9d. defrayed by £5000 from Government, £1000 from the 
Corporation of London, £14,716 10s. lOd. from the friends of the institu- 
tion generally, £276 15s. an offering from British School teachers who had 
been trained in it, and the remaining £440 Is. lid., from the sale of old 
materials. The new buildings were opened on the 29th of June in the 
same year, when Lord John Russell presided at an examination of the 
model schools, and a report was read, which concluded by saying that, 
" To state in detail the precise course of instruction to be pursued in tliis 
new building, would as yet be premature. It may at present be sufficient 
to state, that it is intended that the course of instruction shall be very con- 
siderably enlarged, that additional teachers shall be engaged, that the time 
now devoted by candidates to preparatory training, shall be extended to the 
utmost practicable limit, that facilities shall be afforded for the attendance 
and instruction of the teachers of country schools, during a portion of their 
vacations, and that, as heretofore, every improvement in education which 
may be introduced either at home or abroad, shall receive immediate atten- 
tion, be fairly subjected to the test of experiment, and if found really valu- 
able, at once adopted." 

This great establishment is divided into two entirely distinct portions, 
forming respectively the male and female departments ; the former occu- 
pying the eastern, and the latter the western portion of the buildings, be- 
tween which there is no direct means of communication whatever, except 
by a private door, opened once a-day, to permit the young women to take 
their seats in the back part of the theatre, during the daily conversational 
lecture of the principal of the normal school on the art of teaching and 
governing in a school. Each department, again, has its respective normal 
and model school ; and each of the normal schools is divided into two 
classes, forming respectively the senior and junior divisions of the young 
persons und ertraining. The whole is under the constant general super- 
vision of the Committees, meeting on the premises, and of the Secretary, 



BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL. 763 

resident in them ; but the whole of their active management devolves upon 
the officers hereinafter iiatucd. 

The following are considered as the general and primary qualifications 
REQUIRED IN ALL CANDIDATES, whether male or female : — 

1. Religious Principle. — ^Whilst the Committee would disclaim anything approaching to a 
sectarian spirit, tney consider it indispensable that persons to whom the moral and religious in- 
struction of youth is confided should exemplify in their lives the Christian character, and be con- 
scientiously concerned to train up their youthful charge "in the nurture and admonition of the 
Lord." In requiring the most explicit testimonials on this important point, the Committee feel 
that they are only fulfilling the wishes of their constituents ; an opinion which is confirmed by 
the fact, that in almost all the applications they receive for teachers, it is expressly stipulated 
that they must be persons of decided piety, and that no others will be accepted. 

2. Activity and Energy. — These are essential. 

An indolent or inactive person can never make an efficient schoolmaster or schoolmistress. 
The arrangements of a school on the British system, when well conducted, considerably diminish 
the amount of labor required from the teacher ; but it is a system which peculiarly demands live- 
liness and activity both of body and mind. 

3. A comptti-nt share of Talent and Information.— The Committee have no desire to change 
in any respect the great principle on which they first set out — that of imparting to the laboring 
classes elementary instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic ; but the present state of socie- 
ty requires that a teacher should possess the ability to give instruction in higher branches of 
knowledge. Indeed, if teachers are to exercise any valuable influence over their pupils, they 
must themselves be intelligent ; they must be able to inform and interest children generally, and 
to draw out and strengthen their feeble powers. 

In addition to these qualifications, the Committee esteem it desirable that the candidate should 
possess kindness, and great firmness of mind, combined with good temper ; in short, those dispo- 
sitions of heart which gain so much on the allections of the young. The age of the applicant 
should not be less than twenty, nor more than thirty ; and all candidates receive the following 
'• general n -tices :" — 

1. Candidates received into the Institution on the reduced terms, are understood to pledge 
them.selves to act (as far as practicable) on the great leading principles adopted by the Society. 

2. Candidates who do not subject the Society to any cost on their behalf, are considered at lib- 
erty to engage themselves as teachers of schools connected with other educational bodies, or at- 
tached to particular denominations of Christians. 

3. All persons, on completing the terra for which they are accepted, must withdraw from the 
Institutiou ; and (if candidates for schools under the Society) must reside with their friends until 
suitable openings occur. 

Normal School for Young Men. 
The officers of the male department are, for the 

Normal School — A Principal — Vice-Principal and Teacher of Dra-wing 
and Mu.«ic. 

Model School. — A Superintendent and Assistant. 
Household.-^A. Curator and Housekeeper. 

The domestic arrangements (subject to the oversight of a sub- Committee) 
are placed under the care of the housekeeper and the curator. 

The duty of the housekeeper is to direct and control all matters relating 
to the board and lodging of the young men. She is required to provide 
the requisite food, to engage the domestic servant.s, and to secure at all 
times order, cleanliness, and punctuality in those portions of the establish- 
ment which fall under her supervision All accounts of disbursements 
are transmitted to the accountant for examination monthly. 

The duty of curator embraces all matters connected with the daily and 
hourly supervision of the students, and the maintenance of order, cleanli- 
ness, and harmony throughout the establishment. He is — • 

1. To keep a record of zdl persons entering or leaving the establishment, or attending any of 
the classes. 

2. To see that all the rooms used by the students, or their teachers, are always clean, and well 
Tentilated. 

3. To preside with the housekeeper at all meals ; to conduct family reading morning and even- 
ing ; and to be responsible for the adherence of every student to all the regulations laid down for 
his guidance while in the institution. 

He is further to give a daily written report to the secretary, whose private 
apartments, though distinct from the general establishment, are within the 
building, and througii whom, in case of irregularity, appeal can at once be 
made to ilie Committee. 



764 BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL. 

The dietary provided for the students is plain, but varied, substantial, 
and abundant. 

A medical practitioner, residing in the immediate neighborhood, is called 
in (free of cost to the student) on the first appearance of indisposition. 

There are dormitories in the male department for only 45 students ; 27 
in separate rooms, and 18 in nine larger rooms, with two beds in each. The 
remainder of the 66 pupils in this department, on the day of my general 
examination, were occupying apartments in the neighborhood, in houses 
of respectability, in which it is proposed that hereafter they shall be hired 
for them by the officers of the Institution. All, however, board in the 
house. The principal and vice-principal of the normal school and the 
superintendent of the model school are respectively charged with the proper 
occupation of the students' time, according to the Tables hereafter given; 
and at all intervening periods their employments are under the general 
superintendence of the curator, who marks lists to check their employment 
of the time assigned to private study, whether individually or under mutual 
monitors, and has charge of the manners and conduct of the young men 
generally, enlisting the aid of the two senior students for the time being. 
The young men perform no household services, beyond cleaning their own 
shoes and brushing their own clothes; for the time of their stay is too short 
to justify the sacrifice of any portion of it to industrial occupations. In- 
deed, most of them have already had a complete course of industrial edu- 
cation in the trades and occupations from which they have respectively 
come. 

Rules to which every Student is expected rigidly to conform. 

1. Relating to Sleeping Apartments : — 1. To rise every morning at 6 o'clock when the bell 
rings. 

2. Before leaving the room to uncover the bed-clothes, and to see that all books, articles of dress, 
Sec, are placed in the drawers. For every article found in the room a fine will be enforced. 

3. On no occasion whatever, without special permission, to have a candle, match, or other light 
in the room. (As the violation of this rule will endanger the safety of the building, any offender 
■will be specially reported ta the Committee, and probably directed to leave the institution.) 

4. Every student is to confine himself to his own bed-room, and to have no communication with 
any other, conversation not being allowed after retiring for the night. 

5. All washing and cleaning the person to be performed in the respective rooms ; the troughs 
on the landing never to be used for that purpose. 

6. The bed-rooms to be finally vacated for the day at five minutes to nine, and under no pre- 
tence whatever is any student to visit them again until bed-time. At no period will he be allowed 
to go up stairs in shoes worn during the day. 

II. Relating to the Classes: — 1. To be present in the school of design at half-past 6 o'clock 
in the morning to answer'to the roll, and then to proceed to the classes. 

2. To be present at the additional roll-calls at the undermentioned times, viz., five minutes to 
nine, five minutes to two, and half-past nine in the evening. 

3. To attend all the classes during the day at the precise time. From twelve to one to be in- 
variably devoted to exercise in the open air. If no letters or parcels have to be delivered, the time 
to be occupied in walking out. 

4. From half-past eight to half-past nine in the evening to be devoted to the preparations of 
the studies. The students who have finished will be required to maintain order and silence, that 
no interruption may be occasioned to those who are studying. 

III. Relating to Meals: — 1. To be ready for breakfast punctually at a quarter past eight ; 
dinner at a quart(*r past one ; tea at a quarter past five ; and supper at half-past eight ; at which 
hours the bell will ring. 

2. On entering the dining-room for any meal, every student to remain standing in his place 
until the housekeeper and curator have entered and taken their seats ; and on the housekeeper 
rising to leave the room (which sign indicates the conclusion of the meal), every student will be 
expected to rise, and the one nearest to the door to open it. 

3. During meals no reading will be allowed ; silence must be observed, and the strictest pro- 
priety of behavior maintained, rudeness, selfish eagerness to be assisted before others, or indecorum 
of any kind, will be noticed, and expose the parties to merited rebuke. 

IV. Relating to other Periods of Time: — 1. No singing, loud talking, or unnecessary noise 
in the passages, or in any part of the building, will be tolerated. No throwing of ink, or other 
careless or filthy habit, will on any account be suffered. Parties offending will be specially re- 
ported to the Committee. 

2. No book, paper, article of dress or of other use, will be allowed, under any pretext, to lie 
about any of the rooms or passages ; a place being appointed for everything, everything must be 
in its place. For every offence a fine will be enforced, and the article detained until it is paLil. 

3. No student is to be absent from the premises without the permission of the curator, or (if in 



BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL. 755 

class hours) of the teacher of the class from which he wishes to be absent ; and he is never to be 
out later than half-past nine. 

4. On Sunday he will be expected to attend twice at his accustomed place of worship, and to 
•pend the remainder of the day in" quietness and propriety. 

5. Never to enter the depository except on business. 

In order to carry the above regulations into effect the curator is strictly charged by the Com- 
mittee to impound all articles left about, and on no account to return them to the owners without 
payment of tlie fine ; and, further, never to allow any violation of these rules to pass without 
severe rebuke. 

As, however, many offences may be committed where the guilty party cannot be discovered, 
the two senior students (for the time being) will be held responsible for all such misdemeanors. 
If injury be done to any part of the rooms, or unnecessary dirt brought in, it will be their duty to 
find out and report on the offender ; in which case he will be required to remove or repair it. 

All fines to be spent in books for the library. 

The following is the official outline of the Normal School of Young 
Men:— 

I. Persons eligible. — Subject to the general qualifications already enumerated, five classes of 
persons are eligible for admission. 

Class A. — Young men desirous of becoming teachers, who wish to be introduced to a school by 
the Committee, and are prepared to remain in the institution twelve months. 

Class B. — Young men desirous of becoming teachers, who wish to be introduced to a school by • 
the Committee, but are unable to remain longer than six months. 

Class C. — Youths and other persons who desire to adopt the profession of a teacher, but wish 
subsequently to be at their own disposal. These are considered as private teachers, and are re- 
quired to pay the fees attached to each class. 

Class D. — Teachers elected to schools, or already conducting them, but desirous of attending, for 
some limited period, any of the classes, with a view to farther improvement. 

Class E . — Missionaries or other persons proceeding abroad, with a view to the promotion of 
education in foreign parts. 

II. Times of Admission. — Class A. — January and July. 
Class B. — January, April, July, and October. 

Classes C, D, and E. — Monthly, by special correspondence with the Secretary. 

Classes A and B are expected to board in the establishment. Reduced charge, 63. a week ; the 
■whole sum to be paid in advance. 

Cla.ss C cannot be admitted to board or lodge. They must also pay in advance the fee required 
on entering each class. 

Classes D and E may be admitted to board by special arrangement. 

III. Mode of J]jij>lication. — The first step to be taken by the candidate is to write a letter to 
the Secretary, stating briefly his nge, state of health, and present employment ; also whether he 
is married or single, and, if married, what family he has. 

Secondly, he should mention, generally, the amount of his attainments, and state the length of 
time he could devote to the work of preparation. 

Thirdly, whether he has had any practice in communicating instruction to children, either in 
day or Sunday schools ; whether he has ever been engaged in benevolent efforts for the improve- 
ment of the poor ; and whether he has been in the habit of attending any means of general or 
religious instruction beyond the ordinances of public worship. 

This letter, which should be as brief as circumstances will admit, should be accompanied by 
explicit testimonials from the clergyman or minister of the church or congregation with which 
the candidate miy be connected, and from one or more persons to whom he may be known, as to 
his possession of the qualifications already mentioned as indispensable. 

On receipt of these communications, the Secretary will bring the application before the Com- 
mittee at their first meeting, and afterwards communicate further with the candidate. 

The sub-Committee appointed to investigate the testimonials of candidates meets at the house 
of the Institution, in the Borough Road,, on the first Monday in every month, at 10 o'clock in the 
forenoon 

If the candidate reside in or near London, he should attend the Committee at this time, but not 
unless he has had on some previous day a personal intervieiv with the Secretary. 

Supposing the Committee to be satisfied with the letter and testimonials, the candidate will be 
informed when he is to present himself for preliminary examination, on the following points : — 

1. As to his Health. — It will be required that persons admitted into the Institution shall be in 
good health, and free from any serious physical defect; and that they shall either have had the 
small-pox or have been vaccinated. 

2. As to the Amount of his Knowledge. — He must read fluently and without unpleasant 
tones ; he must write a fair hand, spell correctly, be well acquainted with the first four rules of 
arithmetic, and have some general acquaintance with geography and history. 

If the result of this examination be on the whole satisfactory, the candidate (having paid the 
amount required) receives a certificate, on delivery of which to the Curator he is presented with a 
copy of the rules of the establishment, and either received into the house or intro<fticed to the 
clas.si's he wishes to attend. If the result be unsatisfactory, a written report to that effect is 
made to the Secretary, who will then communicate with the Committee, and with the candidate 
or his friends 

By these preliminary inquiries and investigations, it is hoped that in the majority of casei 
subsequent disappointment may be prevented ; but as it is impossible to decide, prior to actual 
experiment, whether any person has or has not that peculiar fact in the management and control 
of children, and those powers of arrangement, as applied to numbers, without which no teacher 
•an successfully carry out the combinations of a British school, — every candidate is requited to 



760 BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL. 

hold himself ready to withdraw from the Institution should he be found thoroaghly deficient im 
the art of managing, interesting, and controlling children. 

Tlie Cmniniuee do not in any case fitd^e i/ieiiisetcts to furnish candidates with situations ; 
but as hitherto they have been ni tlie habit of receiving applications for teachers from the numer- 
ous friends of education in diti'erent parts of the countiy, tliey have reason to liope that it 
will generally be in their power to recommend tlie candidates tiiey may train to parties thus 
applying. 

IV. — Vacations — IMitlsummer. — Four weeks from the Friday preceding ^Midsummer day. 

C/iristinas. — One week from the Friday preceding Christmas-day. 

Easter. — From the Thursday preceding ijood Friday to the Wednesday in the ensuing week. 

At the Midsummer vacation every student is required to leave the Institution, and to provide 
him.self with board and lodging during that period. 

V. — Table of Classes. — Class I. — Grammar and English Composition .--^Students of Six 
Months. — A course of English Grammar, including the chief roots ^especially the Anglo-Saxon.) 
and derivatives of the language. Composition. — Forrp.s of letters, notes, isc-o. Abstracts of re- 
marks and lectures will be looked over, with a view to the correction of errors in orthography or 
composition. 

Students of Twelve Months. — An extended course in the construction of the English language. 
So much of comparative grammar as may be understood by those assumed to know only one lan- 
guage. Composition. — A systematic course. Essays on some branches of teaching. 

Class II. — Elocution : Readings in Prose and Poetry .-—In this class the pieces read are selec- 
ted from the Third Lesson Book, and are accompanied by systematic mterrogatiou from the notes. 
The pupils are also required to interrogate one another. 

Class 111. — Jlrit/imetic and Mat/ieinntics : — This class includes^ 

1. Arit/iinetic. — Principles from De Morgan. 

2. Geometry. — Books u. iii. iv v. vi. of Euclid's Elements. 

3. Elements of algebra and trigonometry. 

Class IV. — ]\Iodel Lessons in Natural Pkitosopliy, Natural History, Botany, and Cliemis- 
try : — The object of these lessons (which, with the aid of suitable books of reference, d.re prepand 
by the pupils before breakfast) is twofold , .first, to render them suHicieutly acquainted with the 
various subjects treated in the Fourth Lesson Book, to enable tliem to teach that book intelligently ; 
and, secondly, to exh.bit to the tutor the extent of their knowledge, and the degree ol ability pos- 
SH.ssed for imparting the same to children. The instruction given in natural philosophy is of a 
popular kind, suited to the acquirements of students, some of whom may be acquainted only with 
the elementary parts of pure mathematics. 

Class V. — Art of Teacliing. — This class, at which all the teachers in training (both male and 
female) are required to attend, is held in the lecture-room of the institution. 

The time is occupied in criticism on the gallery lesson of the day, in a conversational lectuie 
on some topic connected with the principles or practice of leaching, and in the exammatiou of 
written notes. 

The course consists of 60 lectures, and is completed in 12 weeks. 

Class Vl. — Practical Siniultaneous Lessons. — This class (at which all attend) is conducted in 
the gallery cla.ss-rooms, where the teachers in turn are required to give collective lessons ; after 
whicu, the criticisms of the teachers who have been spectators are required to be given in the leo- 
ture-room. The tutor then comments on various detects and merits in tne lessons. 

Class VII. — Bible Lesson — This class is conducted in the model school, each teacher being re- 
quired to instruct and question a draft of JO or 12 children, on a given subject, under the uispeo- 
tion of the tutor and the superintendent of the school. 

Class VIII. — School of Design. — This class is separated into two divisions, upper and lov/er. 
In the upper, drawing is taught, in the following order : — 

1. Maps and charts. 

2. Machinery i 

3. Architecture > with and without models. 

4. Figures and landscapes ) 

In the lower division, writing is taught, and then simple geometrical figures, and outlines of 
maps. 

Class IX. — Geography and History. — Geography. — Geography of the chief countries cf the 
globe, including their main natural features, towns, manufactures, government, population, and 
social condition. Connexion between the political and physical geography of countries. Lead- 
ing features of mathematical geography. 

Histoiy. — General history, ancient and modern. 

Class X. — Arithmetic [Lower Class). 

Arithmetic. — Written and mental. 

Geometry. — A course of practical geometry. The first book of Euclid's Elements. 

Bltnsitration.^-An elementary course. 

Class XI. — Elements of P/iysics. — This class is simply intended to furnish the required infor- 
mation for the ordinary teaching of the Fourth Lesson Book. 

Class XII. — Vocal Music. — This class is maintained by a separate voluntary subscription, and 
attendance is optional on the part .of the students. The methods and books both of Mr. Hicksou 
and Hullah are adopted. 

*#* The books required for each class, which are few and inexpensive, must be purchased by 
the student. 

VI. — Exatninations. — Weekly Examinations. — Every candidate will undergo a strict exa- 



BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL. YqY 

mication as to thp amount of work performed during each •week : he is required to record in • 
journal his labors and progress ; and it is tlieii ascertained, by a series of questions, whether thai 
which he supposes hiuuelt to have acquired be thoroughly understood and digested. He is aUo 
examined as to the mode in which lie would communicate to others the knowledge he has gained. 

Half- Yearly Examinations : — 

Examiners. — Professor ■ Coll. 

JProfessor Coll. 

Certificates of proficiency will be granted at the discretion of the examiners. 

Any schoolmaster who has been instructed by the Society, or who may be engaged in conducting 
any school in connexion with it, may (by previous notice to the Secretary) otfer himself for exam- 
ination, in order to obtain a certificate of proficiency. 

The lower class examination will embrace — 

Reading; writing; arithmetic (written and mental ;) gramntar ; geography: English history ; 
knowledge of the Scriptures ; elements of geometry, drawing, and music ; and the art of teaching. 

Ttie higher class (in addition) practical geometry; mensuration; the elements of algebra and 
trigonometry ; natural philosophy ; an e.\.tended course of mathematical aud physical geography ; 
construction of maps; and drawing, as applied to mechanics and architecture. 

As the object of the Society is to prepare teachers, and not merely to improve students, the 
books used as te.Kt-books are, as far as practicable, those used in the schools, and the examinations 
will be conducted with special reference to the ultimate object in view, viz , elfective leaching. 

The male department is, in effect, subdivided into distinct sections, 
placed respectively under the principal of the normal school, making the 
preliminary examinations, conducting the studies of the senior class, and 
giving three-fifths of the lectures to the whole in " pedagogy," or the art of 
teaching and governing in a school ; under the vice-principal of the normal 
school, conducting the studies of the junior class as well as those of the 
morning classes of the female students, and likewise conveying the other 
two-fifths of the instruction in '• pedagogy ;"' and under the superintendent 
of the model school, who has the entire disposal of that section, and the 
arrangement of the students' exercises in it. The junior class consists, in 
the main, of those whose stay in the institution lias not exceeded three 
months ; the senioi- class, of those whose stay has exceeded that term. 

Amongst those admitted as students, very great variety obtains in re- 
spect to attainments and capacity. Hence classification, at first, is almost 
impracticable. This, added to the difficulty occasioned by the entrance of 
new students at every period of the quarter, creates no little embarrass- 
ment in the management of the junior class, especially when the numbers 
are so large. Almost every one, on his entrance, is totally ignorant of some 
one or more of the branches of study pursued ; hence it becomes neces- 
sary to adopt, to a great extent, the tedious and distracting plan of indi- 
vidual instruction. Very few of them can read ivcU, that is, with intelli- 
gence and correctness of pronunication, while the monotonous tones of 
some, and the almost inveterate provincialisms of others, require much 
time and attention to correct. Besides, unhappily, many of those whose 
general acquirements are of a fair average character, have comparatively 
neglected orthography and reading, and consequently very much of their 
time during their stay in the class is necessarily devoted to these elemen- 
tary studies. Some again, have made apparently fair progress in arith^ 
metic, grammar, &c., previous to admission ; but though able to perform 
the operations in one science, and give definitions or parse sentences in the 
other, it is found, on examination, that their knowledge is merely by rote, 
aud that the principles in both cases are not at all understood : tliey know 
that the thing is so and so, but they cannot tell why. Again, some who 
are, to some extent acquainted with principles, are quite vmable to com- 
municate their information to others, especially to children, and their 
efforts rather resemble awkward attempts at lecturing than intelligent 
teaching. All the time that can be spared from learning and practising 
the art of teaching has to be employed by this junior class in a vigorous 
etfort to repair the deficiencies of their own elementary education. For 
this purpotie they form a very interesting school of primary instruction 
under the Vice-Principal. 



768 BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL. 

The following is the course of study of the junior class during the 
quarter ended 31st March, 1847, as described by its tutor, Mr. Saun- 
ders : — 

Grnmmnr — TJie parts of Speech, and the Exercises upon them in Allen and Cornwell's 
Grammar, using also the Latin Roots there given ; and the first part of Cornwell's Young 
Compo-er. 

Gfogrnphy. — General principles, Mathematical and Physical — Varieties of the Human Race 
—General features and divisions of Europe — Physical Geography of England — Text-book : Corn- 
v.'ell's Geography. 

Natural History. — The great divisions of the Animal Kingdom — Radiatain detail — Text-book: 
Mrs. Lee's Introduction to Natural History, and Cuvier. 

Writing. — improvement of the style in four hands. 

Aril/iiiietir. — I'rinciples and practice from Notation to Compound Proportion inclusive — and 
Square and Cube Roots. — Text-books : Crossley's Calculator and Thompson's Arithmetic. 

Aritlimet ic (Mental) — All the Rules in Crossley's Intellectual Calculator. 

Linear Drawing. — Geometrical Figures in Dyce's Designs, and in Francceur's Linear 
Dra\Viup;. 

History — Roman and Saxon England in Outline — Norman period with the Feudal System 
and the Crusades in detail — Text-books: Pinnock's Goldsmith, revised by Dr. Taylor, and Ma- 
cintosh's Hi.-itory of England. 

Natural Philosoplnj — General Divisions — Properties of Matter and Laws of Motion — Text- 
bojks : Peschell's Physios and Moseiey's Illustrations. 

Menmiralioii and Geometry. — Plane Figures — Text-books : Pasley's Practical Geometry, and 
Elliot's Geometry and Mensuration. 

Elocution. — A series of 2-1 lessons in prose and poetry — Text-books : the Society's Lesson 
Books, and Allen's English Poetry. 

Scripture — Geography and History cf Canaan from the call of Abraham to the present time — 
Text-book : Home's Introduction to the Study of the Scriptures. 

Various other works are used as sources of illustration, and the students are referred to them 
for further information, in their future hours of leisure. 

The junior class is assembled on five evenings in the week, for two 
hours and a half, from 6 to half-past 8 o'clock, and on the morning of Sa- 
turday for four hours, from 9 to 1 p.m. The evening of Monday is occu- 
pied by devoting one hour to English Grammar, one hour to Geography, 
and half an hour to the elements of Physics. The les.sons having been 
previously prepared during the period allotted to study in the morning, one 
of the students is selected by the tutor to examine the class in the lesson 
on grammar appointed for the evening. His questions are addressed to the 
members of the class individually, and on the failure of any one to reply 
to tlie question proposed, it is put to another, and another. This is requited 
to be done witli as much rapidity and precision as possible, and should 
every one in the class fail to reply satisfactorily, the interrogator must then 
explain the subject to them, and examine them again. " The exercises on 
the different rules of grammar, as corrected by themselves, are read from 
their exercise books, every exercise being written before a lesson is consid- 
ered as past, and a record of it is then made in their journals. During the 
whole of this time the tutor is with them, occasionally asking questions on 
the lesson under consideration, pointing out to the class the errors of the 
questioner and their own. At the close of each lesson the students are 
required to mention anything which to them may seem objectionable in 
the manner in which the questions are put, or in errors of pronunciation, or 
any other which they may have observed ; and yet further to show how 
they would have proceeded under the same circumstances. This plan of 
friendly but searching criticism is carried on with every lesson superin- 
tended by one of the students. The geographical lesson is given by one of 
the students, previously appointed, much in the same manner as the sim- 
ultaneous or gallery lessons are given in the model school — that is, he 
furnishes them with information on the particular country or countries 
beyond what they may already possess: having ascertained the latter by 
questions at the commcacemcnt of the lesson. About half an hour is 
occupied in this manner, and then another half hour by another of the 
students in interrogation on the same subject ; thus it is speedily ascer- 
tained if the information has been received by them, and also whether 



BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL. "769 

their notions are clear and distinct. In physics the same course is pursued, 
and, when requisite and practicable, experiments are introduced, drawings 
and diagrams used, and objects exhibited.''" 

The evening of Tuesday is occupied for the first hour in writing in copy- 
books, eacli copy being submitted to the tutor ; the errors are pointed out, 
and a line written by him with special i-eference to those errors j the stu- 
dent is thus furnished with a copy precisely adapted to his wants. The 
next hour is devoted to drawing. In this, as in writing, the measure of 
success depends mainly on individual practice, and therefore the teaching 
is individual rather than simultaneous. Very few have practiced even 
drawing from copies before they came to the institution. Those who have, 
possess the facility of hand and eye which the preliminary exercises in this 
class are chiefly designed to convey. But the greater number require very 
careful introduction to the first notions and hrfbits of representing forms on 
a plane surface, or even of drawing straight lines, and measuring them 
into relative lengths, without which they are quite unprepared to use the 
models which are introduced in the senior drawing classes. They make 
these first sketches in charcoal, so as to admit of correction, chiefly from 
simple geometrical figures in the published books of the Government 
School of Design, or from enlarged copies of those contained in Francceur's 
" Linear Drawing," prepared for the schools of France, organized on the 
Lancasterian system. This hour is the only one in the week devoted to 
drawing by those who are under the instruction of Mr. Saunilers ; but it 
suffices to give a habit of using the eye and the crayon. Mental Arithme- 
tic occupies the next half hour ; and as mental calculations depend so 
much on the ability to combine numbers rapidly and to detect their rela- 
tions, much of the time devoted to them is occupied by tables and analyses 
of numbers, forming a firm basis on which to build up rapid and correct 
calculations. 

On Wednesday evening the first hour and the last half hour are occupied 
in the same manner as on Monday, but the hour from 7 to 8 is devoted to 
the History of England ; the lesson being treated precisely in the same 
manner as the geography. 

On Thursday evening the first hour is devoted to Elocution. The mem- 
bers of the class standing in a circle in the School of Design, the tutor 
reads about a page in the style and spirit which he wishes should charac- 
terize their reading. The students then read in turn : at the close of the 
reading of each, observations on the excellences or defects of the reader 
are elicited from his companions ; the teacher makes liis own remarks on 
these observations and on the reading itself; and the pupil who sits next 
in rotation resumes the text. The next hour is devoted to Practical Geo- 
metry, for their exercises in which the students occupy seats at the desks 
in the School of Design, and each is furnished with a slate, compasses, 
triangle, and ruler. The problem to be executed is then distinctly enun- 
ciated by the tutor ; the first step in its performance is explained and exhi- 
bited on a large black board, each copying it on his slate by means of 
instruments ; the second step is then explained and illustrated in like man- 
ner. When completed, the question occurs, ' What have you done ?' And 
if the answer does not agree with the conditions of the problem, the dis- 
crepancy is pointed out and corrected. If the performance is correct and 
tlie reply satisfactory, the figure described is obliterated from the board and 
the slates, and the problem has to be executed again without any direction 
whatever. If this can be done, the next is proceeded with, and so on. As 
most of the students on entering are altogether ignorant of geometry, no 
very great amount of progress can be made : but a good foundation may be 
laid for future improvement. The text-book used is one well adapted to 

49 



770 BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL. 

the age of the students, combined with their want of early practice. It is 
Pasley's " Complete Course of Practical Geometry and Plan Drawing." 
It is employed to illustrate their practice in drawing from copies of geo- 
metrical figures, and simple problems in mensuration are pertinently intro- 
duced. The remaining half hour of Thursday evening is devoted to writ- 
ten arithmetic, or, in the conventional phrase of the schools, to " slate 
arithmetic." It is applied to the development of principles, or the appli- 
cation of them to practice, as may be required. In either case the students 
themselves are called upon to explain to their fellows the lesson received 
from the tutor, and to exhibit illustrations of it on the black board. 

The first hour of Friday, as of Tuesday, evening, is devoted to Writing. 
The .second hour to Elocution or Reading, in like manner as the first hour 
of the preceding evening : aii^ the concluding half hour is employed in a 
lesson in Physics, as oh Monday and Wednesday. 

On Saturday morning the first hour is devoted to Modern History and 
Geography; the second to examinations in Arithmetic, especially in prin- 
ciples ; the third to examinations in Grammar and Etymology, particularly 
Greek and Latin roots ; and the fourth to Scripture Geography and History ; 
all of them conducted in the same manner as tiie lessons already described. 

"It should be observed that one of the lessons for each evening is given 
by the tutor as a model for imitation by the students, all the subjects being 
taken by him in turn, and attention particularly directed to tlie points of 
failure on the part of the students, and the errors into which they are most 
likely to fall. It might perhaps be supposed that, from remarks being 
freely made on each other's performances, some exhibitions of ill-feeling 
might be produced, but I believe myself fully justified in saying that no 
one instance of the kind has occurred. One advantage gained by these 
friendly criticisms is, that in very many instances the fault which passes 
unnoticed when committed by the student himself is apparent to him in 
another ; and hence his correction is applied to his companion and himself 
at the same time, 

•• The number of exercises which they are required to write gives them 
much practice in orthography ; but besides this, an hour of one morning 
in each week is devoted exclusively to writing from dictation ; the exer- 
cises being examined afterwards by two students appointed to that ofiice by 
the tutor, who also afterwards examines them again himself. In addition 
to this, each one in the class is required to write a letter once a week to 
the tutor, the writer being allowed to select his own subject : this exerci.se 
is of great service, as displaying the mental peculiarities of the writer, and 
affording a medium of private and confidential communication. In the 
examination of these letters attention is devoted to the most minute points, 
such as the mode of address, manner of folding, &c. 

The tnembers of this junior class also attend, with those of the senior 
cla.ss, the course of 60 lectures on teaching, &c., delivered by the Principal 
and Vice-Principal of the normal school ; making rough notes while the 
lecture is being given, and writing out afterwards a fair abstract of it in a 
book furnished to them for tliat purpose ; these abstracts also are examined 
and corrected by the tutor. During four hours and a half (from 9 till 12, 
and from 2 till half-past 3) of every day, the students are engaged in 
teaching classes of boys in the model school "under the close ob.servation 
of the tutors, one of whom is always present, for the purpose of noticing 
and pointing out to them their defects, and the mode of supplying them; 
thus the lessons learned in the normal school are carried into practice in 
the model school, and the application of theory to practice conducted under 
strict supervision." Such is the course contemplated ; but there appeared 
to me to be great room for improvement in the practical employment of 



BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL. 77 j 

this valuable portion of time ; improvement connected with an economy 
of opportunities in other departments of the training in this institution, in 
describing which it will be convenient again to revert to the labors of the 
model school. 

During the past year an additional Bible class to the one mentioned in 
the Time Table has been established at the request of the students, the 
time of meeting being from 9 to 10 on the Sunday morning, and though 
their being present is perfectly voluntary, almost every one of them has 
been regular and constant in attendance ; and the anxiety of many who 
have left the institution to have copies of the notes of the subjects taken 
up in the class, since their removal, affords an evidence of the value they 
set on the instruction communicated. ^ 

At the close of the first three months of tiieir stay, the members of this 
class are put through another general examination by the Vice-Principal, 
in the presence of the Committee ; and from among them the numbers in 
the upper class are then filled up, so as to leave behind only the few who 
are yet unprepared to proceed with the rest to any profitable result. 

Upper Class in Normal School, 

'• The upper class," states the Principal of the normal school, " consists 
of students of not less than three months' standing. Their attention has 
been directed to the following subjects : — the English Language, Mathe- 
matics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural History. These studies have 
been pursued with me from 6 till half-past 8 during three evenings in the 
week.* The course, as to method, has been uniform, the instruction 
having been given in the form of conversational lectures, based, as far as 
possible, upon the lesson-books of the Society as text-books. As much 
information has been thus afforded as the students have been supposed to 
be able to master by study in the early morning of the following day. either 
privately or in class ; and the consciousness that the next time the subject 
should be taken up it would be commenced by a searching interrogation as 
to what is known of the last given lesson, has acted as a sufficient stimulus 
to persevering industry. 

•• The English Language. -^ThiS' has been treated under three distinct 
heads. First, that which is ordinarily called Grammar, viz., the distinc- 
tions in the nature of words, the inflectional changes they undergo, their 
relations to each other, and the influence they exert in consequence of those 
relations. In short, syntax and etymology, exclusive of derivation, The 
aim has been never to give any term, definition, or rule, except as the rep- 
resentative of an idea, — -to supply the notion before the words that express 
it. The general principles of language have been given, too, as far as they 
could be understood by those not having the power of comparison from the 
want of acquaintance with two languages. Thus the universal fact has 
been taught, that languages have a tendency to get rid of their inflectional 
forms, and to express their relations by particles and position ; and hence 
has the reason been shown why the rules of position are so much more 
important in a language in its recent than in its earlier condition. English 
and Anglo-Saxon have, perhaps, been instanced. 

" The second direct study of English has been the Formation and Deri- 
vation of Words. These have been taught from lists of Anglo-Saxon, 
Latin, and Greek primitives found in the grammar. Etymologies have 
been explained, too. incidentally in connexion with the reading, and the 
various scientific terms from time to time occurring. In this study extreme 
accuracy has been insisted on, as it has been felt that persons not unfre- 

• Two whole evenings in each week are devoted to Drawing and Musio, under the teausher of 
tboie branches. 



772 BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL 

quently render themselves ridiculotis, by dabbling in a foreign language 
"W'ith which they have not a correct acquaintance as far as it goes. 

'■^Composition is the third means that has been employed for teaching 
the English language. It has been felt to be important that a teacher 
should be able to express his thoughts in suitable language and in a proper 
order. In the exercises, importance has been attached to neatness of wri- 
ting and unaffectedness of style. Considerable advantages have attended 
this employment. It has been so pursued as to form a new study of Eng- 
lish, showing the structure of the language and not of the words, logical 
and not grammatical relations. Truer, because more e.vtensive views of 
the nature of their mother-tongue have thus been obtained, than could 
have been secured had the same time been devoted to the mere study of 
grammar. I regret to say that in a few instances, too (especially in the 
teachers selected by local committees), it has not been without its advan- 
tages even in regard to orthography. 

"We have Jiot yet found time for a systematic course on English Liter- 
ature. It has not, however, been entirely neglected, but has been taken up 
incidentally in connexion with tlie composition. For as tlie exercises found 
in the text-book are for the most part selections from our best classic 
authors, fitting opportunities have been afforded, as each came under ob.ser- 
vation, for giving a slight biographical notice, the characteristics of his 
style, his principal works, and the recommendation of those deemed most 
valuable. 

" Geography. — A good deal of attention has been given to geography. 
It is attempted to make this an inductive study ; certain conditions are 
given, from which certain consequences are to be inferred. Thus the stu- 
dents are expected to discover that the currents of the rivers of Eastern 
Europe are slow, and of Western Europe rapid; after having been told 
that tlie former have their rise at a slight elevation and have a lengthened 
course, and the latter originate in the high land of Central Europe, at no 
great distance from the sea. Political and social geography are thus 
shown to be in a great degree dependent on physical geography ; the reason 
is seen why one nation is agricultural and another commercial ; why a 
certain manufacture should be carried on in a particular locality in prefer- 
ence to every other; and why an alteration in tlie mode of manufacture 
should involve a change in its seat. Thus that Holland is agricultural 
and England manufacturing; that our cotton manufacture is carried on in 
South Lancashire and the edges of the neighboring counties, and not in 
Lincolnshire ; that our manufactures generally are travelling north and 
west: and that iron, which was once largely manufactured in Kent and 
Sussex, is now only smelted on the great coalfields, are not merely so many 
facts, but highly interesting facts; interesting, because regarded as effects, 
the causes of which are perceived, and have probably been discovered, by 
the student himself. 

" The Etymology of geogrophical names forms an important feature in 
this branch of knowledge. The name of a place often fells its coudition 
or history; and the explanation of the same by calling into exercise the 
power of association, increases the probability of its being remembered. 
Thus the name Bwjnos Ayrcs. still shows the salubrity of the air of that 
town : Sierra, the .Spanish name for a range of hills, the saw-like appear- 
ance which it presents ; New York tells us that it was once a colony of 
England, and those who know that it was first called New Amsterdam, 
know, too, that it was founded by the Dutch ; Virginia, shows that it was 
colonized in the reign of our virgin queen, Elizabeth ; Carolina, during 
that of CharlQs (Carolus). The term fell, applied to mountains in the 
north of England, the south of Scotland, and in the islands of the noith 



BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL. ^>j^ 

and west, shows that these parts of the country were occupied by some 
tribe or tribes of Scaudinaviau origin ; while ben or pen found in tlie most 
mauntaiuous regions, contirnis the facts of history, that these high grounds 
were unconsjuered by the northern invaders, and continued in the possession 
of the original Celtic inhabitants. la thus finding out the cause of the 
fact, and the cause of the name, the reason has been exercised and the 
study rendered highly philosophical ; and a science which has often been 
thought to consist only of lists of hard unmeaning words, has been made 
attractive in i„ more than usual degree. 

•• Histonj. — This study has been almost exclusively confined to the few 
great prominent events which have distinguished the history of any coun- 
try. These have been a good deal amplitied — traced to their cau.ses, and 
pursued to tlieir cousequsnces. Shortness of time necessitates such a 
method. But irresp.ective of this, it is considered the best for a first course; 
for, as these salient events are only the visible development of principles, 
an acquaintance with these affords a key, as it were, to most of the subor- 
dinate intermediate occurrences. The events of English history receive 
by far the most attention, as do also those nearer our own times, compared 
with the m.>re remote. In considering the events of other countries, con- 
stant reference is made to what was going on at the same time in Eng- 
land. It is thus frequently seen, that the same principle is developing itself 
at different places at the same time : e. g. the struggle between ecclesiasti- 
cal and kingly power in France and Germany, at the time of our Henry II. 
and his Archbishop Becket. 

'■' Mxthematics. — A full and systematic explanation of the principles of 
Arithmetic has formed a part of this study, and has been productive of 
great advantage to the teachers. Some who have entered the institution 
as good mathematicians, have been found to be unable to give a reason for 
the mode of performing the elementary parts of arithmetic. An acquaint- 
ance with rules by no means includes a knowledge of principles; but he 
Avho understands principles can make rules for himself. A strong interest 
lias been excited, as the principles involved in the most ordinary opera- 
tions have been evolved, and the effect of this has shown itself remarkably 
in the different manner of teaching a class of boys in the model school 
before and after such explanation ; dulness on the part of the teacher has 
been succeeded by spirit, and lassitude on that of the boys by the most 
lively attention. 

" Demonstrative Geometry has been pursued, but for the most part by 
each student independently, such being, in my opmion, the only way in 
which the advantages attendant on its pursuit are to be realized in the 
highest degree. The acquirements have, consequently, been very various, 
from only a few propositions to several books, according to ability and pre- 
vious attainments. In all cases, however, though not equally, the great 
object has been secured — mental drilling. 

'^Only the elements of Algebra and !^/■^g•ono?ne^r3/ have been taught, and 
these not systematically. The first has been introduced in connexion with 
the explanation of the principles of arithmetic, the algebraic formula) being 
given as the representatives of general truths. Trigonometry has been 
required for the explanation of certain facts of natural philo.sophy, espe- 
cially those of astronomy, and has been then introduced. 

" Natural Philosophy. — It has been attempted to teach this branch of 
knowledge so as to combine the popular with the scientific. It has been 
made popu/ar by drawing the illustrations from those phenomena which are 
every day before our ayes; and, fortunately, the great truths of physics are 
almost always capable of such illustration. But the merely popular has 
been avoided, by directing attention, not only to resulta, but to the methods 



^74 BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL. 

by which such results have been obtained. There are sonne truths, of 
course, only to be demonstrated by the higher mathematics. These are 
quite beyond our reach, and are either entirely omitted or explained by the 
nearest analogical approximation. But in numerons instances, perhaps 
most, the principle of a method admits of illustration by means of very 
elementary mathematical knowledge. Thus the students learn, not only 
that the sun and planets are at such a distance, but the manner in which 
such results are obtained is given, and shown to involve only the same 
principles as are employed in the simplest land surveying. 

" Natural History. — Up to the present time only zoology has been con- 
sidered. Subsequent to the lectures on this subject, visits have been made, 
with great advantage, to the Regent's Park Zoological Gardens and the 
rooms of the British Museum containing the specimens of natural history. 

" In the case of the few students who remain with us more than six 
months, the afternoons of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, from 2 to half- 
past 3, are devoted to the further study of mathematics, original composi- 
tion, and Latin. As regards the latter subject, the progress made is small 
indeed. It amounts to little more than removing some of the initiatory 
difficulties attendant on the study of a new language, and showing the 
student how he may hereafter pursue it with the best prospect of success. 
Yet slight as is the amount of knowledge obtained, it has not been without 
its value as affording a glimpse into the nature of language in general, 
which is not to be obtained by the individual who has no acquaintance 
with any but his own." 

Drawing and Music— -Two whole evenings in every week, those of 
Monday and Wednesday, ire devoted by the senior class to drawing; and 
three-quarters of an hour is given at the close of every day to singing 
The course adopted in the .scheme of drawing lessons is. in the first instance, 
to convey to the students, in a series of familiar explanations, such princi- 
ples of perspective as may be sufficient to enable them to delineate cor- 
rectly simple lines in various positions. This is done on the black board 
with chalk ; and when the class has evinced a degree of proficiency in such 
exercises, our next step is to introduce solid forms, involving a further ac- 
quaintance with principles which are then progressively laid down. As 
soon as practicable, the mere outlines on board are superseded by the use 
of paper, which is continued to the end of the course. The models in use 
in the classes are the series published under the sanction of the Committee 
of Council on Education ; and We have also, as time and the skill of the 
student would permit, introduced many simple objects for exercise, such as 
articles of furniture. 

The time devoted to vocal music is necessarily limited ; and the lessons 
are given at the close of the day, to prevent interference with any of the 
more important studies. The elementary les.sons are based on Wilhem's 
system, as improved by Mr. HuUah ; but one lesson in each week is devo- 
ted to the practice of simple school-pieces, published in " The Singing Mas- 
ter" of Mr. W. E. Hick.son, which is found to be of considerable use iu 
creating an air of cheerfulness, and relieving the more serious exercises. 

Art of Teaching and Governing in a School. 
The theory of teaching and governing, is given in a series of lectures on 
pedagogy, which are delivered every day in the theatre of the institution, 
the course running through three months. Of these lectures the students 
are required to make abstracts. Among these, is a series on mental phi- 
losophy ; it being deemed of importance, that those who have to influence 
mmd, through the agency of mind, should know something of its opera- 
tions. Through these lectures the science of education is generally under- 
stood. 



BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL. ' ^75 

But education is an art as well as a science, and as in every other art, per- 
fection is to be obtained only by practice. This practice is se ured by the 
attendance of all the students in the model school for four hours and a half du- 
ring each day. They pass, step by step, throu^i all the parts of the school, 
commencing with the lowest draft of boys, and ending with the charge of the 
whole. During this time, they are always under observation ; and when 
any one manifests a want of skill in teaching or government, he is requested 
to leave the draft, his error is privately pointed out to him, and such di- 
rections are given as are considered proper to obviate it. Should the error 
be of a kind likely to characterize more than the individual, it is noted 
down and made the subject of observation to all the students When together 
in the theatre. 

The second method of improving the practice is, to assemble all the stu- 
dents in one of the gallery class-rooms, and then to require one of them, 
who has been previously appointed and furnished with a subject, to give a 
collective lesson to about a hundred boys. Every one is then engaged in 
noting down what he considers the defects or merits of the lesson, embra- 
cing points of grammar, manner, knowledge, government, &c. At the 
conclusion of the lesson, all the teachers adjourn to the theatre of the in- 
stitution, and in turns give their opinions of the lesson. When all have 
finished, observations are made by myself, first on the criticisms of the ob- 
servers and then on the general points of excellence or defect which have 
characterized the lesson. 

The third mode of improving the practice is by means of lessons given 
by the students in turn to all the rest. The chief difference between this 
method and the last is, that errors are checked as they arise. There is no 
noting down deficiencies ; but as soon as one is observed, the teacher is 
stopped, the defect pointed out, and he is at once required to rectify it. 
Before boys, this method would be obviously improper, as the moral influ- 
ence of the teachers would be destroyed by it. But, among themselves, 
it is found to work very amicably. Indeed, it has been gratifying to me to 
■witness the good temper with which the criticisms have been all but uni- 
versally given and received. On the entrance of some students, the ob- 
servations have been rather intended to show the acuteness of the speaker 
than to benefit the teacher who has given the lesson. But this has soon 
righted itself, and almost always without the necessity of intervention on 
my part. 

The following is a list of the Conversational Readings to the whole of 
the students on the art of teaching and governing in a school, which form 
the quarter's course ,• five being delivered on five several days in each of 
twelve weeks, three by the Principal, and two by the Vice-principal. The 
first 36 form the course given by the Principal, and the remaining 24, that 
by the Vice-principal. At the commencement of each quarter these courses 
are begun again. 

1. On the objects which a teacher should have in view in adopting his profession. 

2. On the circumstances which make a teacher happy in a school. 

3. On some of the essential moral qualifications of a teacher 

4. On the essential intellectual qualifications of a teacher. 

5. On the establishment of authority. 

6 On gaining ascendency over the minds of children. 

7. On combination and arrangement. 

8. On routines of instruction and formation of plans. 

9. On the monitorial system — its use and abuse. 

10. On the selection of monitors. 

11. On the training of monitors. 

12. On the collective or simultaneous system. 

13. On the art of teaching the elements of reading to very yonng childran. 

14. Illustrations of the mode of using the First Lesson Book. 

15. On various methods of teaching spelling. 

16. On the mode of using the Second Lesson Book. 

17. On object-lesaons for young children. 



tjljQ BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL. 

18. On the interrogative system, with illustrations. , ~. . , t 

19. On analytical teaching generally, with illustrations from the Third Lesson Book. 
20'. On syntlietioal teaching; illustrations from the Third Lesson Book. 

21. On the art of reaJing with animation and expression. 

22. On Scripture questioning, generally ; on Scripture geography, and methods of teaching it. 

23. On teaching writing. 

24. On the use and nature of numbers. 

25. On teaching arithmetic. 

26. On the mode of using the Fourth Lesson Book. 

27. On teaching geography. 

28. On teaching grammar. 

29. On teaching drawing. 

30. On teaching vocal music. 

31. On the philosophy of the human mind as applicahls to education. 
3-2. On attention and memory 

33. On association. 

34. On conceptioa. 

35. On imagination. 

36. On the principal writers on education. 

37. On rewards and punishments. 

38. On emulation. 

39. On common errors relating to punishments, and on corporeal punishments. 

40. On moral and religious influence generally. 

41. On the promotion of a love of truth, honesty, benevolence, and other virtues, among children. 

42. On cleanliness and neatness, kindness to animals, and gentleness. 

43 On promoting obedience to parents, respectful demeanor to elders, and general submission to 
authority. 

44. On the private studies of a teacher. 

45. On the course to be pursued in organizing anew school. 

46. On keeping the various registers of attendance and progress. 

47. On the ventilation of school-rooms and dwellings. 

48. On school furniture generally. 

49. On some of the circumstances which affect the condition of the laboring classes. 

50. On the elements of political economy. 

51. On machinery and its results. 

53 On cottage economy and savings' banks. 

53. On the duties of the teacher to the parents of the children, and to the Committee. 
' 54. On the formation of museums and collections of apparatus, and the management of school 
libraries. 

55. On keeping up a connexion with old scholars. 

56. On the order in which a teacher should attempt to accomplish the various objects he has in 
view. 

57. On school examinations generally. 

53. On raising and filling a school, and on the circumstances which make a school popular. 

59. On the various ways in which a teacher may co-operate with other benevolent efforts, such 
as temperance societies and Sabbath schools. 

60. Brief summary of the teacher's duties in school, otit of school, and in relation to the chil- 
dren, their parents, the Committee, and to society at large. 

The 4^ hours devoted to daily practice by the students in the moni- 
torial labors of the model school, with an occasional gallery lesson, has 
already been described ; and several times a week the Principal casts a 
careful glance around their drafts, and makes notes of the defects observa- 
ble in them, to form the subject of observations in the conversational lec- 
ture of the evening. If the students were staying, as they ought to stay, 
for two years, instead of six months, this amount of time spent in the 
model school would be in excess; and the actual amount of valuable time 
devoted to its labors, is a sacrifice which challenges a vigilant superin- 
tendence and an amount of ambulatory instruction which shall turn it 10 
the best account. The practice in gallery teaching is necessarily unfre- 
quent, where there are only three classes placed under it every morning • 
but over this, also, the same eye is extended at like intervals : and every 
afternoon, at half-past three o'clock, occurs the gallery lesson, by a student 
teacher, in the presence of the Principal or the Vice-principal and the whole 
body of the students, expressly to form the subject of mutual criticism, 
and of a final critique by Mr. Cornwell,on adjourning to the theatre at,4. In 
the theatre, after taking the criticisms of the students on the lesson just de- 
livered, which seem generally to be limited to the superficial defects of 
grammar, pronunciation, or want of order in the gallery, the Principal or 
Vice-priucipal makes a far more searching exposure of its essential defects, 



BOROUGH ROAD NOR^MAT- :=CIIOOL. 77*7 

"which are carefully analyzed ; and concludes by throwing in the remarks 
required by his miscellaneous notes on the class and gallery teacliing of 
tiie day. He then proceeds with the conversational lecture for the day, 
into each of which the student's limited period of residence compels lain 
to throw a large amount of instruction, so tersely expressed, and yet so con- 
densed, as to require all the earnestness of the young men at once to seize and 
assimilate it. No one, however, can be present at one of these conversa- 
tional lectures without being struck by the weightiuess of the matter which it 
contains, and the aphoristic vigor with which it is endeavored, not merely 
to lay it before, but to engrave it into the minds of the hearers. 

The tenor of the course may be gathered from the results contemplated 
in the following set of queries, drawn up by the Principal, and contained 
in the Society's " Manual :" 

Questions to test a School. 
The following questions have been drawn up for the use alike of Com- 
mittees and teachers. They indicate the points to which a teacher should 
direct his attention, and the course a Committee should take in order to 
a.scertaiii the condition of a school. The questions are supposed to be put 
to the teaclier ; 

Reading : 

Do yon fiejine ani limit the portion to be read.' Is the portion assigned of such moderate 
lenglli as to allow of its being read three or four times ? 

Do your monitors question readily on the lessons that have been read ? 

Have you the specimens, models., or diagrams, that are necessary to illustrate such lesson ? 

Do you rest satisfied if one boy is reading in the draft, or do yon see that every child is atleiitive 
while one is reading ! Do you also forbid the rar>nitors appro.iohing the boy who is reading, and 
require him always to stand where he has a view of the whole draft ? 

Do you pay attention to the slyleoi realing. particularly with the elder boys ? 

Do you correct a bad style by having vevy Jiiiniliar sentences read ? 

By requiring the boys to tell you something, to write it down, and then to read it from their 
own writing .' 

Do you teach \,\ie meanings of words in connexion with the reading, as found in sentences, 
rather than with the spelling in which the arrangements must be arbitrary ? 

Do you point out on the map all the places occurring in the lesson read ? 

Do the boys exhibit seriousness of manner while reading the Bible ? 

Spelling: 

Do you sometimes teach and test spelling by the dictation of sentences to be written ? 

Do the elder boys sometimes copy pieces of poetry and the e.^eroises in grammar, with a view 
to improvement in spelling .'• 

Do you have the more ditHcult words that occur in your collective lessons spelt? 
Interrogation : 

Do you or your monitors, question on every siibjert taught ? 

Do you occasionally require mutual questioning on the part of the elder boys ? 

Does your questioning include the (/iree dilferent stages .' 1. During reading, the explanation 
of su;h words or allusion-; as are necessary to understanding the lesson ? 2. After the books are 
closed, with a view to impressing the facts of the lesson on the memory ? 3. The explanation of 
the etymologies of words and the imparting such incidental information as is naturally associ- 
ated with it '. 

Do you avoid indefinite questions, and such as by admitting of only " Ves !" or "No I" en- 
courage guessing ? 

Writing : 

Are the books kept clean, free from blots, and without the corners being turned down ? * 

Do you furnish the boys with good copies, avoiding those which have improper contractions ? 

Have you a black board on which you write in chalk a copy for the lower boys who are unable 
to write .' 

drithmetic : 

Do you teach arithmetic by the black board ? Have you one in each draft ? 

Do you in teaching arithmetic commence with and constantly refer to sensible objects ? 

Are the numbers in your toioer classes always those of littie vilae ? 

Do you invariably insist on every number being read to ascertain whether its value is under- 
stood ? 

Do your monitors yuestf'on at every step in the process of a sum? e.g. Why do you carry 
only one when you borrow ten ? 

Are the t(;r;«« and wnrA* explained? e.g. Witt do .£. s. d. ms:iu ? Why is the rule called 
compound subtraction? What are these "marks" used for.' 



The books may be kept smooth by tying them up between two pieces of board. 



iJ^JQ BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL. 

Do you connect the book knowledge of the more advanced boys with the objects around them ? e. g. 
What is the quantity of timber in the trunk of a tree whose height and girth, both at the root and 
part where it branches otf. have been measured by themselves? The number of gallons the 
tchool water-butt will hold .' The contents of a field, whose shape and sides they have ascer- 
tained .' 

Orammiir : 

Do you explain every definition, rule, &c.. before allowing the boys to commit them to meraoryT 

Do you make your boys understand that language determines grammar, and not grammar lan- 
guage ? That the rules of grammar are only the recognized usages of language ? 

In explaining the etymologies of words are you extremely careful to give the right quantities 
and terminations of the roots .' 

Geography : 

Do you teach the physical {f3.tures of any district first ? 

Do you make the boys acqoaiuted with their own neighborhood and country before attending to 
more distant parts ? 

Have you a map of the neighborhood in the school ? 

In commencing geography do you require the boys to make a map of the play-ground, or some 
well-known part .' Do you explaih latitude and longitude by a reference to this map ? 

Do you require the boys occasionally to point towards the place under consideration ? e.g. 
When Dublin has been pointed out on the map, do you say, .Vote point to Dublin itself? 

Drawing ! 
Do you commence with chalk drawing on the black board ? 
Are your monitors so proficient as to be able to sketch off any object illustrative of their lesson? 

Collective Teaching: 

Do you abstain from teaching collectively those subjects which depend for their improvement 
on the amount of individual practice, as reading, spelling, &c.? 

Do you test the efficiency of your collective teaching by individual questions? 

Do you sometimes require the elder boys to make a written abstract of their lesson? Is this 
looked over with a view to the spelling among other things ? 

Do you make use of elipscsJ the number varying inversely as the age of the child? 

Are your collective lessons to the whole school especially devoted to subjects connected with 
manners, morals and religion ? Do those to the younger boys relate to the various familiar ob- 
jects, utensils, and operations about them? Are those to the elder hoys given systematically ? 
i. e. Is each lesson part of a system of knowledge ? 

Is your collective teaching especially charaoterized by simplicity both of language and illustra- 
tion, and by animation''. * 

In using numbers do you make them intelligible by referring them to known standards ? e. g. 
If you were stating that soma trees are near 300 feet high, would you say that they were twice, 
three or four times, as the case may be, as high as some well-known object? 

Monitors : 

Do you devote an hour a day specially to the training of your monitors ? 

Is it your prime object in this training to give your monitors the art of teaching, and do you 
make the impartation of knowledge subservient to this ? 
. Do you train every monitor in the very lessons he has to teach ? 

Is the mass of your school employed in some quiet exercise, as writing, while you are engaged 
with the monitors ? 

Have you a good general monitor to whom yon can intrust the mass of the school during your 
training of the monitors ? 

Do you require the same monitor to teach the same lesson that he maybe thoroughly competent 
to that lesson ? 

Have you a double set of monitors, that while one set is teaching the other is learning ? 

Do you from time to time, add to your monitor's class, to act as auxiliaries, in the absence of 
the regular monitors, such boys as you deem likely to be suited to the office ? 

Do you associate with the office of monitor as many pleasing circumstances as you can ? 

Do you pay them? Have they as such the use of the school library ? Do you treat them with 
marked consideration ? Do you occasionally accompany them in little excursions, to places in 
your neighborhood distinguished in history, or for beautiful scenery, or to museums, gardens, 
&c. ? 

Do you impress on your monitors that they should correct no mistake till they have ascertained 
that none of the boys in their draft can ? Do you exemplify this in your own teaching ? 

Discipline : 

Is order the habit of your school ? 

Have you perfect quietness during writing? 

Do you drill your boys occasionally, with a view to securing habits of prompt obedience ? 

Do you have the movements to and from the desks made in an orderly way ? Do you generally 
have the tables repeated or sung simultaneously at this time ? Do you sometimes have the 
movements made with perfect quietness, as a means of discipline ? Are all the exercises con- 
ducted as quietly as is consistent with the full development of the powers of the children ? 

Do you have all tho-e subjects whicli depend for their improvement upon practice, such as head- 
ing, spelling, &c., taught individually ? 

Is every exercise conducted under observation, that the boys may feel that any inattention or 
disorder is certain of detection ? 

• Many of the points suggested here are as important in conuexiOD with other kinds of teaching as in collec- 
tive ; but as the evils of neelecting them would be increased in proportion to the number taught, it baa bcoi 
teemed advisable to throw taem under this head. 



BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL, SCHOOL. 779 

Have all the children at all times sometin^ to do, and a motive for doing it? 

Do you abstain from giving a second command till thejirxt has been obeyed? 

Do you abstain from calling out, except on puite necessary occasions .' 

In stopping or directing the whole school, do you give your commands so lond as to be heard by 
all, and no loader ? 

Are you strict, without being severe ? 

If you find the general discipline becoming at all lax, do you have those exercises which are 
most faulty, gone through as you wish thera, after the regular school hours ? 

Habits of the School : 

Is your room clean ? 

Do you have it well swept, and Justed every day ? 

Do you see all the school furniture put in its proper place, before you leave the school-room? 

Is your room well ventilated J 

Do the boys exhibit subdued and gentle manners in their intercourse with each other ? 

Are the boys generally clean in their persons and dress ? 

Do you carefully prevent idling about the school, or in or near the gates, &c., or in the play- 
ground ? 

Are your boys orderly and respectful to their superiors ? 

Do you discourage tiile-telling, except in reference to very serious faults ? 

Do you keep your drafts of about a uniform size, not less than nine, nor more than twelve ? 

Do you take care that boys of the same class are of about the same attainments, and in a col- 
lective lesson of the same mental capacity? 

Have you the form of the drafts distinctly marked on the floor, by cutting into it, painting it, 
or letting a wire into it ? 

Examinations : 

Htve yo\i stated periods oi ezamination, in order to the removal of the competent to 'higher 
classes ? 

Do the children know these periods, that they may work with a view to them ? 

Are the intervals between these periods of such moderate length in a child's estimation, as to 
influence his exertions? 

Have the parents any means of knowing when their children are advanced? 

Have you an evening examination, at least once a year, for the parents and friends of the chil- 
dren ? 

Oeneral ; 

Do you require every error to be corrected by the boy making it, after it has been corrected by 
another ? 

Is every matter explained before it is committed to memory ? 

Do you keep up your connexion with the old scholars, by occasional meetings, or in any other 
way ? Are they allowed the use of the school library ? 

Do your children loDe you ? Have you a strong sympathy for children, and pleasure in their 
company ? 

Is your teaching intellectual? Do the children really understand \vh3.t they are learning? Do 
you make every subject taught a means of intellectual development ? 

Do your children come to school regularly and in time ? 

Do you give time and attention to subjects according to their relative importance ? e. g. Rea- 
ding above every thing, the history and circumstances of your own town or locality in prefer-, 
enoe to more distant parts ? 

Do you rather aim at giving the boys 3, good acquaintance with a. few subjects, than a very su- 
perficial acquaintance with many ? 

Are your exercises generally characterized by /ittie »-ppe«<in^ and much questioning? 

Do you keep a register of the attendances of the children, and of their school payments ? 

Do you rest satisfied if you obtain an answer to a question /rom one, or do you repeat and re- 
model the question till the matter is understood by all ? Do you impress this maxim upon your 
monitors, that all teaching is for the whole class ? 

Model School. 
The " Boys' School '' connected with this establishment probably stands 
unrivalled in England, as a model of order and discipline, and of the col- 
lective instruction of a large number of children on the monitorial system. 
It is composed of 760 boys, from the age of six to twelve or thirteen 
years. The register is always full, and the attendance is regular and 
punctual, (averaging daily 700.) although the children are gathered from 
one of the poorest neighborhoods of the city. The school is not free, (ex- 
cept when there are more than two from the same family.) and yet being 
good, there is no difficulty in collecting in advance the fee of 2d. per week. 
On account of the large number of classes into which the school is divided 
the normal pupils enjoy unrivalled opportunities, both of observation and 
practice of the method of instruction pursued, which are not exclusively 



780 BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL. 

monitorial, but a mixed system of the monitorial and simultaneous, in 
wliich, however, the monitorial is the ground- work of the whole. 

Female Department of the Normal School. 

The mode of obtaining admission, conditions, organization and instruc- 
tion of this department are substantially the same as those in the male depart- 
ment. The immediate class instruction and practice are conducted under fe- 
male teachers, while the pupils of this department attend daily in the theatre, 
or lecture hall on the lectures on the art of teaching given to the young men. 
In addition to, or modification of the course pursued by the young men, 
the female Normal pupils are instructed in the art of teaching needle- 
work; in the best method of training girls to houseliold duties; and espe- 
cially in those methods of conmiunicating religious knowledge, which, 
under the blessing of God, are most likely not only to make the young 
acquainted with, and interested in Holy Scripture, but to bring them 
practically under the influence of its sacred truths. 

Mr. Fletcher, in his Report describes a peculiar practice of the Model 
Girls' School:— 

Nor must I omit from express notice the perfect system of industrial 
instruction in needlework, and the economy of clothing, through whicli 
the whole school- is passed. The outline of it given in the Society's 
"Manual of the System of Teaching in the Model Girls' School." is no 
paper theory, but a simple description of a well-ordered and vigorous set 
of classes, embracing the whole school, for an hour and a half every 
morning. " When at needlework the children are seated at desks, arranged 
in classes, according to their proficiency. The first or lowest class is 
seated further from the platform, and the others, in numerical order, in 
front of it. The number of classes depends on the different kinds of work 
taught in the school, each kind occupying a separate class. The number 
in general use is 11. From the higher classes the best workers are selected 
for monitors ; two are appointed for each class. One instructs for one week, 
whilst theotlier is at workunder the direction of her monitor ; consequently 
each superintends the class and works alternately ; and each monitor contin- 
ues at the same desk until she is appointed monitor to a higher class. FiVery 
girl continues to sit at the same desk while she remains in the class. 
There are also two platform monitors, who alternately superintend and 
work one week. But all the monitors of classes, and the girls under their 
care, are under the superintendence of the general monitor. Every Friday 
morning the girls are allowed to bring their own work. 

The children in the higher classes are provided with lap-bags, made of 
brown holland. These are marked 1, 2, 3, &c., for as many as the desk 
contains. The number of the desk is also marked upon them ; thus f sig- 
nifies that the bag belongs to the fifth girl in the eighth etesk. Before the 
children take their seats, the bags are placed by the platform monitor on 
the class monitor's desks, and by them given to their girls. The class work 
and all garments in hand, are collected by the class monitors, and placed 
on the ends of the desks ready for the platform monitor to deliver to the 
mistress. The monitor of each desk is furnished vv'ith a pair of scissors, 
thread-paper, needle-case, and a bag large enough to contain all the imple- 
ments that belong to her desk. They are also supplied with a few thimbles 
and needles, for which they are responsible to the platform monitor. The 
children in the lower classes use colored cotton for the class work, as it 
renders the stitches more conspicuous, and consequently facilitates general 
inspection. It also excites an interest, as the promise of a choice of some 
pretty color is a strong inducement to a child to perform her work neatly. 

At the time assigned for closing the labor of the morning reading drafts, 



BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL. 781 

viz., at a quarter past 10 o'clock, the general monitor rings the bell as a 
signal for the business of the drafts to cease: and, after a pause, the com- 
mand is given for the girls to turn to the right or to the left, as the order 
may be. The order is then given, and the whole of the children walk in 
a line along the passage round the school, and each girl, as she comes to 
the end of it, steps in behind the desk to which she belongs, and goes to 
her proper place at the desk. Each monitor does the same, taking her 
place at the liead of the desk. Each child being now opposite to her own 
slate, a command is given to take their seats, which thej^ do instantly. 

A signal is now given for the monitors to distribute the bags, after 
which they return to their seats, and another signal is given for each girl to tie 
her own bag to tlie desk before her. A signal is again given for the moni- 
tors to examine their girls' hands to see if they are clean, and that each is 
provided with a needle and thimble. The platform monitor now supplies 
the class monitors with any additional work they may require for tlieii 
girls, which the class monitors give out; al.so a needleful of cotton to each 
cliild, and then return to their seats. A command is now given for the 
whole school to show work, that is, to hold it up in their left hand to see 
that each is furnished with work. The bell is then rung, each child 
holds down her work and immediately begins; and the monitors pass down 
the desks to instruct them. When a child wants work she holds up her 
left hand as an intimation to her monitor, who steps forward and supplies 
her. If a monitor wants a fresh supply she makes a like signal to the 
platform monitor. When a girl wants thread she holds up her right hand, 
and her monitor supplies her. If a monitor wants a fresh supply she makes a 
like signal to the platform monitor. At half past 1 1 o'clock the mistress 
examines the work of each child ; those who merit rewards have a ticket, 
and tho.se who have been careless and inattentive forfeit one, or are 
confined after school. 

At a quarter before 12 the bell rings for the girls to show work, and 
the monitors to pass down the desks and collect the needles and thimbles 
An order is then given for the children to put the class work into the bags, 
and the monitors to collect all articles in hand, and deliver them to the 
platform monitor, who takes them to the platform. The monitors then 
take their .seats. The order is now given to untie bags, when each 
child unties her own; a second order is given to take them off; and a 
third, to fold them up. Each child folds her own neatly, with the number 
in view, places it on the desk before her, and puts her hands behind her. 
The bell then rings for the monitors to collect bags, which they do, placing 
them one on the other in order; they then put them neatly into the bag 
belonging to their desk; also their scissors, thread-papers, needles and 
thimbles. The monitors are then ordered to the platform with their bags, 
where they deliver them to the platform monitor. They then return to 
their seats, and the report of the good and inattentive girls is read ahmd 
by the monitor- general ; the good receive tickets, and the negligent must 
either forfeit tickets or stay in after school hours. As soon as the reports 
are taken, all the children are exercised out of their seats, to stand each 
opposite to her own slate, with her hands behind her. A signal is given 
for the girls to turn, when they are dismissed in order, one class following 
the other in a line along the sides of the school." 

For the details of the instruction in each class, I must refer you to the 
Manual." The first class is for hemming, in two divisions, one composed 
of those who have not learned to fix a hem, and who are taught on waste 
paper, as being less expensive than linen or cotton, and answering the 
purpose just as well ; and a second, in which they practice hemming on 
small pieces of calico. The second class, also in two divisions, is for 



782 BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL. 

sewing and felling, and running and felling ; first division learning to fix 
their work in paper, and the second to execute it. The third class is for 
drawing threads and stitching; the fourth for gathering and fixing gathers; 
the fifth, for button-holes; the sixth, for making buttons and sewing them 
on; the seventh, for herring-bone stitching; the eighth, for darning; the 
ninth, for making tucks, and whipping ; and the tenth, for marking. The 
eleventh is the finishing class. Tliere is at present no knitting or netting 
class; and fancy work is expressly excluded and discouraged. 

"As it is highly desirable that the children, as soon as they have learned 
to work, should be employed in something useful, this class comprises the 
girls who have passed tiirough the preceding, and are here engaged in 
making and completing garments. The children in this class are taught 
economy in purchasing, cutting out, and repairing various articles of wear- 
ing apparel ; tliey are made acquainted with the waste occasioned by the 
want of proper consideration and exactness in domestic arrangements, and 
the miseries frequently produced by misnaanagement and inattention. In 
order to impress upon their minds this useful branch of female instruction, 
they are interrogated, in various ways, on the common concerns of life. 
When the teacher proposes a question, she waits until each child in the 
class has had an opportunity of retarning an answer, according to the 
knowledge she possesses. She then comments upon each of these answers 
in a way that will enable the children to decide which is the most suitable 
course. To assist the teachers in these exercises, they are furnished with 
a few examples of questions and answers, which they may carry out to a 
much greater extent." These also will be found in the " Manual," 
together with engraved patterns for cutting out the commonest garments. 
The highest industrial section of the school forms in fact a class for collec- 
tive teaching of the most practical and improving kind, including as many 
ideas on household management generally as can be conveyed. Specimens 
of needlework, made up in portfolios for the use of teachers, and arranged 
iu the order of the above classes, are sold at the Society's Depository ; and 
the beautiful patterns of every variety of garment, made up in tissue 
paper by the finishing class against the time of the annual meeting, are 
quite little works of art. 

The propriety and industry exhibited throughout these industrial classes 
is as perfect as their system ; and a student teacher in each class has the 
advantage of co-operating in, and doing as much as she can of, the work 
of superintending each successive class, from the lowest upwards ; the 
sewing classes, in this respect, presenting no peculiarity distinguishing them 
from those devoted to other exercises. The discipline and moral tone of 
this school present throughout a standard well worthy of its exemplar 
character. It has a library of above 250 carefully selected volumes, 
besides a small library of reference for its monitors. Great advantage, too, 
must arise from a certain small proportion of the children being retained 
in connexion with the institution until a riper age, and even then not giving 
up their intercourse with it. In fact, the whole department is a family as 
much as a school ; and no higher praise can possibly be bestowed upon it. 
Art of Teaching and Governing a School. 

Three hours and a half each day are devoted by the female students to 
practice in monitorial or gallery teaching in the Girls' Model School; and 
in alternate weeks another hour and a half is given daily, by each of the 
two classes, to the practical labors of the needlework drafts. At the close 
of the afternoon's gallery lesson, they all adjourn to the theatre, on the 
back seats of which tliey take their places to hear the criticism on the 
gallery lesson which has been given by one of the young men, followed by 
the lecture on *' pedagogy" for the day, in the course already described. 



BOKOUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL. 783 

A like criticism of the afternoon's gallery teaching, and of the draft teach- 
ing for the day, in the model girls' school, is taken on the opening 
of the evening classes. It is conducted with some spirit, and the 
concluding remarks of the normal school teacher. Miss Drew, are exceed- 
ingly acute and judicious. A weekly conversational lecture occupies 
two hours of every Saturday morning, and is given by tlie experienced super- 
intendent, Mrs. Mac Rae, to the whole of the female student teachers, 
seated at their needlework in the gallery. The following are the heads of 
her course : — 

1. On the various motives for entering on the profession of a teacher. 

2. On sonae of the essential moral qualifications of a teacher. 

3. On the selection rff monitors. 

4. On organizing a new school. 

5. On training monitors. . 

6. On teaching the elements of reading, with illustrations of the method of using the First 
Lesson Book. 

7. On the various methods of teaching spelling, with illustrations, 

8. On training suitable monitors to assist in teaching needlework. 

9. On teaching arithmetic. 

10. On domestic economy and orderly habits. 

11. On school furniture, and the order of a school-room. 

12. On the cleanliness of a school-room, and ventilation. 

13. On the duties of monitors. 

14. On the various offices in the school, 

15. On improving an old school. 

16. On the judicious treatment of the monitors. 

17. On the duties of a teacher to the committee, and to the parents of the children. 

18. On a week's oooupation in the model school, and the advantages of cultivating a spirit of 
inquiry. 

These lessons of the superintendent, applying all which the students are 
learning in the normal school, to the circumstances into which they are 
about to be introduced, are higiily interesting, "vividly instructive, and im- 
bued with a truly Christian spirit. Drawing from the experiences of a 
quick and refined perception, they embody indeed practical lessons of adhe- 
rence, to unfailing truth and untiring patience, from which others than 
teachers might proiit. The following is the Examination Paper on the Art 
of Teaching and Governing in a School, answered by Ann Inglefield, 25th 
March, 1837 :— 

1. How will a teacher best establish her authority in a school ? — By firmness, joined with kind- 
ness of manner and impartiality in all her conduct; giving her commands clearly and definitely ; 
expecting prompt and cheerful obedience ; let the children see that principle governs her conduct: 
this, with good information and a pleasing manner of communicating, are not likely to fail of suc- 
cess in establishing the authority of a teacher in her school. 

2. What will especially demand your vigilance in giving a collective lesson ? — That the atten- 
tion of the children be kept alive by the interesting information and manner of the teacher ; that 
the supervision be constant, and the order preserved. 

3. How will you endeavor to have good monitors ? — By efficient training and interesting them 
in the work, imparting to them superior information, and reposing confidence in them when found 
■worthy. 

4. State some of the uses of the monitorial system, and of the defects which may be indulged 
under it ? — A greater number of children can be instructed at one time than by one individual! 

The monitors acquire the art of communicating the information they gain ; they must be ex- 
amples to their drafts ; and by these means they are likely to prove, as they grow up, more useful 
members of society 

The defect would arise from the mistress indulging self-ease and neglecting her monitors, or 
leaving too much of the school duties to them. 

5. How will you endeavor to get good reading in a school ?— By attending to the punctuation, 
emphasis, rising and falling inflection, aspirates and non-aspirates, and tones of the voice. 

6. What will demand especial attention in the arithmetic classes ?^-That the children perfectly 
understand the rules and their uses. 

7. How will you convey to children the first notions of geography ? — By illustration, as desoii- 
bing the earth by an orange. 

8. What powers of the mind should an object lesson be directed to cultivate ?— Observation 
attention, reflection. ' 

It is difficult to imagine a combination of advantages greater than that 
enjoyed by the student teachers in the female department of this iiistitution, 
including, as it does, the animated and faithful instruction of the principal 



tj^^ BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL. 

teacher of the normal school and the vice-principal of the companion 
department, the lectures on teaching and governing in a school, delivered 
to the students in both departments by the principal and vice-principal of 
the normal school for young men, an admirable model school, and the 
faithful counsels conveyed by the superintendent in her daily management 
and weekly addresses. The effect of this combination is indeed very 
marked, if tlie superior activity and orderliness of tnind shown by the 
senior over the junior section, during my presence in the school, afford any 
fair measure of its amount. Considering however, that the female students, 
though as much instructed as the male students, and possessed of superior 
manners, are yet not generally equal to them in physical resources, and in 
the enthusiastic energy which brings a considerable proportion of the latter 
into the field of instruction, it is not less to be regretted in their case than 
in the male department, that the young teachers have not the advanta- 
ges of a longer stay to strengthen their acquirements, their capacities of 
teaching, and, I might even add, their general character, before they enter 
upon the arduous duties of their very responsible situations. The time of 
their stay is far too short to accomplish all that is desirable in these 
respects ; although the means provided are, I sincerely believe, sufficient, 
■with God's blessing, to render them able, modest, and Christian teachers. 
Among the circum.stances incidentally conducive to this result, I would 
recall especial attention to the fair proportion of pupil teachers to be found 
in the model school, at the head of the monitor's class, giving a moral 
firmness, as well as intellectual strength, to its organization, eminently 
beneficial to the student teachers, at the same time that they enjoy the 
further advantage of the head teachers of the normal and model schools 
themselves daily superintending, correcting, and teaching in the classes. 

It is a leading object in the management of this institution to train up a 
race of teachers who shall not only elevate the office by the respectability 
of their attainments, but adorn it by the fervor of their poetry. Each 
candidate is presented, on admission, with a copy of the following hints, 
accompanying the regulations to which he will be expected to attend : 

I. Let your mind frcquf.ntly and seriously revert to the objects w/tic/t ore to be obtai)ied 
by your residence in the Society^s House. — You have at once to acquire and to communicate, 
to learn and to teacl:. to govern and to submit to government ; and you have to do tiiis, not in re- 
lation to one mind only, but to many minds, — of different quality, under varying circumstances, 
— as an e-xemplar. and as subordinate to others. You have MUCH to do. Therefore — 

II. Redeem yuar Time. — Do not think it sufiiciein to attend regularly and diligently to np- 
poi/i(f(/ studies, but improve the intervals of time which will necessarily elapse between these stated 
employments. Secure the minutes, for minutes compose hours. Ten minutes, diligently im- 
proved every day. will amount to an hour in the course of a week ; and an hour thus redeemed 
every ciny, will be equal in value to no small portion of a year. 

III. Cultiviile Habits of Order. — Avoid negligence in personal appearance. Bealwaysneat 
and clean in your app.irel. Let those pursuits which are most important in reference to your ex- 
pected engagements receive the greatest share of your attention ; and never suffer these to be in- 
terrupted or superseded by others of a more general nature. Do not allow levity and tritting to 
usurp the place of rational cheerfulness. " Avoid the very appearance of evil.'" Attend to all 
established regulations. He who wilfully breaks rules which are calculated to promote the wel- 
fare of the cormnunity to which he belongs, is the common enemy of all. 

IV. Cherish a kind and friendly di.'iposiiion towards your Associates. — Let this be shown by 
a general spirit of courtesy, — a willingness to assist where help may be needed, and especially by 
the communication to others of any knowledge you may exclusively possess. Manifest a decided 
disapprobation of unbecoming conduct wherever you observe it ; and, jealous for the honor of the 
body to which you belong, endeavor to stimulate every pupil to diligence and apal in the pursuit 
of those great objects for the attainment of which all are alike receiving the countenance and aid 
of the Society. 

V. Exercise a constant Spirit of " Watchfulness unto Prayer. — Remembering that you 
are responsible to God for the right improvenleut of the advantages you enjoy, the talents you 
possess, and the time placed at your dispo.sal ; seek daily for " the wisdom which cometh from 
above,"' and '■ the grace which bringeth salvation." Be yourself a diligent and devotional stu- 
dent of that book you are emphatically to teach ; and never forget that " all Scripture is given 
by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in 
righteousness ; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto good works." (2 
Tim. iii. 16, 17.) 

Periodical examinations of the student teachers take place in the pre- 



BOROUGH ROAD NORMAL SCHOOL. 785 

Bence of the Committee, and upon the results of these examinations its 
members appear to base their assertion, that by the efforts of the Society, 
restricted as those efforts may ever have been by external obstacles and inter- 
nal want of resources, " more elevated views of the teacher's office and duty 
have been promulgated ; a greater moral power has been given to popular 
instruction; and, as a necessary consequence, the school-master has been 
in some measure raised in public estimation, though not by any means so 
much as the importance of the office deserves. Letters from all parts of 
the country have borne testimony to the patience, diligence, and piety of 
many of the laborers whom the Society have sent forth. The best evi- 
dence, however, of the general satisfaction which has been given, is to be 
found in the increasing applications for teachers, which pour in from all 
quarters ; a demand largely exceeding the ability of the Committee to 
supply." 

If by any means its resources could be so augmented, and its duties so 
shared with svipplemental institutions, that it could retain its student 
teachers on terms consistent with their interests and those of the schools 
to be supplied, for quadruple the time of their present stay, — for two years 
instead of six months, — such an arrangement alone would ultimately be 
productive of incalculable advantage to that great branch of the popular 
education of England wliich comes under its influence. 

The teachers trained in the institution, resident in and near the metro- 
polis, enjoy the advantage of periodical meetings in the theatre of the 
institution for professional discussions; as likewise of attendance at a 
course of lectures provided by the Society each winter since 1837, for their 
gratification and instruction. During the summer vacation a number of 
male teachers of British schools, from various parts of the country, known 
to the Committee through their inspectors, as persons who would really 
profit by such an opportunity for supplemental study, are invited to a rapid 
course of instruction in the art of teaching and governing in a school, and 
to take up their residence in the Society's house during its continuance. 
This opportunity of revising and improving upon their actual methods is 
of great value; and those who have enjoyed the advantages of it are 
warm in acknowledging them. Indeed, the British school teachers 
throughout the kingdom generally, maintain relations with the parent 
Society, because it is the centre of all applications for new teachers, and, 
therefore, the principal source of promotion. 

50 



NORMAL AND MODEL SCHOOLS, 

OF THE 

HOME AND COLONIAL INFANT AND JUVENILE SCHOOL SOCIETY. 



The Home and Colonial Infant and Juvenile School Society, under whose 
auspices the Normal and Model Schools described below are conducted, was 
founded in 1836, and has since that time educated upwards of two thou- 
sand teachers for Infant and Juvenile Schools. The Committee in their 
first Report, made in February, 1837, state with much force the reasons 
that suggested the formation of the Society. " The Committee may with- 
out fear of contradiction assert, that few situations in life require so much 
discretion, so much energy, so much tenderness, so much self-control, and 
love, as that of a teacher of babes ; that to guide and govern an infant- 
school well calls for wisdom to discern, versatility to modify, firmness to 
persevere, judgment to decide ; and they may add that no uneducated or 
undisciplined mind can supply the incessant care, the watchful diligence, 
the unwearied patience necessary to manage young children." 

One of the first duties of the Committee of the Society was to reduce 
infant instruction to a system, the necessity for which must have been 
obvious to all who have observed the trifling desultory way in which infant 
schools were too often conducted by untrained teachers. For this purpose 
it was absolutely necessary to found a model infant-school, and also to pre- 
pare a set of text-books for the use of teachers. Both these objects were 
carried out, and the Society having constantly kept in view the necessity of 
improving their system, now possess an admirable Model Infant School, 
a Juvenile School for children between six and ten years, in which the 
plan adpoted with the infants is carried out in its development with 
those of riper years ; and have published a series of text-books for the 
use of infant-teachers, obviously drawn up with the utmost care, and 
excellently fitted for the purpose in view. 

The establishment is located in Grays Inn Road, and contains accom- 
modation for a Model Infant School for children between the ages of two 
and six ; for a Juvenile Model School for children between the age of six 
and sixteen, and for sixty persons sent to be trained as teachers. The follow- 
ing documents, published by the Society, exhibit the qualifications of candi- 
dates, and the course of instruction pursued in both the Model School, and 
the Training Department. 

Qualifications of Candidates who enter the histitviion to be recmmnended by the 
Committee to Schools, and the Conditions under which they are admitted. 

The Committee receive into their Institution, in Gray's Inn Road, near King'a 
Cross, for a limited period, persons either desirous to enter for the first time upon 
the work, or those who, having engaged in it, feel their own deficiency, and are 
anxious for improvement. 

In order to prevent disappointment and mistakes, the Committee think it neces- 
sary to state what they Consider the necessary qualifications of candidates, and the 
conditions under which they are received, 



V88 NORMAL SCHOOL FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS. 

Qualifications. — 1. Religious and Moral Principles. — As the primary object of 
early education is to cultivate religious principles and moral sentiments ; to awaken 
the tender mind to a sense of its evil dispositions and habitual failings, b.efore it is 
become callous by its daily intercourse with vice ; and to lead it to that Saviour 
who so tenderly received such little ones, and blessed them ; to accustom them to 
trace the hand of their heavenly Father in liis works of providence and grace; and 
to be impressed with the truth that his eye is ever upon them ; since such is the 
primary object, an object which if unattempted, early education is valueless; the 
Committee consider that, in addition to an unimpeachable and moral character, 
decided piety is indispensable, and that without it no teacher can be fitted for the 
work. 

2. Natural Disposition and Abilities. — There are certain qualifications of tem- 
per looked for in the teacher of young childi-en. The power of sympathy is felt by 
all, but its effect upon children is almost incalculable ; on this account an animated 
lively manner, tempered by self-possession, and a cheerful good humor, combined 
with gentle firmness, are very important. To these sliould be added, that natural 
fondness for cliildren whicli leads to a participation in all their little pleasures and 

f)ains, and bears patiently with their infirmities and ill humors. It is also particu- 
arly necessary that infant school teachers should possess an aptitude to teach, the 
ability of drawing out and directing the powers of children, a quickness of percep- 
tion to see the effect of tlie instruction they are giving, and a readiness in availing 
themselves of accidental circmnstances to awaken moral sentiment, or draw out 
some intellectual faculty. 

Acquirements. — It would be desirable that a candidate should be able to read, to 
write a tolerable hand, to sing, should know the simple rules of arithmetic, be well 
acquainted with the Word of God, and possess some information in grammar, geo- 
graphy, and natural history. 

It will be seen tliat they think the office of teacher requires certain indispensable 
natural qualifications and some attainments ; and, having this opinion, the Commit- 
tee would earnestly entreat those interested in the cause of early education to 
patronize only such persons as their judgment can fully approve, every facility for 
the improvement of those who devote themselves to the work being now afforded 
on reasonable terms. 

Conditions. — 1. The Committee receive candidates in the first instance on proba- 
tion ; and on or before the expiration of a month, their qualifications are reported 
on by the superintendent in communication with the master of tlie model school ; 
and if the report be satisfactory, they are allowed to contmue ; if not, they leave 
the Institution. 

2. All candidates who are to be recommended to schools arc to remain twenty- 
four weeks in the house, and the Committee can not receive any who will not come 
in for that time. The wives of married candidates remain such time as the Com- 
mittee decide in each case, if they can not remain — as it is much to be desired that 
they should — the whole time. 

3. The charge is reduced to Ys. a week, making £8 8s. for the twenty-four weeks, 
which includes every expense, except -^'ashing. 

4. Mariied men are now admitted to be trained as teachers of juvenile schools, 
without their wives, on the above terms, viz. 7s. a week, for twenty-four weeks, 
finding their own lodgings. 

5. Unmarried men are not trained in the Institution. 

6. Six young females, not exceeding seventeen years of age, are received as pupil 
teachers for one, two, or three years, according to their age, at an annual charge of 
£25, which includes washing and books. 

7. The admission of teachers for short periods having been found very inconveni- 
ent to the arrangements of the Institution, and attended with comparatively little 
benefit, the Committee do not receive teachers for less than six weeks, unless they 
have actually the care of schools, and are, in consequence, unable to remain for that 
time. 

8. The return of teachers to the Institution contributing greatly to their improve- 
ment, tlie Committee agree to allow all teacliers who have been regularly trained 
there to re-enter for one month, at a charge of £1 only, or six weeks for £1 10s., 
whether the money is paid by the teachers or from school funds. 



NORMAL SCHOOL FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS. 789 

CotmsE of Instrcctiox for the Teachers in training at the Home and Colonial 
Infant and Juvenile School yociEXY. 

I. Scripture. — The authenticit}' of tlie Bilile and the evidences of Christianity ; 
a general view of the different books of the Bible ; a daily Scriptm-e text witli re- 
marks, chiefly of a practical natnre ; instruction in the most important doctrines of 
the Bible to promote real religion, the lessons especially bearing upon the duties 
and trials of teachers. 

II. Writing and Spelling. 

III. Language. — Grammar ; etymology ; composition. 

IV. Number. — Mental arithmetic; ciphering. 

V. Form. — Lines and angles ; superticies ; solids. 

VI. Natural History. — Mammals; birds; plants. 

VII. Elementary Drawing. — For the cultiva^on of taste and invention; as an 
imitative art. 

VIII. Vocal Music. — Singing ; the notation of music. 

IX. Geography. — A general view of the world ; England and its colonies ; 
Palestine. 

X. Objects. — The parts, qualities, and uses of common objects ; the essential 
properties of matter. 

XL — Educational Lessons. — Principles of education as founded on the nature 
of cliildren ; on the government of children, and moral training ; on subjects for 
lessons ; on graduated instruction ; on methods of teaching ; on writing and giving 
lessons. 

XII. Physical Exercises. 

First or Lowest Class. — Six Weeks. 
The students in this class are chiefly occupied in receiving instruction for their own improve- 
ment, with a view to their future training. 
H. M. Morning. 

8 15. The business of the day is commenced with a text from Scripture, and remarks. This is 

followed by an educational motto, setting forth some principle or practice of education, 
on which a few remarlcs are also made. 
8^ 30. A le.sson on Scripture. 

9 15 Practice in singing pieces from '' Hymns and Poetry." 
9 30. A lesson on objects, or the properties of matter. 

10 30. Recreation. 

10 45. Observing a lesson given to the children in one of the practicing schools by the superin- 

tendent of those schools. 

11 30. A lesson on language. 

12 30. Dismissal. Afternoon. 

2 0. A lesson previously given in the preparatory or practising schools, examined as to it3 

object, and the metliod of giving it. 

3 0. A lesson on number. 

4 0. A le.sson in singing and the notation of music, or in drawing, for the cultivation of tasto 

and invention. 

5 0. Wallcing exercise on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. 
5 30. Dismissal on Tuesday and Thursday. 

Evening. 
C 30. Scripture instruction, or analyzing lessons in " Model Lessons." 

7 30. Entering heads of lessons in note-books. 
9 15. Dismissal. 

Satttrday. 

8 15 A Scripture text and educational motto, as on the previous days. 

8 30. Scripture instruction. 

9 30. Gymnastics, under a drill-sergeant. 

10 30. Scripture instruction. 

11 30. Entering heads of lessons in note-books. 

Note. — The afternoon of Saturday is a holiday for all the teachers in the Institution. 

Second Class. — Twelve Weeks. 
As the students now begin what may properly be called their training, more time is appropri- 
ated to the principles and practice of early education. 
II • M. Morning. 

•< 15. A Scripture text and educational motto as to the lowest class. 
8 30. A lesson to the upper section of the class in geography, or on the principles and practice 

of early education, and to the lower section on Scripture. 
!) 15. A lesson on number or drawing as an imitative art. 
I II 0. In charge of classes of children in the schools, or a continuation of the lesson on drawing 

10 45. A lesson on the principles and practice of early education. 

1 1 .30. Attending and remarking on gallery lessons given by students of the class, 
i 2 30. Dismissal. 



790 



NORMAL SCHOOL FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS. 



.3 



M. Afternoon. 

0. In charge of classes of children in the schools. 
30. Observing a lesson given to the children by the mistress of the infant schooL 

0. Drawing up sketches of lessons, or analyzing lessons in "Model Lessons," or other exer* 
cises of the same kind. 

4 0. Notation of music, or practising drawing. 

5 0. Walking exercise on JVtonday, Wednesday, and Friday. 

Evening. 

6 30. A lesson on Scripture, or natural history. 

7 30. Entering notes in daily journals.* 
9 15. Dismissal. 

Saturday. 

8 15. A Scripture text and educational motto, as in the other days of the week. 

s 30. A lesson to the upper section of the class on geography, and to the lower section on 
Scripture. 

9 30. Gymnastics. 

10 30. A lesson on Scripture. 

1 1 30. Entering notes in daily journals. 

Third Class.— Six Weeks. 

■ The previous instruction and practice of the students is now brought to bear upon the govern- 
ment of large numbers of children, and the time is chiefly employed as assistants in the schools, 
or in taking the entire matiagement of one of the small practicing schools. When they are not so 
employed, their time is occupied as follows, viz. : 

H. M. Morning. 

8 15. A Scripture text and educational motto. 

8 30. A lesson on the principles and practice of early education, or on geography. 

9 15. In the schools employed as general assistants. 
30. Dismissal. 

Afternoon. 

0. In the schools as before. 

0. Dismissal. Evening. 

30. A lesson on natural history or Scripture. 
30. Entering notes in daily journals. 
15. Dismissal. Saturday. 

15. A Scripture text and educational motto, 

30. A lesson on geography. ' 

30. Gymnastics. • 

30. A Scripture lesson. 
30. Entering notes in daily journals. 



Time allotted to each subject of study. 
The following table exhibits the time weekly allotted in the different classes to each subject of 
study, and also the average weekly time. 



I. General Improvement : — Scripture - . . . 
Writing and spelling, reports of lessons, &o. 
Language --------- 

Number and form - - . - » i - 
Natural history -------- 

Geography, including the Holy Land - - . - 

Objects - 

Vocal music -----i.- 

Drawing -.--.. -- 

Gymnastics and walking exercise - <. » - 

II. Lessons on the principles and practice of early education 

III. Practice in the Schools : — Taking charge of classes, ? 

and afterwards of galleries of children - - i 
Giving an opinion on the lessons of other teachers, / 
Giving lessons publicly ----- (| 
Attending as assistants in the schools - - - 
Having the sole charge of schools under inspection - 

Recapitulation : — General improvement 

Principles and practice of education 
School practice - - - .. - 



Total number of hours weekly 



Cla 



H. M. 

8 30 

10 30 

6 15 

5 




6 15 
4 15 
3 

1 6 



11 15 



44 


45 


11 


15 









H. M. 

7 

12 30 

2 15 



4 30 



35 
12 30 

S 30 



Class. 


Third 
Class. 


Av'raere 
Weekly 


Second 
Pcrioil. 

H. M. 


H. 


M. 


H. M. 


7 


3 


45 


6 34 


12 30 


10 


30 


11 30 











2 7 


2 15 








1 49 


3 


3 





2 15 


1 15 


2 


30 


1 11 











1 34 


3 








2 34 


5 








3 15 


1 


1 





1 


12 45 


3 







9 45 


4 





2 


4 30 








2 15 





32 


15 














10 11 


34 45 


21) 


45 


34 


1-2 45 


3 





9 45 


8 30 


3) 


15 


12 15 


56 


56 





56 



• Much time and attention are given to these journals, both by the students and those who ilutruot them, u 
well as by the ladies of the Committee, to whom they are sent for exouiiuatiou. 



NORMAL SCHOOL FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS. 



791 



It IB deemed unnecessary to give any syllabus of the courses of ordinary in- 
struction, but the following syllabus of lessons on the principles and practice of 
early education, is annexed, as it shows what is in some degree peculiar to this in- 
stitution. • 

JP'irst Course. 

It is a distinctive feature at this course that the ideas are chiefly gained from 
examples presented to the students. The lessons are mahily explanatory of the 
examples. 

I. Lesson on the daily routine of employment in the Institution^ The instruc- 
tions by the committee for students. General rules and regulations. 

IL Examination and analysis of lessons from " Model Lessons," viz. : — 

Lessons on objects, Part I. p. 51-93. 
color, Part I. p. 149-157. 
" animals, Part L p. 160-165. 

" number, Part L p. 103-140. 

Scripture Lessons, Part III. p. 1-28. 

III. Drawing out sketches of lessons on various subjects, after the example of 
those analyzed. 

I. — On Objects. 
1. On a shell or leaf, according to the model of a lesson on a feather. 



2. Copper or iron . 


" 


lead. 


3. Tea or sealing wax . 


" " 


loaf sugar. 


4. Vinegar or ink . 


« u 


milk 


5. Recapitulation. 






6. Parchment 


'< « 


paper. 


7. Cloth 


" " 


leather. 


8. Pipeclay .... 


M u 


chalk. 


9. Wood or rice 


U 11 


coal. 


10. Recapitulation. 






11. A candle or hammer 


« u 


lead. 


12. A turnip or acorn 


u u 


a rose-leaf 


13. An egg ..... 


" " 


honeycomb. 


14. A bird or bee . . 


. " " 


a butterfly. 


16. Recapitulatioa 






II.- 


-On Animals. 




1. Sheep . model — hare. 


2. Goat . 


model — cow. 



Ill— On Color. 
L The color blue . model— red. 2. Color yellow . model— green. 

IV. Lessons in which " Practical Remarks " form the text-book. 

V. On the art of questioning children, and on the different methods of giving 

lessons. 

The students afterwards draw out lessons in full, according to models 
given. 

VI. On the best method of drawing out children's observation upon the objects 

around them, and upon the circumstances in wliich they are placed, and 
on fixing the knowledge so gained in the mind. 
VIL The characteristics of young children that must be kept in view and acted 
upon, in order to secure their attention^ to interest them in their lessons, 
and to gain ascendency over them. 

1. Love of activity. 

2. Love of imitation. 

3. Curiosity, or love of knowledge. 

4. Susceptibility to kindness and sympathy. 

5. Deficiency in the power of attention. 

6. The love of frequent change. 

7. The force of early association. 

8. Disposition to repeat the means by which they have once at- 

tained their ends. 



V92 NORMAL SCHOOL FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS. 

VIII. On the senses, and the use to be made of them in early education. 

IX. The gallery lessons given to the children of the preparatory or practicing 

schools, as to the subjects, the manner of treating them, and their bear- 
ing upon the education of the children. 

First Preparatory School. — 1. Form — 1st step. 

2. Color — 1st and 2nd step. 

3. Size — 1st step. 

4. Actions — 1st step. 

5. Human body — 1st step. 

6. Objects — 1st step. 

7. Number — 1st step. 

8. Religious instruction — 1st step. 

9. Sounds — 1st step. 

Second Preparatory School. — 1. Form — 2nd step. 

2. Color — 3rd and 4th step. 

3. Size — 2nd step. 

4. Actions — 2nd step. 
6. Place — 1st step. 

6. Objects — 2nd step. 

7. Animals — 2nd step. 

* 8. Number — 2nd and 3rd step. 

9. Moral instruction — 2nd step. 

10. Religious instruction — 2nd step. 

11. Sounds — 2nd step. 

X. A general view of the different subjects of instruction in the preparatory 

schools, with a view to lead the students to draw from them principles 
and plans of teaching. 

Second Course. 

I. Instructions on familiar or conversational lessons, and on the subjects chosen 

for these lessons, in the preparatory schools. 

II. Analysis of lessons in " Model Lessons." 

1. Form, Part II. p. 150-226. 

2. The human body, Part I. p. 24-50. 

3. A flower, Part H. p. 65-76. 

4. Scripture lessons, Part II. p. 1-21. 

5. Bible examination, Part II. p. 125-132. 

in. Drawing up sketches of lessons in writing, according to a given model, 
first, singly, and then in a series or course. 

Objects. 

1. On sugar, after tlie model of the lesson on bread. 

2. Spices and liquids " " corns. 

3. Leather and silk " " cotton. 

Animals. 

1. On a tiger . . . Model — A pheasant 

2. The elephant and the cat . " A pig. 

3. Different kinds of teeth . " Different kinds of feet 

of animals. 

4. Comparison of parts of a 

quadruped and bird. . . " Hand and foot. 

Scripture Illustrations. 

1. The sun and the dew. Model — The rainbow. 

2. Sheep — lion " The vine. 

3. Fishermen of Galilee " The shepherds of Judsea. 

Scripture Narratives. 

1. On the Prodigal Son, and on ) Model — Joseph's forgiveness 

2. The Brazen Serpent . . ^ of his l»:ethreii. 



NORMAL SCHOOL FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS. ^93 

8. David's Veneration for his King " Solomon's respect 

for his mother. 
4. The Nobleman's Son. " Mark x. 46 to 52. 

In Series or Course. 

1. A variety of sketches, after the model of the lesson on 

water. 

2. A series of sketches on a given subject " on 

prayer, <fec., as in " Model Lessons," Part III p. 24, «tc. 

8. A graduated series of sketches on the " on a 

same subject. straw, a cat, &c. 

4. On the subjects appointed for lessons weekly at the differ- 
ent galleries. 

IV. Writing out lessons in full on specified subjects — As 

1. To develop the idea of Inodorous. 

2. " " Pliable. 

3. " " Tasteless. 

4. « " Soluble and fusible. 

5. " " Semitransparent. 

6. " " Elastic. 

7. " " Aromatic. 

8. " " Natural and artificial 

9. " " Lesson on an elephant. 

10. " " Comparison of the cow and pig. 

IL " " A piece of poetry. 

12. " " The rambow. 

18. " " The addition or subtraction of 8. 

14. « « Explanation of the terms — sum, rem£under, 

product, quotient. 

15. « « Substance of lesson X. in Reiner's " Lessons 

on Form." 

16. " " On the illustration of the general truth, " God 

is angry with the wicked every day." 

Note. — The number of sketches and lessons which the students are enabled to 
draw out during tlieir training of course depends upon their ability and upon the 

Erevious education they have received. Some of these lessons are examined pub- 
cly, that their excellencies or errors may be pointed out for the improvement of 
the class, the name of the writer being witliheld. 

V. — Gallery Lessons. — "With reference to the Gallery Lessons, instructions 
are given on the following points : — 

1. The sketch. 

2. The subject-matter. 

3. The summary. 

4. The application of a moral subject. 

5. On maintaining order and interest. 

6. The exercise of the minds of the children, and the knowledge gained 

7. The manner of the teacher. 

8. Voice — pronunciation. 

9. Importance of attention to the whole gallery of childrea 

10. On the use to be made of incidental circumstances. 

11. On the questions to the children. 

12. Mechanical plans. 

VL — On the subjects taught in the schools, their suitabilitj to the diildraa, 
and the mode of treating them : — 

1. Color. 

2. Form. 
8. Size. 

4. Weight 

6. Physical actions and operations. 



704 NORMAL SCHOOL FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS. 

A. Number. 

7. Place, as preparatory to geography. 

8. Sounds, as preparatory to singing and the notation of muda 

9. Objects, includuig models of conmion utensils. 

10. Teaching by pictures of common objects, and drawing objects before 

children. 

11. The human body. 

12. Animals. 

18. Moral instruction. 
14. Religious instruction. 
16. Teaching pieces of poetry. 
16. Drawing and writing. 
1*7. Reading and spelling. 

18. Language, including composition, grammal*, and the explanation of 

words. 

19. Number, form and language, as the elements of intellectual instruc- 

tion. 

20. Summary of the principles learnt in considering the subjects of lessons 

for infants. 

21. Drawing out sketches of the different methods of giving lessons, and 

the uses to be made of them, showing which are bad and which are 
good, and those suitable to diflferent subjects. 

VIL — Miscellaneous: — 

1. A Course of educational mottoes. 

2. On intuitive knowledge and early development. 
8. On principles and plans of education. 

4. Anecdotes of occurrences in the school, brought forward with a view 
to form right principles of moral training and intellectual develop- 
ment. 

6' On the play -ground, especially in reference to its influence in the in- 
tellectual and moral training of cliildren. 

Third Course. 
L — ^The practice of the school-room, and the principles on which it should be 

regulated : — 
The school-room and its apparatus, including library, collection of objects 

(fee. 
The opening and general arrangements of a schooL 
Attendance, and the best method of raising and filling a schooL 
Admission payment, and first treatment of children. 
General order and quietness. 

The physical state of the children, health, cleanliness, neatness. 
The exercises of the school-room and play -ground. 
The division of time, and the subjects of lessons in a school. 
Modes of leading elder scholars to work, independently of the master's 

direct teaching. 
The government of a school with respect to its spirit and plans. 
The influence of numbers in teaching and moral training. 
Rewards, punishments, emulation. 

Assistance, including paid assistants and monitors ; the monitorial system. 
The defects and advantages of the individual, and simultaneous methods of 

instruction, and the use of the ellipses. 
Examinations by the teacher, for parents and for subscribers. 
Holidays. 

II. — Points respecting teachers : — 

The intellectual and moral qualifications of a teacher, and the circuniistances 

which affect him in his labors. 
The conduct of teachers to parents, committees, inspectors, and the public. 
The means by which teachers may carry on thdr own improvement. 



NORMAL SCHOOL FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS. 795 

TTT. — On the mental and moral constitution of children with reference to the 
principles on which education sliould be based : — 

Mental. 
The various operations of the mind, intellectual and moral, and the wisdom 

and goodness of God which they display. 
The dependence of one intellectual faculty upon another, and the necessity 

for tJie orderly and progressive development of the whole. 
The intellectual diversities of children, and the method of treating each 
variety of character. 

Moral. 
The importance of moral training on a religious basis, showing how the 

Bible should be our guide. 
Diver.^ies in the moral character of children, and the method of treating 
each, viz.. 

Attachments of cliildren. 

Anger, and the treatment of passionate cliildren. 

Quarrelsome children. 

Children disposed to injure and destroy. 

Cunning children. 

Covetous children. 

Fear, and its use and abuse, as a means of discipline with children. 

Firmness, and its tendency to become obstinacy. 

The love of distinction and applause. 

The cultivation of benevolence. 

The sense of right and wrong. 

Respect. 

Obedience. 

rV. — General truths respecting the operations of the minds and moral feelings, 
and the uses to be made of them in the education of children. 

The Graduated Course of Instrnction pursued in the Model Schools. 

I. Religious Instruction. — \st step ; Moral Impressions. — The children of this 
gallery are very young, direct religious instruction can scarcely be attempted at 
first, but their moral sen-;e is to be cultivated, and moral habits formed. For in- 
stance, little acts of obedience are to be required from them — their conduct to- 
wards each other regulated, and little conversational lessons are to be given upon 
the kindness of their parents and teachers, with a view to develop the feeling of 
love, and to instruct them in their duties. 

2nd step : Fir.^t Ideas of God. — The object, as the children advance, is to pro- 
duce the first impressions of their Heavenly Father — to lead them to feel some- 
what of liis power from its manifestation in those works of his with which they 
are familiar ; and somewhat of his benevolence, by comparing it with the love 
shown them by then- parents and friends. 

Zrd step : A Scripture Print. — The story to be gathered from the picture, by 
directing the attention of the children to it. and by questioning them. A portion 
of the Scripture should be given, that the children may connect the narrative with 
the Bible, and receive it as Divine instruction. The children should abo be en- 
couraged to make their remarks, by which the teacher may ascertain liow far 
their ideas are correct. The object of the lesson should be to make a religious 
and moral impression. 

. Uh step: Scripture Narratives. — The incidents or characters should be chose 
with a view to inculcate some important truth or influential precept. Elliptical 
teaching should be introduced to help the children to receive the story as a whole, 
and to sum up the lesson. In giving these lessons, the storv itself should be either 
read from the Bible, or partly n^ad and partly narrated, and pictures only used 
occasionally, to illustrate and throw interest into the subject. Teachers ought well 
to consider the dilferent positions that pictures should occupy in the different stages 
of instruction. 

bth step : Scripture Illustrations of Doctrines and Predepts. — ^NaiTativea, 
chosen with a view to inculcate some of the moat simple and fundamental doo* 



796 NORMAL SCHOOL FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS. 

trines of Christianity. For instance, sin, its nature, introduction into the \7orld, its 
consequences, and the remedy provided for it in the sacrifice of the Saviour. As 
the children advance, some lessons to be given to illustrate the natural history of 
the Bible. 

NorE. — Tn the first or early lessons on Scripture narratives, the truth or pre- 
cept should be drawn from the story by the children. In the later lessons, the 
precept or religious truth or duty may be stated as the subject of the lesson, and 
the children required to discover what Scripture narratives illustrate the truth or 
precept they are considering. 

Mil step. — A course from the Bible, or a course on the Natural History of the 
Bible. On Monday, Scripture geography. 

II. Objects. — \st step. — Distinguishing or naming three or four common ob- 
jects, and telling their uses ; or distinguishing and naming the parts of common 
objects, and stating their uses. 

Indstep. — One Object chosen that exhibits m a remarkable degree some par- 
ticular quality, that the idea of that quality may be developed. Another, having 
distinct parts, which the children are to discover, and of which they are told the 
names. 

Zrd step : One Object. — The children to find out the quaUtics that can be dis- 
covered by the senses alone ; also to distinguish and name the parts. 

4</t step : Miscellaneous Objects, Metals, Eartlts, Liquids, <jcc. One Object. — 
Tlic children to extend their observations to qualities, beyond those wliich are im- 
mediately discoverable by the senses. A little simple information to be given at 
this stage on the natural history or manufacture of the object, after the children's 
observation has been called out. 

5th step : Several objects. — The children to compare them, and point out their 
points of resemblance and difference. 

III. Toys. — Model toys of kitchen utensils, common carpenters' tools, &c., 
naming them, and telling or showing their uses. 

IV. Pictures. — 1st step. — Groups of objects or single figm-es, — naming and 
talking about tliem. 

27id step. — Part of the lesson to be on the recollection of a picture used in a 
former lesson — part on a picture of common objects. 

V. Human Body. — 1st step. — Distinguishing the principal parts of the human 
body, the teacher naming them ; or the children exercising any part of the body 
as directed. This lesson should be accompanied with considerable action, to ani- 
mate the children. 

2nd step. — Distinguishing the secondary parts of the body. This lesson to be 
extended to the parts of the principal parts of the human body, the teacher con- 
tinuing to name them : a good deal of action still to be used. 

Srd step. — Distinguishing the parts of the principal parts of the human body— • 
the children naming them, and telling their uses. 

VI. Form. — 1st step. — Distinguisliing the patterns of shapes for the purpose of 
developing the idea of form — the children to distinguish them — no names being 
used. 

2nd step. — The children continuing to select the patterns of shapes, according 
to the one shown ; when perfect in this, they may select all those that have the 
same number and kind of edges, and the same number of corner^. 

Srd step. — The children to determine the number of sides and corners in planes, 
whether the sides are straight or curved ; also to learn the names of the planes. 

4</t step. — A solid is sho^vn, and the children select all those that resemble it 
in some points ; the names of the solids are not to be given. The letters of the 
alphabet to be examined, and the number and direction of their hnes to be deter- 
mined. 

5th step. — To determine the length of different measures, learn their names, and 
practice the introductory lessons on Form in " Model Lessons," part II. 

&th step. — The course of lessons on Form in " Model Lessons," part II. 

VII. Animals. — 1st step : A Domestic Ani^nal. — A pictm-e or a stuffed speci- 
men may be shown. The children to be encouraged in talking about it, to say 



NORMAL SCHOOL FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS. Y97 

•what they observe or know, without reference to any arrangement, the aim of the 
instruction being to elicit observation, to cultivate tlie power of expression, and 
especially to encourage humane and benevolent feelings towards the inferior crea- 
tion. At this stage it is well sometimes to allow the children themselves to pro- 
pose the animal that they are to talk about. 

2nd step : A Domestic Animal. — Children to nanie its parts, color, size, and 
appearance. An attempt should be made in this stage, at a httle arrangement of 
the subject, but it should not be too rigidly required. One principal object should 
be to encouragehumane and benevolent feelings towards the lower animals. 

^rd step : A Domestic Animal. — Children to describe the uses of domestic ani- 
mals, their difiereut actions, and with what limb they perform any action, the 
sounds they make, our duties with respect to them, &c. These alternate weekly 
■with ' 

4th step : Animals and Human Body. — The children to describe where the 
different parts of the human body are situated, and to compare those parts with 
the parts of animals, pointing out in what they are alike, in what they differ, and 
how fitted to the habits and wants of man, or of the different animals. See course 
in " Model Lessons," part I. 

bth step : Wild A)umals. — Children to tell their parts, color, size, and appear- 
ance ; to point out h(jw particularly distinguished, and to learn something of their 
habits and residence ; being led to perceive how the annual is fitted by the Al- 
mighty for its habits and locality. 

VIII. Plants. — 1st step. — Naming the parts of plants, and telling their use3 
to man as food, <fec. 

2nd gtep.—iiee course in " Model Lessons," part II. 

IX. Number. — 1st step : First Idea of Number. — Tlie idea of the numbers 
from 1 to 5 or 6, to be developed by the use of the ball frame and miscellaneous 
objects, as exemplified in Reiner's ii^roductory lesson, " Lessons on Number," re- 
printed, by permission of the author, for the use of the teachers of the institution, 
m " Papers on Ai-ithemetic ;" to which may be added many additional exercises, 
such as those in the 1st and 2nd sections of " Arithmetic for young Children," &c. 

27idstep : First Idea of Number. — The idea of the numbers from 6 to 10 to be 
developed by the use of the ball frame, as before ; also the tu'st and second exer- 
cises in " Model Lessons," p:u-t i., to be used as directed in that work. 

^rd step : Addition and Subtraction. — The remainmg exercise under section I., 
also the whole of the exercises on subtraction in the same work. 

4<//, step. — The more difficult exercises in " Model Lessons," part i., Ac, accom- 
panied by selected exercises from " Arithmetic for Children." 

bth step : The Four Simple Rules. — Exercises on the four simple rules, in num- 
ber from 10 to 100, from " Papers on Arithmetic," and "Lessons on Number;" 
also simple explanations of the rules, leading the children to think of the opera- 
tion they have been performing ; also, by numerous exercises, to lead them to 
perceive some of the general properties of number. 

X. Color. — 1st step. — Selecting colors according to a pattern shown, and ai*- 
ranging colors, no names beuig used. 

2nd step. — Learning the names of the different colors, and selecting them when 
called for by name. 

3r</ step. — Distinguisliing and naming colors and shades of colors, and pro- 
ducing examples from surrounding objects ; with exercises on beads of different 
colors. 

4th step. — Distinguishing and naming shades of color, and producing examples 
from memory. 

5th step. — The lessons in this step to be given on a specific color ; the children 
are also to learn from seeing them mixed, liow the secondary colors are produced 
from the primary. 

XI. Drawing. — From the age of the juveniles, and also from drawing not 
coming under the head of " Gallery Lessons," the following course of exercises can- 
not be so well arranged into stages for the various schools. It is also thought 
desirable that one of the courses of lessons should be presented in a continuous 



798 NORMAL SCHOOL FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS. 

form, that the extent and variety of exercise which they are intended to give to 
the mind may be observed. Tlie courses form two series of exercises, commenced 
in the infant-school, and completed in the juvenile-school. 

First Series— To Exercise the Eye alone. 

Measuring relatioely. — Let the children determine the relative length of lines 
drawn in the same direction on the slate, i. e., which is longest, which is shortest, 
&,c. Whenever there is a difference of opinion, prove who is correct, by mea- 
suring. 

Determine the relative length of Uaes drawn in different directions on the 
slate. 

Determine the relative distances between dots made on the slate. 

Determine the relative difference of the distances between different parallel 
lines. 

Determine the relative size of angles. 

Determine the relative degree of inclination of lines from the perpendicular — 
first, by coinparini,' them with a perpendicular line, drawn on am)ther part of the 
slate — and afterwards without this assistance. 

The same exercise with horizontal lines. 

Determine tlie relative size of circles, and then of portions of circles. 

Children called out to divide straight lines, drawn in different directions, into 
2, 3, 4, (fee, equal or given parts, the others to state their opinions as to the cor- 
rectness with which the operation has been done. 

The above exercise repeated with curved lines in different directions. 

Note. — Several of the above exercises may be applied to the lengths, <fec., of 
the objects and pictures in the room. 

Ileasuriny by current Standards. — The teacher to giro the children the idea of 
an inch, nail, quarter of a yard, foot, half a yard, and yard, wlijch, at first, should 
be drawn in a conspicuous place, for the whole class to see. 

To decide the length of hues. — First practice the children upon the inch, then 
upon tlie nail, and so on up to the yard ; continually referring to the standard 
measures. 

Note. — These exercises should be continued until the eye can decide with 
tolerable accuracy. 

Determining the length of lines combmed in various rectilmear geometrical 
figures. 

Determining the circumference or girth of various objects. 

Determining distances of greater extent, such as the floor and walls of the 
room, the play-ground, <kc., &c. 

Pleasuring by any given Standard. — Measuring sizes, heights, lengths^ <fec., by 
any given standard. 

How often a given standard will occupy any given space, with respect to su- 
perficies. 

Second Series— To Exercise both the Eye aiid Hand. 

Before commencing these exercises, it would be advisable to give the children 
instruction (in a class around the large slate) with regard to the manner of holding 
the pencil, the position of the hand in drawing lines in various directions. This 
will be found to duniuish the labor of attending to each individual separately. In- 
struction as to the position of the body may be left till the childi-eu are placed at 
the desks. 

Note. — The standard measures, used previously, should be painted on the 
walls, or placed conspicuously before the class in some manner, both horizontally 
and perpendicularly, in order to accustom the children to them. 

The children to practice drawing straight lines in different directions, gradually 
increasing them in length. First perpendicular, second horizontal, third right ol> 
hque, foiu'th left obhque. 

To draw lines of given lengths and directions. 

To divide the lines they draw into given parts. 

To draw curved hues in different directions, gradually increasing in size. 

To try how many angles they can make with 2, 3, 4,\fec., lines. 



NORMAL SCHOOL FOH PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS. ^99 

To try what they can make of 2, 3, 4, <fec., curved lines. Then proceeding to 
copies ; first copying those formed of straight lines, then those of curved lines. 

To draw from copies. 

Note. — Tn the course of forming figures out of straight and curved lines, the 
children should be taught to make the letters of the alphabet. 

XII. Geography.^ — \-it step. — The course consists of the following series of les- 
sons : 1. The cardinal points. 2. Tlie semi-cardinal points. 3. The necessity of 
having fixed points. 4. The relative position of objects. 5. The boundaries of 
the school-room. 6. The boundaries of the play -ground. 1. The relative distances 
of the parts and objects of the school-room. 8. The relative distances of the parts 
and furniture of the school-room marked on a map, drawn on the large slate or 
black board with chalk, before the children. 9. The scale of a map. 10. Th« 
relative positions and distances of different places on a map of the neighborboodp 
U. The map of England. 12. The map of the IJoly Land, 



SPECIMEN OF EXAMINATION PAPERS 

OR 

SCHOOL MANAGEMENT AND THE ART OF TEACHING. 



At the risk of repeating some of the leading principles set forth in 
the foregoing " Course of Instruction,^'' we give below a Syllabus of 
Lessons on Education given in the same institution to students in 
training for teachers in the schools of the Home and Colonial Infant and 
Juvenile School Society. 

Extracts from Syllabus of Lessons oi^ Education, given to Students 
IN Training at the Home and Colonial School Society. 

I- — The Principles of Education as set forth by Pestalozzi. 

1. On the Aim proposed by Pestalozzi in Education. — This the first point to be con- 
sidered — Mistakes with respect to — The true aim of education as it respects knowledge 
—intellectual and moral character — Social relations— Moral and religious duties — 
Principles on which based — The proper work of the Teacher reduced — Residts. 

2. The Influence of a good Education. — The little that has been done by education as 
hitherto pursued — Causes of this — Influence of a good education on thought, feeling, 
sentiment, opinion, &c. — Diflferent senses in which the child may be said to be father 
of the man — Influence of education established from examples — Necessity of faith in 
this principle o,n the part of the Teacher — Incidental and systematic education, 
difference between — The Teacher to form a good intellectual and moral atmosphere 
round the child — Means of effecting this. 

3. Education, Organic. — Organs and organized bodies considered to illustrate this — 
Difference between growth from within carried on by organic action or development, 
and increase from without effected by accretion — Application— Difference between 
ordinary elementary education and elementary education on the system of Pestalozzi 
—Deductions as to liberty, activity, and power — The application, especially as to 
liberty, in the school-room and play-ground. 

4. On Education being an entire Work. — Pestalozzi's motto, " Education has to work 
on the head, the hand, and the heart" — Dugald Stewart on the same point — Pestalozzi 
introduced the principle into popular education — The perfection to be aimed at in 
education, moral, — Mistakes that have been made as to Pestalozzi's practice — Pesta- 
lozzi's estimate of the relative importance of the different elements of a child's nature, 
and method of dealing with each. 

5. Education should aim at the Gradual and Progressive Development of the Faculties. — 
Examples of graduated and progressive instruction as — Proceeding from realities to 
signs, first natural, then artificial — From particular facts to general truths — From what 
is simple to what is complex — From the exercise of observation to the exercise of con- 
ception — From the conception of material things to abstract ideas, &c. — The first step 
— to find something analogous in the experience of the child to the subject presented, 
thus proceeding from the known to the unknown — The child to be firm on one step 
before proceeding to the next— The extent to which graduation should be carried— Ex- 
tremes to be avoided — The graduations not to be too minute to prevent healthy 
exercise. 

6. Education should be Harmonious. — The cultivation of all the faculties, not singly 
and apart, but simultaneously. 

7. The Character or Spirit of Education. — " Not to teach religion alone but all things 
religiously"— Illustration drawn from the circidation of the blood in the body — Ex- 
emplification of this spirit in the instruction, general management, and discipline of the 
school — Results to be expected. 

8. Early Education chiefly by Intuition. — What is meant by intuition — Examples — 
ValuB of what is learned from experience — Early education to lead to and prepare the 
mind for books — When commenced with books the mind often loaded with words con- 
veying no definite meaning to children — The powers of the mind in consequence often 
cramped — Intuitive teaching one of the leading features of Pestalozzi's system — Con- 
nection between intuitiTe and logical knowledge — The assistance the former gives to 



SCHOOL MANAGEMENT AND THE ART OF TEACHING. 801 

the latter — Difference between the instruction of infants and juveniles, the one mainly 
intuitive, the other principally lugical. 

9. Differtnct betwetu Education and Instruction. — An idea put forth strongly hy Pesta- 
lozzi — Origin and application of the words — Points of difference — Instruction com- 
municated (though the subject may be clearly explained) does not produce the same 
good effect, as instruction employed as a means of mental discipline — The proper 
bearing of this distinction on the lessons of the Teacher. 

10. Education of a Mixed Character. — What this means — Principle on which based — 
Examples — Education should be practical as well as preceptive — Illustrated by the 
Teacher as well as enforced upon the child — Applied individually as well as collec- 
tively — Direct instruction to be followed by study — Public education united with 
private and domestic — Children to be carried rapidly over some subjects to develop 
power and energy, — slow ly over others to give habits of minute investigation — Subjects 
of instruction enumerated. 

11. Systemx o/ Erfucafion.— Application of the word system^— Views generally taken 
of systems of education — Characteristics of the chief popular systems, especially those 
of Stow and Pestalozzi — The one teaching chiefly through words " picturing out," as 
it is called, the other by things and words in their appropriate place — The specious 
boast of selecting what is good from every system — The motto, •' That is the best 
system which brings the powers of the mind under the best discipline," a test — The 
system of Pestalozzi founded on principles and adapted to the human mind, conse- 
quently a philosophical system, might be called the natural system — Different value 
o( principles and plans — lUusl ration of this shown in the different kinds of value apper- 
taining to wheat and bread — Advantage of principles in everything — Many Teachers 
appreciate plans only — Principles the only true and safe guide. 

]"2, Summary of the leading Principles of Pestalozzi. 

1. Education ought to be essentially religious and moral. 

2. Education ought to be essentially organic and complete, and not mechanical, su- 
perficial, and partial, it should penetrate and regulate the entire being. 

3. Education ought to be free and natural instead of being cramped, confined, sur- 
vile — The child should have sufficient liberty to manifest decidedly his individual 
character. 

4. Education ought to he harmonious in all its parts — It should be so carried on that 
all the natural faculties, and all the acquired knovvledge agree and harmonize. 

5. Education should be based on intuition, on a clear and distinct perception of the 
subject to be learned. 

6. Education should be gradual and progressive, united in all parts, like a chain, 
forming a continued series without gaps. 

7. Education should be of a mixed character, uniting the private and the public; it 
should cultivate at the same time the social and domestic spirit, 

8. Education should be synthetical — every thing taught should be first reduced mto 
its elements by the Teacher. 

9. Education should be practical, drawing its means of development from the actual 
circumstances of life. 

II. — The Art of Teaching. 

1. — INTRODUCTORY COURSE. 

1 . Instructions as to the Mode of giving Familiar or Conversational Lessons, and on the 
subjects chosen for such lessons in the Practicing Schools of the Institution. 

2. The Examination and Analysis of Lessons selected from " Model Lessons," a work 
published by the Society. 

3. Drawing out Sketches of Lessons on various Subjects, taking those before analyzed 
as examples. 

4. Different Methods of giving Lessons Compared, with a view to point out which are 
bad and which good, also the methods suital)le to different subjects. 

5. On the Art of Questioning. — The importance of understanding this art — One of the 
plans of teaching much used by Pestalozzi — Different objects in view in questioning — 
Questions which only exercise memory — Advantages of questioning — Rules to be ob 
served and mistakes avoided — Examples of different kinds of questions — Of a train of 
questions — Practice in the art of questioning. 

2. — ON GALLERY INSTRUCTION. 

1. Introduction. — The nature and importance of gallery instruction — Children brought 
under the direct influence of the Teacher — Facility thus afforded for securing order, 
attention, progress, moral training— Value in economizing labor — The principle of suc- 
cess to be found in the power of the sympathy of numbers — Extent to which Teachers 
should avail themselves of this sympathy — Its abuses — Duties connected with gallery 
instruction. 

2. Preparation of Lessons. — Directions for making a good sketch — Advantages of a 

51 



802 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT AND THE ART OF TEACHING. 

full sketch — Importance of determining beforehand the chief points of the lesson, and 
the method of working theni out. 

3. The Suhject vxatltr. — Importance of attention to qiiantityand quality — Rules by 
which to be guided, and the principles upon winch based — Advantage of clear and nat- 
ural arrangement— The ideas to be thoroughly worked into the mind's of the children — 
sufficient but not too much new- matter to be presented properly, it being almost "as 
important how children learn as what they learn." 

4. The Summary. — Delinition of a summary — The qualities of a good summary — Its 
uses — Various ways of making a summary — Advantage of its being well committed to 
memory or written out by the children. 

5. Application of Moral arid Religious Lessons. — The nature of this application ex- 
plained — The importance of applying moral and religious instruction— Ol re(iuiring the 
children to make the application themselves — What is meant by impression — Causes of 
failure in making religious instructiim impressive. 

6. Order, Interest, and Attention.— The importance of order — Causes of disorder — 
Various means of obtaining and regaining order— Difference between order and stiff- 
ness or restraint — Importance of exciting interest — Means of doing it — Difference be 
tween heaUliful activity of mind and excitement — Attention how to be obtained and 
kept up. 

• 7. The Exercise to be given to the Minds of CA;7(ire«.— Importance of producing activity 
of the mind— Amount of mental exercise to be given — Means of giving it — Teachers tell 
loo much — Ways of doing so, and causes. 

fl. The Manner of the Teacher. — Importance of manner, especially with young chil- 
dren — Different kinds of manner — How each affects children — The power of a decided 
manner— Its abuse— The effects of the voice in exciting different feelings — Tones of 
voice suited to different subjects. 

9. Attention to the tvhole Gallery. — Temptations to attend to a fe.w children only — 
Effects — Means of keeping up general attention — Difficulties where a gallery is unhap- 
pily composed of children of different degrees of attainment — How in part to be 
obviated. 

] 0. The Use to he made of Incidental Circumstances, especially in Moral Training. — • 
Enumeration of those which most commonly occur in a gallery, and also in the play- 
ground—The influence that the notice of incidental circumstances has on the children, 
as well in an intellectual as in a moral point of view — Cautions against the abuse of 
this practice. 

11. On the Language given to Children. — Relatitm of language to ideas — Right time of 
supplying language — JNecessity for clearness and simplicity — Fine words and technical 
terms to be avoided. 

3. — ON CL.4SS INSTRUCTION. 

Use of class lessons — Mechanical arrangements — Apparatus — Amount of class in- 
struction to be given — Subjects. 

4.-^0N THE SUBJECTS OF INSTRUCTION, ETC., PROPER FOR AN INFANT SCHOOL. 

1. On the Principles that should Regtdate. — The choice of subjects should be suitable to 
the children's age — Elementary character of the subjects^Necessity of having a uen- 
eral design in each course of lessons, as well as a particular design in each lesson — 
Tlie importance of the instruction being of a graduated character — Of its commencing 
at the right starting point — Subjects should be varied — The reason and principles upon 
which this is founded. 

2' The subject stated. — Color — Object in view in lessons on color, and their suitable- 
ness to this oliject and to infant minds — The graduated course of these lessons, with 
reference to the work published by the Society, entitled, " Graduated course of Instruc- 
tion for Infant Schools and Nurseries" — Methods to be adopted in giving lessons — Prin- 
ciples to be deduced. 

3. The other subjects treated in a similar manner — Form — Size — Weight — Place — 
Number — Physical actions and employments — Sounds, including practice in singing — 
Common objects — Pictures of common objects — Drawing before children — Human 
body — Animals — Plants — Language — Reading, Spelling, Writing — Pieces of poetry — 
Moral instruction — Religious instruction 

5. — ON THE SUBJECTS OF INSTRUCTION, ETC., PROPER FOR A JUVENILE SCHOOL. 

1. Points in which a Juvenile School differs from an Infant School — As to its organiza- 
tion — Division of time — Classification of children — Hoine-work — Employment of Pupil- 
Teachers — Subjects of instruction calling the reasoning powers more into exercise — 
Method of giving such subjects a more continuous and systematic character — Mode of 
treating the children — Morally, throwing them more upon their own responsibility — 
Intellectually, making them more independent of their Teachers,, and more accustomed 
to gain information and knowledge from books, teaching them early " to learn how to 
learn," i. e., to be self-educators. 



SCHOOL MANAGEMENT AND THE ART OF TEACHING. 803 

m. — The School-room, as to its Arrangement and Management. 

1. The School-room. — Influence of the appearance of the school-room on the chil- 
dren's char;«cler— Its effect on visitors — Desits and their arrangement — Cleaning; — Ven- 
tilation — Temperature — Order and decoration — Apparatus — What it is^ — Its rightappre- 
cialion — Care to he taken of it. 

2. The Opening of a New School, <^c. — Preliminary steps to be taken — Difficnitie.s — 
Spirit in which to commence — Plans to be adopted — Admission of children — Register 
and other books — -Payments. 

3. The Organization of a School. — What it means — Importance of good organization — 
Plans to be adopted— -Treatment of new scholars — Points requiring attention, as time- 
tables, programmes, distribution of work, &c. 

4. Division or Classification of the Children. — Importance of classification of the chil- 
dren of an Inlant School — Too much neglected hitherto — The advantage seen in the 
Model Schools of the Institution — Arrangement in galleries and classes — Principle 
upon which this is made, of proficiency, not age or size — The difficulties of Inlant 
Schools, when Teachers have no assistance. 

5. Regular and punctual Attendance, and the means of insuring it. — Importance of the 
subject — Diflferent causes of irregular attendance — Method of dealing with each — 
Means for securing attendance, supplying a good education, having well defined and 
positive rules— Quarterly pre-payment— Punctual attendance — How much depending 
on the Teacher's own habits — Closing the door at a fixed hour — Visiting the parents, &c. 

G The Dinner hour and arrangements for it. — The Teacher's presence necessary — Its 
inconvenience considered — The social and moral effects of superintending children at 
dinner. 

7. The Physical State of the Children. — Teacher's duties with respect to health, 
cleanliness, and neatness — Duties of parents not to be too much interferred with — 
Means of c\iltivating cleanliness, neatness, &c. — The effects. 

8. The Play-ground. — Physical education — Its importance — Provision to be made 
for its connection with a school — Advantages of the play-ground in reference to moral 
instruction and moral training — Its bearing on the health and comfort of the Teacher — 
Their objections answered — Tact required in the superintendence of the play-ground — 
Apparatus, games, &c — Time to be allotted to exercise — Objections of parents met. 

9. Monitors, Pupil- Teachers, and Paid-Assistants. — Monitors, these '^necessary evils," 
as they have l]een called, fast disappearing— Still often found useful— Relative value 
of Monitors and Pupil-Teachers, and principle on which to lie ascertained — The de- 
partments of labor (or which each best fitted — Pestalozzi's method of preparing Moni- 
tors, and the work allotted them — Instructioti of Pupil-Teachers, general and special — 
Their management— Special cases examined — Pupil-Teachers almost essential to a 
good school, and amply repay labors of first year or two — to be early trained to " self- 
education" — When so trained a great relief to the Teacher — Always to be had where 
practicable. 

10. Examinations, for the satisfaction of the public — The parents — The Teacher — 
The design and special advantages of each — Manner of conducting them — Abuses — 
Addresses to parents a most desirable a<ijunct — SuitaLile topics for such addresses. 

11. Holidays, their use and number — Never to be given at fairs, wakes, &c. — Not 
generally desired by children in a well-conducted school. 

12. Dealing with Parents. — Position of the parent — Its relation to the Teacher — Con- 
clusions — The double duty of a Teacher to the parent and the school — Course to be 
taken — Necessity of a conciliatory manner in dealing with parents who will not submit 
to rules — On punishing children at the request of parents. 

13. Visitors, special and casual — Connection of the former with the school — Attention 
and courtesy due to them — How far the usual arrangement of a school may be changed 
for visitors — Their stiggestion.s — Spirit in which to he taken — Use to be made of them. 

14. Inspectors. — The peculiar character of their office — Inspection always to be ob- 
tained when practicalile — Its value to a good Teacher — Their view of a school con- 
trasted with that of the Teacher — Their relation as well to the Teacher as to the Pat- 
ron — The Teacher's best friend — Inspection anticipated — Preparation to be made — 
Lessons to be given before Inspector, as at other times. 

15. Patrons and Committees. — Relation to the school — Claims — The blessing of a 
good Patron — Difficulties with Patrons or Committees — The self-will and pride of a 
Teacher not to be mistaken for conscience, or the love of doing good — Principles and 
ends to he kept in view rather than plans — Not to thwart or oppose even when not con- 
vinced — to give way in minor matters if vital points are untouched — Circumstances 
which appear to justify giving up a school. 

IV. — The Government of a School. 
]. The Nature and Object of this Government. — All plans of government, if good, must 
be adapted to the uniform tendencies of human nature — Qualifications required in 
order to govern well — Importance of government in a school, as often giving to the 



804 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT AND THE ART OF TEACHING. 

child first ideas of subordination — Essential also to the comfort of the Teacher — To 
the progress and happiness of the children — Disorder the master defect of many schools 
— Dislike to Teachers often caused by misgovernment. 

2. A knowledge of the Principles of Action in Childhood required in order to Govern 
well. — The principles enumerated — Their importance — Scripture references on the in- 
fluence of iiabirs — Wisdom and beneficence of the Creator seen in the early formation 
and power of habits — Difficuhy of ascertaining motives — Importance of knowing them — 
The use to be made of them in governm^ a school. 

3. Parental Government. — Different kind of rule as to their spirit — The political — 
The military — The family — Characteristics of each — Reasonableness of requiring the 
parental spirit in Teachers — In what it consists — Effects of possessing the spirit— The 
parental spirit manifested tiy God — Seen in Christ — The parental spirit should govern 
our schools — Our debt to Pestalozzi for advocating it so powerfully — His fundamental 
principle in all mora! development and training. 

4. Authority— ^.ea.r\'m^ of the term — Abuses of authority — Modern mistakes — Import- 
ance of authority in the school-room — How to be used — Adaptation to the nature of the 
child—Mistakes as to governing by love alone — Rules to be adopted in establishing and 
maintaining authority. 

5. Kindness. — Distinguished from other affections — Love essential to a Teacher — 
Shock often received by children when transferred from a mother to an unkind 
Teacher — Influence of Kindness — Principles on which based — Manner of carrying 
them out — Caution against extremes. 

6. Justice. — Definition — Temptations to partiality — Children's appreciation of jus- 
tice — Written rules often useful. 

7. Fear. — Its abuses as a principle of government shown in the conduct of parents, 
teachers, and nurses— The use of fear in the moral economy of the child, and conse- 
quently its use by the Teacher — Cautions. 

8. Injluence. — What it is to govern with the will of a child — Means of obtaining in- 
flence — its true value both in the Infant and Juvenile School. 

9. Appeal to Principle. — Nature of principle, or sense of right and wrong— Relative 
position among motives of action — Advantages — The result, self-government, &c. — 
Perlection of a school as to governineni, when good conduct proceeds from principle. 

10. Prevention. — Importance of this principle as applied to the government of a 
school — Children to have full occupation — To associate pleasure with learning — 
Teacher to call in aid the public opinion of the school — To obtain the co-operation of 
parents. 

][. Rewards.— W\\&X, they are — How they act — Injurious as being an artificial ex- 
citement — As giving wrong views both of justice and merit — As rousing a mercenary 
spirit — As exciting vanity and pride— Means to be used to make promised rewards un- 
necessary—Example of Hofwyl — From our Infant Schools— The highest motives to be 
cultivated— Animal motives to be properly directed — Different ways of rewarding 
merit — Value of a reward consists not in the actual value of what is bestowed, but in 
the association created — Reward occasional and not expected — When it is not an in- 
centive to exertion, but a proof that merit is recognized, it gives the idea of justice. 

12. Punishments.~l>iA\m-e, design, and spirit — Difference between punishment, cor- 
rection, and discipline— The true end of punishment — Mistakes of the passionate 
Teacher — Effects of these on the child — Punishment should arise out of the fault — 
God's dealings with us our example — Natural punishments enumerated — Children to 
be shown the connection between sin and punishment — An unvarying punishment im- 
possible^Should differ according to character and disjiosition, and the nature of faults, 
&c.— -Evils of severe punishments — Importance of discrimination— Public exfiosure as 
a punishment — Spirit that leads a teacher to expose her pupils for her own gratifica- 
tion — Effects of exposure on different dispositions, and on spectators — Corporal pun- 
ishment — Former and present practice contrasted— Opinion of Dr. Arnold and Dr. 
Bryce — Pestalozzi's rules for using it — Its absence in a good school— Expulsion when 
to be resorted to— Circumstances to attend it. 

13. Emulation. — Nature of the principle — Usual application — Meaning of the word — 
Natural emulation, distinguished from Scripture emulation— " Generous rivalry," and 
,?' rivalry a means of self-knowledge," false ideas— Natural emulation not to be stimu- 
lated — Difliculties of a Teacher not using emulation — Substitutes for it, as — Desire to 
overcome difficulties- To gain knowledge — To please a much-loved Teacher, &c. 



TRAIKING ESTABLISHMENT 

FOR MASTERS FOR THE NATIONAL SOCIETY. 



The following account of St. Mark's College is drawn from the Annual 
Reports of her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, from 1843 to 1846, and from 
publications of the Principal, Rev. Derwent Coleridge, addressed to the 
Secretary of the National Society : — 

The principal Normal School, or training establishment for masters for 
schools under the charge of the National Society, is located in the parish of 
Chelsea, on the Fulhani Road, about two and a half miles from Hyde Park 
Corner. It is called St. Mark's College, and the place is frequently designated 
as Stanley Grove. 

Site and Buildings. — The site of the institution consists of eleven acres 
of land, perfectly healthy, and surrounded by a wall ; of the eleven acres of 
land, about three acres and a half are occupied as gardens and potato- 
ground, three acres as meadow-land, two acres and a half as pleasure-ground 
and shrubberies, leaving about two acres for the farm and laundry buildings, 
the college, practicing school, and chapel. The whole of the grounds, 
whether laid out as meadow-land, garden-ground, or shrubberies, may be 
considered, and really are, practically useful for the industrial purposes of 
the college. Formerly the estate belonged to Mr. Hamilton, whose com- 
modious mansion near the southern side of the property affords, in addi- 
tion to an excellent residence for the principal, a committee-room, a spacious 
and lofty lecture-room, having an area of 1,070 feet, the walls of which were 
fitted by the late owner with handsome bookcases, above which are casts 
from the Elgiu marbles, a dining-hall (area 450^ feet), and offices. 

Attached to this has been erected, in one of the Italian styles, a chapel, 
&,c., a quadrangle, in which are situate the dormitories of the pupils, a sep- 
arate bed-room (area 62| feet) being appropriated to each. The quad- 
rangles are two stories, containing each 22 small sleeping-rooms, together 
with the towers at the two outer angles, each of which contains a sitting. 
room, a master's bed-room, and three smaller chambers for boys, thus pro- 
viding accommodation for fifty students and two masters. Underneath are 
coal-chambers, workshops fitted up with carpenters' benches, a shoe and 
knife room, &c. The laundry is a separate building ; one end of this has 
been fitted up as an infirmary, and in the center are store-rooms for potatoes 
and apples, and other products of the fiirra and garden.* 

The practicing school is situate near the chapel, on the' north side of the 
grounds. It is an octagonal building, affording accommodation for six 
classes, in addition to those that may be arranged on the gallery. In the 
center is the fireplace, and over this, on the sides of the brick-work form- 
ing the ventilating apparatus and the chimneys, have been fitted black- 
boards and conveniences for suspending maps and musical tablets, so as 
that they may be seen by the classes opposite. Independently of the central 
square area, each side of which naeasures 20 feet, tiie recesses provide 
accommodation for 260 children. A cottage on the premises, situated near 
the practicing school, has been fitted up during the present year for the 
accommodation of the two higher classes, in separate rooms, the area of each 
being about 259 feet. 

• Report, National Society, 1842, p. 75. 



806 'ST. MARK'S TRAINING COLLEGE. 

The teachers and masters of the training establishment consist of a prin- 
cipal, a vicc-prinfip;;l. a head master, a teacher of music, a tercher of draw- 
ing, and .-m industri;il master or steward. The principal is the Rev. Derwent 
Coleridixe, nephew of the eminent poet and metaphysician. Samuel T. Colo- 
ridge, who has impressed his own views on the general scope and details of 
the institution. Of him, Mr. Moseley, one of the Inspectors, speaks thus : — 

" Those persons whose privilege it is to be acquainted with Mr. Coleridge, -will 
appreciate his many and eminent qualitieations as an instructor, and they will 
readily understand the ascendency which is given to him over the minds of the 
students, not less by that kindly and persuasive manner which is peculiar to him, 
and that colloquial eloquence which is his patrimony, than by the generosity of 
his purposes and the moral elevation of his principles of action. In the union of 
qualities such as tliese, with an abiding sense of the importance of tlie objects 
he has proposed to himself, absolute dedication to them, and entire faith in the 
means he has adopted for accomplishing them, he has succeeded in creating 
around him an institution which has probably outrun the hopes and expectations 
of its earlier friends, not less in the scale of its operations than in the character 
of the results which it contemplates, — an institution which claims, at an humble 
distance, to take its place among the collegiate establishments of the country — 
which has enlisted the sympathies of a large portion of the clergy in its favor, 
and contributed not a little to raise the standard affixed by public opinion to the 
office of an elementary schoolmaster." 

The general scope and design of the institution, as gathered from Mr. 
Coleridge's own writings, may be thus summed up in the language of one 
of the inspectors : — 

" Resting upon the ground that it is the duty, and by consequence the right 
and privilege of the Church to be the teacher of the nation, Mr. Coleridge's 
efforts have been mainly directed to form the character of his pupils in accord- 
ance with Church principles — to raise up a body of teachers, who might appre- 
ciate the Scriptural character of the English Chui-ch, and who should feel them- 
selves to be living, intelligent, and responsible agents in tlie carrying out of her 
system. For .such an end, they must prove (so far as such a result can be secured 
by any system of training within the reach of man) capable of communicating 
that entire preparation of heart and mind by which, with the help of God's Holy 
Spirit, tlie due reception and effectual working of the gospel message may be 
secured. Accounting it to be the peculiar aim of Protestantism, contemplated as 
an awakened energy of the Church, to enable each man for himself, according to 
his measure, to give a reason for the faith that is in him, and to ground that faith 
on Holy Scripture. Mr. Coleridge trusts that the teachers educated in this in- 
stitution will be skilled to cultivate the best fruits of the English Reformation, 
as that which would substitute a religion of light for the darkness of super- 
stition. 

" The Church being regarded as the teacher of the nation, she can have no end 
in view short of, or wholly apart from, the training of tlie young in the principles 
of true religion. At her hands they are to be enabled, as far as human instruc- 
tion might avail, to profit b}' the reading of Holy Scripture. No school knowl- 
edge can be recognized as useful which may not, directly or indirectly, contribute 
to this end. To bring up a child in the way in which he should go, and to fur- 
nish him with the weapons of his heavenly warfare — this is not a part of his 
education, rather it is the sum and substance of the whole ; for whatever secular 
knowledge is really desirable as a part of early and general education, is either 
included in such a description, or may with facility be added to it — cannot fitly 
be taught apart from it. Language, with all its uses — history, in all its branches 
— science itself, con.sidered in its noblest aspect, as an organ of reason and exer- , 
cise of the ment-al faculties — these and every other study, not merely technical, 
attain their highest value when connected with religious truth, and degenerate 
into falsehood when pursued in any other connection. 

" Mr. Coleridge feels strongly that no number of attainments, nor any facility 
in communicating them, can of themselves qualify a schoolmaster for his arduous 
office^ and that before we inquire into the special ntness of a teacher, there is 



< 



ST. MARK'S TRAnSTENG COLLEGE 807 

needed, as an essential prerequisite, a sound, and, to a considerable extent, a cul- 
tivated understanding — a certain moral power, tlie growth of religious principles, 
but developed by intellectual culture. And as the parochial schoolmaster has to 
supply all the indirect teaching to which the children of the better-provided 
classes owe much, and perhaps tlie best, of what they know, in those children of 
the poor liliely to be intrusted to him, he will liave to cultivate good habits in 
the ground of self-respect — habits of regular iudusti-y and self-control, of kindness 
and forbearance, of personal and domestic cleanliness, of decency and order ; he 
■will have to awaken in them the faculties of attention and memory, of reflection 
and judgment ; he will have not merely to instill knowledge, or supply the ma- 
terials of thought, but to elicit and exercise the powers of thinking, — to seek 
■with the first dawning of reason to awaken a faculty by which truth may be in- 
deed discerned — a faculty which he cannot give, but which he will assuredly find, 
and to which, by continually presenting its proper counterpart, he will ground 
knowledge upon faith, and give to religious truth an evidence approaching to 
intuition. Wherefore he especially needs to be not simply a seriously-minded 
Christian, but an educated man ; and while to teach letters, in however humble 
a capacity, is not a mechanical employment, the occupation of the schoolmaster 
of the poor, when regarded from the jjroper point of view, is as truly liberal as 
any in the commonwealth." 

The following passages are in the language of Mr. Coleridge : — 

" The truth is, that the education given in our schools (I speak of those open 
to the poor for cheap or gratuitous instruction, but the remark might be expanded 
much more widely) is too often little more than nominal, imparting, it may be, a 
little knowledge — sometimes hardly this — but leaving the mental powers wholly 
undeveloped, and the heart even less affected than the mind. Of course there 
are exceptions and limitations to this statement. It does not apply to every 
school, and is less true of some districts than of others ; but the fact, as a whole, 
stands upon what may be called statistical evidence. Is this owing to an acci- 
dental or to an inherent defect ? Are the means employed inadequate merely, 
or essentially unfit ? If the former, we may trust to time and gradual improve- 
ment. We may proceed, if possible, more carefully, but in the old way. If the 
latter, a different course must be pursued ; we must do something else. I ven- 
ture to take the latter position. 

" To what end do we seek to educate the poor man's child ? Is it not to give 
bim just views of his moral and religious obligations — his true interests for time 
and for eternity ; wliile, at the same time, we prepare him for the successful 
discharge of his civil duties — duties for which, however humble, there is surely 
some appropriate instruction ? Is it not to cultivate good habits in a ground of 
self-respect ? — habits of regular industry and self-control, of kindness and for- 
bearance, of personal and domestic cleanliness, of decency and order ? Is it not 
to awaken in him the faculties of attention and memory, of reflection and judg- 
ment ? — not merely to instill knowledge, or supply the materials of thought, but 
to elicit and to exercise the powers of thinking ? Is it not to train him in the 
use of language, the organ of reason, and the symbol of his humanity ? And 
while we thus place the child in a condition to look onward and upward — while 
we teach him his relationship to the eternal and the heavenly, and encourage 
him to live by this faith, do we not also hope to place him on a vantage-ground 
with respect to his earthly calling ? — to give to labor the interest of intelligence 
and the elevation of duty, and disarm those temptations by which the poor 
man's leisure is so fearfully be.set, and to which mental vacuity off^ers no resistance ? 

" But is this an easy task ? Can we hope that it will be duly performed for 
less than laborers' wages, without present estimation or hope of preferment, by 
the first rustic, broken-down tradesman, or artisan out of employment, whom ne- 
cessity, or perhaps indolence, brings to the ofiice ? Not to put an aggravated 
case, however common, can any half-educated man from tlie working classes (and 
the majority of those who seek to be schoolmasters are all but uneducated) be 
safely intrusted with duties, the very nature of which it would be impossible to 
make iiim understand ? Almost uninstructed, and utterly untrained — with little 
general fitness for his calling, and no special apprenticeship — he may teach a 
Uttle, and this not well, but he cannot educate at all. But will not a Uttle prep- 



808 ^'f'- i^'AEK'S TRAINING COI.LF.GE. 

aration suffice ? May he not be taught a system ? He may indeed be taught a 
system, but surely it will not suffice. He w.mts the first conditions of a teacher. 
He caniK.t teach what he does not know. He cannot explnin v.'lrit lie does not 
understand. He may learn a particular method, but not how to apply it. The 
best pr(!paration which he can receive, short of a complete course of trainin r, is 
superficial and formal. He must himself be educated before he can educate 
others. Morally and religiously considered, the case is still worse. He cannot 
suggest motive.s, or inspire feelings, of which he is himself unconscious. If he be 
a pious man, it is indeed much ; yet his principles, or at least his mode of ex- 
plaining them, will be uncertain. 

* * * * ** * * * 

" Here, then, I think we have the root of the evil. The object on which so 
much zeal and ingenuity have been bestowed, has been, not to procure proper 
masters, but to do without them. The attempt has been to educate by systems, 
not by men. School-rooms have been built, school-books provided, and methods 
of instruction devised. The monitorial, the simultaneous, the circulating, the 
interrogative, the suggestive systems, have each been advocated, separately or 
in combination. Meanwhile, the great need of all, without which all this appa- 
ratus is useless, and in comparison with which it is unimportant, has been all but 
overlooked. It has been taken for granted that the machinery of education 
would work itself, as if there had been a living spirit in the wheels. The guiding 
mind, by which even an imperfect mechanism might have been controlled to good 
effect, wa.s to be superseded ; nay, the conditions under which alone it can be 
provided — adequate support and just estimation — have been regarded as not 
merely unattainable, but as positively objectionable. The result is exactly what 
might have been anticipated. Each successive system, so long as it has been 
carried on under the eye of the author — that is, in effect, by an educated man, 
or by any really competent teachers — has been more or less successful ; and in 
every case the merit of the workman has been transferred to his tools ; and 
when, in other hands, these prove unserviceable, or even mischievous, they not 
merely lose a credit to which they were not entitled, but are charged with a 
fault which lies, perhaps, mainly in the handling. I say mischievous ; for in edu- 
cation, as in other arts, the most effective implements may chance to require the 
most dexterous management. Let me not be thought to undervalue even the 
slightest helps by which the communication of knowledge may be facilitated. 
There is an art as well as a science of education ; and every art has its methods, 
of which some may be better than others. But method itself supposes intelli- 
gence, adaptation, choice ; when traveled blindly, it is a mere routine. And if 
this be true in the domain of matter — if no method can exempt the sliip-builder 
or the engineer from the necessity of ever-varying contrivance — nay. if some 
faculty of this sort be required to enable the bird to construct its nest, or the 
bee its cells — how shall it be dispensed with, how shall we hope that its place 
can be supplied by forms, and practices, and rules, when that upon which we 
have to work is the mind of man ? Even an educated teacher who trusts to 
mechanical arrangements, must expect a mechanical result. Phidias himself 
could not have produced the semblance of life, "the image of a man, according 
to the beauty of a man," had he employed any but the most simple tools. The 
mental statuary must, in like manner, leave upon his work the touches of his 
own hand : he must model with his own fingers. Every child is an individual, 
thinking and feeling for himself. He must be dealt with accordingly. The influ- 
ence of the master must, as far as possible, be personal. Whatever intermediate 
agency is employed must be, for the same reason, intelligent ; for mind can only 
be affected by mind, the inferior by the .superior. To procure this without extra 
cost ; to create a number of teachers who shall continue learners, exercising in 
the former capacity a certain freedom of action, without losing their own do- 
cility and dependence — in a word, to reconcile an intelligent agency with gen- 
eral regulation and unity of purpose, is a problem for which, perhaps, no general 
solution can be offered. In practice, every national schoolmaster must solve it 
for himself ; and the success of his attempt will be the test of his efficiency. 

" I have described the education of a poor man's child with a reference to the 
ends for which I suppose it to be given ; and I have contended that this educa- 
tion cannot be given through the instrumentality of such men as axe commonlj 



ST. MARK'S TRAINING COLLEGE. gOg 

emjilove'l for that purpose. The educator must himself have been l)otli luflB- 
ciently an 1 suitably educated. This will be denied by none, but every one will 
atri.x his own meaning to the words. I say further, to teach letters, in however 
humble a capacity, is not a mechanical employment : to educate, in the full sense 
of the word, is as liberal an occupation as any in the commonwealth. In plain 
terms, then, and iu old-fashioned language, my conclusion is, that the schoolmaster 
must be an educated man. Thus stated, the proposition has a more startling 
eouii I ; but the import is the same. I speak of the thing, not of the accidents 
with wliicli it may be accompanied. I do not speak of birth, or social position, 
or habits of life, or manners, or appearance, but of a certain condition of the 
mental faculties, as well moral as intellectual ; of that which constitutes educa- 
tion, contemplated as a result — not of the dress by which, in this country and in 
modern times, it is commonly distinguished. Of the social relations and outward 
bearing which education must necessarily assume, I may say a few words here- 
after ; at present I speak of the thing itself With this explanation, I do not 
fear to affirm that the schoolmaster must be an educated man. And this neces- 
sity is not at all affected by the class of children which he has t() tv 'in. The 
amount of acquirement may differ; but this is the least thing to be co.ii lered. 
I am utterly opposed — I had almost said hostile — to the notion that any number 
of attainments, or any facility in teaching them, can qualify a schoolmaster for 
his arduous office. Attainments may make a particular teacher — a. professor, as 
such teachers affect to call themselves — but a mere teacher has much to learn 
before he can uuilertake to educate. A sound, and, to a consideraVjle extent, a 
cultivated understanding — a certain moral power, the growth of religious princi- 
ples, but developed Jay intellectual culture — surely this is an essential prerequisite 
in every educator, every schoolmaster, before we inquire into his special fitness 
for the class of children of which his school may be composed. And let it not be 
assumed that this is less requisite in the teacher of the poor than of the rich. 
The parochial schoolmaster, in which term I include the master of every church- 
school for tlie poor, is encompassed with difficulties to which an ordinary com- 
mercial or grammar school otters no parallel. Not merely has he a greater num- 
ber of children to instruct, with le.«s assistance and in a less time — children, for 
the most part, of tenderer years, and less prepared by previous instruction and 
home-training — but he has more to do ft)r them. They are more dependent upon 
him for their education. His scholars have, in a manner, to be taught not merely 
to think, but to speak, if they would express any thing beyond animal passions 
an I animal wants. He has to supply all the indirect teaching to which the 
children of the better provided classes oWe much, and perhaps the best, of what 
they know. And when to this we add the moral training which they require ; 
when we take into account the actual position of the church in this country, and 
remember that on the parochial schoolmaster the children of the poor are too 
often dependent, not merely for catechetical instruction, but for the first implant- 
ation of religious sentiment — -that he has too often to give that first presumption 
in favor of lioly things, as they are set forth in the church of our father.s, of which 
there should be no rememberable beginning — that he has to interpret that sound 
of Sabbath-bells, which ought to have a meaning to the ears of earliest child- 
hood, as often as it carries to the cottage its message of peace ; when, lastly, we 
add to this the influence for good which the honored teacher may and ought to 
exercise over the youth long after he has quitted the school — an influence wliich 
he can onlv maintain by the ability to direct and assist him after he has ceased 
to be a child ; in a word, when we see that the church schoolmaster has not 
merely to minister to the clergym an in some of his most arduous and important 
functions — the instruction of ciiildhood an 1 the guidance of youth — but to make 
up much that is wanting, and correct much that is perverse, in the cu'cumstances 
and tendencies of humble life ; shall it be said that I have overstrained the 
point, and contend for too high a standard ? But if this be a just picture of what 
we want, then look at what we have, and be my earnestness forgiven ! 

" At all events, it is better to strive for too high, than to be content with too 
low a standard. Do I describe an impossible perfection ? Let us at least set 
out witli our faces toward it ; we are then in the right direction, though we ad- 
vance but a little Avay. Let us set out with faith, and the resolution that it 
engenders, and perhaps we may advance further than we tliiuk. 



glQ ST. MARK'S TRAINING COLLEGE. 

" I have described the qualifications of a .schoolmaster implicitly by a reference 
to his work. How, it will be asked, are these to be commanded ? Not, assured- 
ly, by any cheap or summary method. Not, let me venture to urge, bv courses 
of lectures, or lessons in pedagogic. Rather than so, let the clergyman take the 
first thoughtful man. no matter what his acquirements, of wliose piety he is 
assured, and prepare him for his work, as he walks with him in the fields, or in 
the streets. I do not say that this is enough : far from it. I do not say that it 
is easy to meet with a man of good sense and right feeling, putting aside acquire- 
iment, to whom the oversight of chihlren may be committed. I believe it will be 
found very difficult. But something in this way miglit be done — some fatherly 
discipline established — .some lessons of humble wisdom imparted. From the 
other mode nothing, in the long run, but mischief can ensue. Wherever mere 
attainment is made a principal consideration, there will be a perpetual mistaking 
of means for ends, ami of semblance for reality. A little superlicial knowledge, 
and a showy, .self-sufficient cleverness, will be the product, the spirit and flavor 
of which will quickly evaporate, leaving behind either a mere caput mortuum, or 
a feruKinting mass of restlessness, petulance, and discontent. Yet let me not be 
mi iiiiderstood. My objection is not to lectures, or any other mode of facilitating 
acquirement ; still less to the acquirement itself. The former may be most use- 
ful, the latter most desirable. What I resist is, the notion that either is sufficient 
— the one as a means, the other as a result. Normal education is not satisfied 
with a superstructure of faculties — it nmst lay a basis of character ; and the 
latter is the longer and the more difficult process. Not what a teacher knows, 
but what he is, should ever be the first point considered." 

Admismon of Pupils. — Every applicant for admission must be at least 
fifteen years of age, and must submit the follov^'ing testimonials: 1, a certif- 
icate of baptism ; 2, a declaration from the parents or guardians of the 
you.h, stating that he has attended the services of the Church of England, 
with their consent and approbation, for the space of at least one twelve- 
month previous to the dale of the application ; 3, a medical certificate, 
according to a printed form ; 4, a recommendation from a clergyman, who 
is requested to state, as particularly as possible, the grounds on winch it, is 
given, as well for the satisfaction of the National Society as to prevent dis- 
appointment and needless expense on the part of the youth and !iis friends. 
Good moral character, amiability, truthfulness, and diligence, are indispen- 
sable requi-ites. Further information is solicited as to the youth's temper 
and disposition, his abilities and attainments, his tastes and habits, his age, 
size, and physical strengih, and as to any other matters from which his 
general fitness for the otRce of schoolmaster may be inferred. A certain 
degree of bodily as well as mental vigor is deemed indispensable. A strong, 
healthy, well-grown lad, of amiable disposition and promising talents, who 
shows an evident desire of knowledge, and has made a good use of the 
opporlunities which he has already enjoyed, though these may not have 
been great, is considered to be the description of youth best fitted to fulfill 
the designs of the institution. 

The examination of each student for admission is preceded by the other 
inquiries specified in the following paragraph, which are to be answered in 
his own words, and in his own handwriting, in the presence of the clergyman 
by whom he is recommended, or some other trustworthy person: — 

" State your name and age the last birth-dny ; when and where you were bnptized ; whether 
you have heen confirmed, and by whom; whether you have taken the sacrament of the l.oio's 
Siippef, and if so, whether you are a regular communicant? At what schools have you been 
educated, and lor how long a time, and in what subjects have you been instructed? Are you 
sincerely desirous of becoming a schoolmaster, and do you seek admission into the National So- 
ciety's Training College expressly to be fitted for that difficult and responsible office? Are you 
prepared to lead in the Colleije a simple and laborious life ; working with your hands as well as 
acquiring bimk-kniiwledge. and rendering an exact obedience to the disicipline of the place? 
Are you awan; that your path of duty on leaving the College will be principally, if not entirely, 
ainoiig the poor? And are you willing to ajjprentice yourself to the Society on that under- 
standing?" 

Mode of Admission. — These certificates having been received and approved. 



ST. MARK'S TRAINING COLLEGE. gn 

the \oiiih is diiveted lo present himself for examination at the college. He 
is expecleJ to read Euglisli pro.ie vvi;h prupriely, to spell correcily from 
dictaijon, to write a good hand, to be well acquainted with the ou lines of 
Scripiure history, .ind to show consider.ible re.idiuess in working the funda- 
mental rules of ariihmetic. Any further knowledge which he may possess, 
of wlijitever kind, is in his favor, not only, or so much, for its own sake, as 
on account of the studious turn of mind and aptness for receiving instruction 
Wiiicli it may appear to indicate. A talent for vocal music and drawing ia 
pardcularly de;-.ir.il>le. 

In the event of his passing this examination with credit, he is received 
into the college, and remains there on probation for the first three months; 
after which, if his conduct shall have been satisf.ctory and he shall be found 
to possess the necessary qualifications, he is appreniiced to the National 
Society. From this period till the age of 21, the society is responsible for 
his educ ition, clothing, and maintenance, being at liberty to make use of his 
services as a schoolmaster at any time and in any way thai may be thought 
proper. In general, the period during which the appren.ices are expected to 
rem an under instiiuction at the college is three years, afier which time 
they are to be placed in situ liions ei.her us the masters of small schools, or 
more commonly as assistants in large ones. 

The Principal, in his Report, complains that many of the students admitted 
are deticien': in the requisite preparation for the course of instruction pur- 
sued ia tliis inslitu.ion. 

" Of tho.«e now on probation, or recently apprenticed, a fair proportion are in- 
telli:^ent lads, of suitable tenipemand dis^position ; but even of these, compara- 
tively few are properly prepared for tlie iu>titution. Against tliis ditficulty it is 
impos.-ible to provide by mere e.\clusicin, without reducing the tmmbers admitted 
to an extent incompatible with the welfare, or indeed the existence, of the insti- 
tution. Not many of those recommended possess even that modicum of acquire- 
m>.'nt wliich might fairly be expected from a promising boy of twelve, not to say 
fifteen, years old. They cannot 'read well, tliat is, with intelligence, nor write 
correctly from dictation.' I do not allude to slight and casual inaccuracies, but to 
a general deticijncy, the result of bad teaching. They are, for the most part, 
quite ignorant of grammar ; and, what is worst of all, they are not sufficiently 
acquainted with the vocabulary of their own language to profit even by oral 
teaching of a kind suitable to the college, much less to^ain information for them- 
selves from boctks. Of geography, not to say history, they are, for the most part, 
wholly ignorant, many having never seen ■«, map. This description applies to 
diii'erent intlividuals in different degrees, and there are some to whom it tioes not 
apply at all ; but in a majority of cases it is necessary to ground the probationers 
afresh in the .simplest rudiments of learning — to go over again the work of an 
elementary school — with what loss to the pupils and disadvantage to the college, 
need not be told." 

Studies mid Training of the Pupils. — The subjects of instruction include 
Scriptural knowledge, and Bible literature, the doctrines of the Church and 
Church History, Latin, Music, English Grammar, General History, English 
Literature, Geogr.iphy, Algebra, Geometry, Mechanics, Ari.hmelic, Drawing, 
and the art of Teaching under the de:-ign;ition of Normal lessons. 

The pupils leave their beds at half past 5 in the morning, and are again 
in bed at 10 at night, when the dormi.ory lights are extinguished by one pf 
the elder youths; two of whom, under the inspection and control of the 
industrial teacher, are intrusted with the duty of lighting, regulating, and 
extinguishing the gas lights throughout the establishment. This gives 
seven hours and a half for sleep. The remaining IG hours and a half arc 
thus divided :-r-they are allowed to remain, — 

One hour in their bed-rooms, half an hour in the morning, and the same 
time in the evening. This, however, includes the time spent in coming and 
going, &.C. Habits of personal cleanliness, neatness, and order, are care- 



812 



ST. MARK'S TRArNING COLLEGE. 



fully enforced. It is with this view, as well as for the purpose of private 
devolion, that a separate bed-room has been allotted to each youth. 

Four hums and a half are assigned to industrial occupalicns, of which 
half an hour is consumed iii coming and going, getting out and putting by 
their tools, -.vashing their hands, &c. 

The studies of the college commence at a quarter before 7, with the 
reading of a collect from the Prayer-Book. The period of time allotted to 
study and united devotion amounts to about 8 hours. 

Half an hour is allowed for each of the three meals, including the laying 
and removing of the cloth, &c. They breakfast at 8, dine at 1, and drink 
tea at 7. Before tea they sing for an hour. 

Two hours and a quaner are reserved for voluntary study and recreation, 
viz. the half hour before and after dinner, the half hour after tea, which is 
spent in f imily devotion, and an hour before bed-lime, when the repetitions 
are learnt which are to be said next nioi'uing. 

The number of hours devoted weekly to each occupation is stated in the 
table subjoined. It will be observed that the greatest periods of time are 
given to Music and Latin, and the least to Arithmetic : — 



Number of Hours devoted Weekly to each Occupation of the Students. 



OCCUPATION. 



Chapel 

Eveiiinj; Worship 

Scriptural Knowledge and Christian Doc- 1 

Irine (i. e. Articles) ) 

Church History and Bible Literature 

Latin 

Eni,'lish Grammar, English Literature, and ) 

History s 

Geography 

Writing 

Arithmetic 

Geometry 

Algebra imd Trigonometry ' 

Mechanics and Natural Philosophy 

M usic 

Drawing- -x 

Normal Lessons 

Private Reading 

Prf paring Lessons 

Meals 

Leisiu'e • • 





Division 11. 


Division IIL 


Division L 




"^ 








1st 


2d 


1st 


2d 




Section. 


Section. 


Section. 


Section. 


• 














6 


6 


6 


6 


6 


3 :to 


3 30 


3 30 


3 30 


3 30 


2 5 


3 


3 25 


] 50 


3 40 


2 20 


2 


2 


2 40 


2 40 


6 15 


6 


6 


5 


6 


7 10 


2 45 


5 20 


6 


3 50 


2 30 


2 30 


1 20 


4 


5 20 . 


30 


1 20 


1 20 


2 40 


4 


20 


35 


1 10 


40 


3 30 


2 50 


1 20 


2 25 






2 20 


5 40 


2 40 


2 40 




2 


35 








7 10 


7 10 


7 10 


7 10 


7 10 


4 


4 


4 


4 


4 


3 










1 30 












9 


9 


9 


9 


8 45 


8 45 


8 45 


8 45 


8 45 


6 


6 


6 


6 


6 



In addition to the seven hours devoted to musical instruction in each 
week, six hours more are allotted to the practice of the Chapel service. On 
this point, Mr. Coleridge observes : — 

" If, however, the choral service, as performed in the chapel of St. Mark's 
Colleffe, be in itself unobjectionable ; if, in truth, it have been adopted from a 
sense of its superior beauty and fitness under the circumstances of the case — it 
may be mentioned, as a further recommendation, that it furnishes the begt, if not 
the only means, compatible with otlier exigencies, of imparting to the students 
of this institution that skill in the art of singing which is now so generally desired, 
if not expected, in a parochial schoolmaster. No system of teaching vocal music, 
however excellent, can dispense with the necessity of long and continuous prac- 
tice ; time for which could not have been afforded in this college, if it had not 
been found possible to unite the acquirement of this art with its best and princi- 
pal use. As it is, the seed-time and harvest of instruction are to a certain 
extent combined, the grain being sown and the sheaves gathered by the same 
process and at the same time. In plain terms, the musical skill required for the 



ST. MARK'S TRAINING COLLEGE. 8J3 

performance of the choral service is supplied, in some considerable measure, by 
the service itself; aii 1, imleed, :is these youths have not been suiccted, generally 
speaking, with any reference to musical capacity, and are not destined for the 
exclusive or i^ainful exercise of the musical profession, it would, I believe, have 
been found difficult to exact from them that close and unremitting attention to 
this study which it indispensably requires, and which they now bestow upon it, 
were it not for the pressure of a motive at once so sacred and so stimulating, 
coupled with the guidance and encouragement of a teacher who, to a practical 
acquaintance with Church music, such as could be looked for only in a master 
of tlie art, adds the authority derived from his position as vice-principal of the 
college." 

" It is not, indeed, intimated that any opportunity for the practice of singing, 
however ftivorable, can dispense with the necessity of regular elementary in- 
struction in the principles of music. It is a great advantage to acquire a foreign 
language in the country where it is spoken ; but it will be proper, nevertlieless, 
to acquire it graininafically. Now the services of the chapel render music, as it 
were, a living language in this college, which the youths catcli up insensibly by 
hearing and imitation — a language, moreover, heard only in its purest and noblest 
form, by which tlie taste of the student is cultivated, together with his powers 
of execution. And when it is remembered how much the success of a singer 
depends upon mechanical proficiency, apart from the interesting science which 
gives to the study its intellectual character, it will not be thouglit that too much 
stress is laid upon that training of the ear and voice which the students go 
through, indepen lently of any course of lessons. On the other hand, it is felt 
that, without the intellectual character above alluded to, the study, or, to speak 
more properlv, the pursuit, of vocal music would not merely be imperfect, but of 
doubtful benefit, taken as a branch of general education. And if it should be 
said, that all the theoretical knowledge necessary to a vocalist will come in the 
end by an analytical as opposed to the usual elementary methods (a result which 
can only be expected in the most favorable cases), it would yet be necessary 
that those who learn in order that they may teach, should be made acquainted 
with some si/s.'etn of instruction, capable of easy antl general application. In 
adopting that which owes so much to the peculiar genius of Mr. Hullah, regard 
has been had both to the intrinsic excellence of the method itself, and to the 
ready machinery with which it is supplied. 

'" It thus appears that there are two kinds of musical instruction always going 
on together, and mutuallv assisting each other. The art of reading nmsic, with 
the requisite knowledge of musical notation, is conveyed through th<; medium of 
Mr. Hullah's ' Granunar of Vocal Music,' under the very able superintendence 
of Mr. May ; one division of the students being under his own tuition, while a 
junior class is carried through the earlier portion of the course by one of the 
pupils. A third section, more advanced than either of the preceding, has the 
further advantage of lectures on harmony and counterpoint from Mr. Hullah 
himself These three divisions correspond generally to the three years of resi- 
dence — an arrangement by which every branch of study in the college is more 
or less regulated. An exact correspondence is obviously impracticable — some 
youths bringing with them a larger amount of musical knowledge and proficiency 
than others can be expected to attain at any period of their lives. Much, it is 
true, has been done to produce a respectable mediocrity ; but excellence will 
depend, after all, on individual qualifications." 

The reason.s for embracing the study of Latin in the scheme of instruc- 
tion are thus set forth : — 

As it is considered a leading object of national education, as viewed in 
connection with the church to raise the speech, and by implication the un- 
derstanding of the people to the level of the lirurgy, the uses of language, 
that priceless talent of re.iding the tlioughts of others and of communicating 
our own in writing, has been kept prominently in view as one of those first 
principles by which the studies of the college should be regulated ; and in 
conformity with these notions Latin is taught (so far as may be necessary 
to lay tiie foundations of a sound acquaintance with the accidence, synta.x, 



514 ST. MARK'S TRAINING COLLEGE. 

and etymology of that language), as an essential part of the course. This 
knowledge has been considered, if not necessary for the teacher of English, 
to be, at least, in the highest degree useful. The majority of the pupils are 
not carried beyond the accidence of the Eton Latin Grammar and Arnold's 
third Latin exercise book: a few who, previously to their admission, had 
acquired the rudiments, have been carried further, and some five or^si.\ who 
have attained a knowledge of Greek, apart from the teaching of the insthu- 
tion, are encouraged by the principal iu its cultivation, so far as may conduce 
to the understanding of the original text of the New Testament, on the ex- 
press provision, however, that these and the like studies do not in the slightest 
degree interfere with the more immediate objects of the institution, or with 
the due performance of its humblest duties. 

Industrial Occupations. — The industrial occupations of the students con- 
sist iu the labors of the farm, the garden, the house, lithography, and book- 
binding. 

"The advantages, I had almost said the necessity, of balancing the intellectual 
pursuits of the students by manual labor, scarcely need to be further insisted on. 
It is, in the first place, tlie ouly way in whicli such an institution could be sup- 
ported, except at an euurmous expense ; but this is the least consideration. It 
is almost the only mode in which the hours not occupied in study could be prof- 
itablv and innocently passed by a promiscuous assemblage of youths, almost all 
of whom have so much both to learn and to unlearn. Above all, that which is 
learned in this way is itself a most valuable acquirement, more especially to the 
schoolmaster of the poor. Xot merely will it enable him to increase his own 
comforts without cost, but it will make him practicalU' acquainted with the occu- 
pations of those whom he has to instruct, and thus procure him an additional 
title to their confidence when he comes to act among them, not merely as their 
teacher, but as their adviser and friend.' 

" Hitherto the difficulty has been to perform the necessary work of the estab- 
lishment in a satisfactory numner without encroaching on the hours of study — 
nothing being so nmch to be avoided as a hasty, imperfect, or slovenly perform- 
ance. The method pursued is iis follows : — The several duties — whether of the 
hou.<e, the farm, or the garden — are assigned to different parties, varying in num- 
ber according to the need, which are changed at stated periods, generally weekly. 
Over each of these parties a monitor is appointed, care being taken so to sort 
the parties that the influence of the older and steadier youths may be continu- 
allv exerted over their younger or less experienced associates. One youth, the 
eldest of those first admitted, is over the whole. It is his duty to arrange the 
labors of the ilay, under the superinteudence of the industrial master, and to 
inspect the different working-parties when needful. He is also expected to bear 
complaints, and to settle any trifling difference which may have arisen. The 
monitor of each partv is expected to maintain order among those whose labors 
he directs ; and, to speak generally, the discipline of the place is, as far as possi- 
ble, carried on by the moral influence of the youths over each other, a most 
watchful supervision being maintained by the masters. The direct interference 
of the principal is not resorted to except in cases of necessity. Faults are cor- 
rected bv admonition, and, if need be, by rebuke, either private or public, a.s the 
C-ase may seem to require. It is sometimes advisable to make the admonition 
ireneraCwithout naming those for whom it is specially intended. A journal of 
conduct is also kept, wiiich will, it is hoped, have a beneficial effect ; and every 
vouth is occasionally reminded that his prospects when he shall have left the 
institution, depend upon his conduct while in it. No prominence, however, is 
given to this or to any other secondary motive. Good conduct can only be pro- 
duced, in the long run, by a sense of duty, or by the habit which it produces 
when it becomes a matter of course ; and this habitual sense of duty is best 
encouraged bv a mode of treatment from which every appeal to motive, strictly 
so called, is excluded. I believe this to be not merely the highest, but the most 
practical view of the question ; and although in such a matter the utmost that 
can without presumption be expected, is a partial, and, under the Divine bless- 
ing, a growing success, yet it may with some degree of confidence be affirmed, 



ST. MARK'S TRAINING COLLEGE. gjg 

that it has been already borne out by facts. Tlie particular methods by which 
cheerful obeiiiencc. reijulnrity, dilij^ence, and general good condiut are to be pre- 
served in a training establishment, more especially in the industrial department, 
cannot be detailed witliin tlie limits of this report. They vary with the exigency, 
and are suggested in each case by tlie judgment, experience, good-feeling, and 
educatiiiuid tact of those by whom the establij'hmcnt is conducted. It will be 
understood tliat the whole rests upon a religious basis, and is referred constantly, 
and expressly, yet not obtrusively, to a religious standard ; care being taken to 
prevent phrases and professions from anticipating the growth of real feelings. 

" The business of the house is partly performed by the students, ;uid partly 
by female servants. The former clean all the shoes, and knives, (fee, lay the 
cloth, &c., and wait at meals, sweep and dust the school-rooms, keep the courts 
clean, light and attend to all the hres except those in the kitchen department, 
regulate the gasdights, keep up a constant supply of water throughout the col- 
lege by means of a forcing-pump, ami attend to the drainage, which is also 
effected by means of a pump. It has not been thought advisable that they 
should make their beds or wash the floors. It is not likely that they will ever 
be calkul upon to perform these offices when they leave the ct)llege, while the 
loss of time, and the injury done to their clothes, more than counterbalance any 
pecuniary saving which could in this way be effected. 

" The labors of the farm are principally confined to the care of domestic ani- 
mals — cows and pigs, and poultry of various kinds. The cows are milked by the 
youths, and an accurate account kept of the produce of the farm and dairy, which 
is consumed almost entirely in the establishment. The utihty of this part of the 
establishment is too evident to require a comment. 

" The gardens, lawns, and shrubberies furnish abundant employment for those 
not otherwise engaged ; and though a considerable portion of time and attention 
is necessarily allotted to ornamental horticulture, yet this will be found by no 
means the least useful or the least appropriate feature of the scheme. There is 
perhaps no form in which habits of manual industry can be encouraged more 
easily or more beneficially, either with a view to the immediate or to the ulterior 
effect, than by the occupations of the garden. Not to mention their effect upon 
thr health and happiness of the youths, or the lessons which they teach of pa- 
tience, order, and neatness, they are decidedly favorable to the growth of intelli- 
gence, and this of the best kind — more particularly when connected with the 
etudy of botany, which may with peculiar propriety be called the poor man's 
science. When studied on physiological principles, its close connection with the 
best and holiest truths/give it a yet higher claim to our attention. 

" Looking forward to the future positiou of our students, almost every country 
schoolmaster might be, with much advantage, both to himself and to his neigh- 
borhood, a gardener and a florist. The encouragement lately afforded to cottage 
gardening has been already attended with the most pleasing results. The paro- 
chial schodlmaster who shall be able to assist by example and precept in fosterhig 
a taste so favorable to the domestic happiness, and, in fact, to the domestic vir- 
tues of a rustic population — a taste by which an air of comfort is communicated 
to the rude.-t dwelling, and a certain grace thrown over the simplest forms of 
humble life — will, it is trusted, in this as in so many other ways, be made an 
instrument of good, and an efficient assistant to the parochial clergyman." 

In connection with the moral purposes of the industrial occupations of 
the students, the office of the. industrial master is considered of the highest 
importance. 

" It is his duty to maintain order and enforce discipline — not, however, by 
mere drill, however skillfully organized or efficiently conducted, but by the in- 
fluence of his example and the force of his character ; to live among them, and 
to lead them on, as well by precept as by occasidually sharing in their occupa- 
tions, to simple, industrious, and strictly regular habits; to settle disputes and 
fillay jealousies ; to correct personal conceit and every the least approach to a 
love of show and finery ; to recommend (and this not by words only ) an humble 
and dutiful mdustriousness, setting forth the religious obligation and beneficial 
tendency, not merely of labor in general, but of bodily labor in particular, as a 



816 ST. MARK'S TRAINING COLLEGE. 

blessing growing out of, and, in the case of those by whom it is rightly used, 
supL-rseding, if 1 may so speak, tlie penal character of toil, through Hiui by 
wliom, after an inetiable manner, it has been rendered holy, lionorable, and of 
good report in tlie Churcli ; — all this with a reference to the special aim of the 
institution, as an instrument for elevating and amelioratmg the lot of tlie labor- 
ing poor." 

Schools of Practice. — Opportunities for practice in teaching and con- 
ducting school are afforded in a Practicing or Model School, on the 
premises, and the Chelsea Parochial School. The Model School is com- 
posed of 142 children, of whom a certain number are admitted upon the 
free list, and the rest p;iy a fee of 4d. per week, or 3s. per quarter. The 
latter are j)rincipally children of respectable mechanics, market-gardeners, 
and working-people. Mr. Coleridge thus cliaracterizes them: — 

" There are among them many very promising lads, in whom a toward nature, 
and perliaps some liome-training, must sliare wliatever praise may be thought 
due to their actual character and attainments. It is from tliese and such as these, 
wherever they may be found, that I would select our future teachers. Many of 
tliem come from a considerable distance — as much as two or even three miles- 
bringing their dinners with tliem, which they eat in the schoolroom, under the eye 
of a teacher ; the same attention being paid to the propriety of their behavior as if 
they were boarders. Their little hymn of praise is sung by themselves at the 
beginning and conclusion of their simple meal, the materials of which in most 
cases indicate but a .scanty competence at home ; while the sum paid for their 
schooling, as well as the punctuality of their attendance, are each of them — the 
latter, perhaps, not less than the former — a proof that considerable ertbrts, and 
even sacrifices, will be made by respectable persons of this class to procure 
what they consider good instruction for their children." 

It having been considered expedient to extend yet further the facilities for 
practice in the art of teaching supplied to the students, and to make them 
fdraili.ir with it in its application to schools more nearly of the same class 
with those the charge of which will ultimately devolve upon them, an ar- 
rangement has been made by which a certain number of them are employed 
daily in the Chelsea Parochial School. To facilitate the details of this 
arrangement, one of the students, whose term of training has expired, has 
been appointed to the office of master of that school, with permission to 
reside in the college, from whence the students accompany him daily to the 
school. Mr. Coleridge thus speaks of the connection of this school with 
the institution : — 

" If the practicing school should be thought not to prepare the young men for 
the difficulties of their vocation — the children being of a better sort, or tauglit 
under greater advantages, than they can expect to find hereafter — no such ob- 
jection lies against the parochial school. Kothing can be more humble — I might 
almost say, abject — than the domestic condition, generally speaking, of the poor 
children, who are here provided, not merely with instruction, but with the motive 
to seek it — with the clothes without which many would not, and others could 
not, come to school at all. Some, indeed, of the children pay a penny a week ; 
but the greater number are taught gratuitously, and of these as many are com- 
fortably clothed as the funds at the command of the committee will permit. 
The benevolence of the directors, and in particular of the rector of the parish, is 
specially directed toward the children of the very poor — atti-acted by the 
misery, undeterred by the vice and self-abandonment with which the lowest 
estate of poverty is too often attended. Hence they have been unwilling to 
raise the cJiaracter of the school by any means inconsistent witli this charitable 
object, and would rather do a little good to those who want it so much, tlian 
seem to do more to tho.se who want it less. But, as intimated above, the very 
difficulties by which the school is embarrassed — whether from the character of 
the children or any other cause — enhance the value of the experience which may 
be gained in it by the teachers ; and although some time must elapse before tb» 



ST. MARK'S TRAINING COLLEGE. 



sr 



effects of the present management upon the welfare of the school can appear, 
yet it is hoped that an improvement has already taken place beneath the sur- 
face. Tliis connection — with the results of which, so far as they have y'one, I am 
authorized to state that the rector of the parish is fully satisfied — will relieve 
the funds of the school to a certain extent, without burdening those of the 
National Society." 

Mr. Moseley, the Inspector, submits the following remarks at the close of 
his Report, on the condition of this Institution in 1846: — 

" No purpose of such an institution is obviously of equal importance with that 
which proposes to itself the formation of the religious character of the students, 
in the true and comprehensive sense of that term ; and it is with heartfelt pleas- 
ure that I bear testimony to the impression left upon mv mind by my visits to 
St. Mark's College, of the success with which religious influences have, under the 
blessing of God, been made to operate there. 

'• If the moral aspect of the institution be that in which it is most gi-ateful to 
contemplate it ; if in the cheerful conformity of the students to the rules of its 
discipline, in their submi-sive deportment toward their superiors, and their steady 
pursuit of an arduous path of duty, there be evidence of a dedicated and a 
chastened spirit ; if their intercourse with the children whose education is in- 
trusted to their charge, be characterized not less by that kindly tone and that 
humanized demeanor, than by that more just recognition of their social position 
and truer self-respect, which are usually associated with a gentler birth than 
theirs, and a more careful luu'ture ; all these advantages, so inestimable in them- 
selves, and in their relation to the purposes of the institution, are the legitimate 
fruits of the formation of a religious character, and are evidences of its exist- 
ence. To the formation of such a character, the prominence given in the system 
of the institution to the services of the college chapel, cannot but contribute in 
an eminent degree ; and in assigning to them the first place among those charac- 
teristic features of the system which I am desirous to bring under your lord- 
ships' notice, I am not only following the order in which they came under my 
own observation, but assigning to them their due place and their relative import- 
ance. The chapel is, in Mr. Coleridge's svstera, ' the kev-stone to the arch.' " 
* * * * * * '^•x- * * 

Passing to the subject of secular instruction, I am desirous to record my 
entire adhesion, in a general sense, to the views entertained by Mr. Coleridge on 
the relative importance of literature and science, as proper elements of a course 
of secular instruction in its adaptation to the purposes of this institution. These 
views are set forth in the following paragraphs of his last letter : — 

" What these lads want is power of thought and language. Their verbal 
memory is dormant ; they are incapable of the simplest abstraction. Till this 
be remedied, they can neither classify nor analyze ; they cannot vary the form 
without changing the matter ; they cannot illustrate — they cannot explain ; in a 
word, they cannot teach. They have learned a certain imfnber of tacts — or 
rather, perhaps, a form of words in which facts are recounted — and might easily 
be taught a great many more in the same way ; but they cannot combine or 
employ them, or so much as recognize them in an altered dress." * * 

" Science, however valuable in itself as a disciphne of the mind, and however 
useful in its application to the mechanic arts, is of no avail for the purposes 
above mentioned. It will not enable an ignorant boy to express himself with 
common propriety ; it will not furnish him with the machinery of thought, or pre- 
pare him for the acquisition of knowledge in general. It will indeed strengthen 
his faculties, and raise him intellectually in the scale of being, but it will not 
serve as a foundation. Again, from whatever cause, it is not found to have the 
same effect as studies of another description in softening and refining the charac- 
ter ; and though this may be easily carried to excess, yet to humanize the coarse, 
rude natures, common in a greater or less degree to all uneducated boys, and in 
this way to gentle their condition, is among the most important ends of the insti- 
tution." 

"Whatever difference Of opinion there may be as to some of those considera- 
.tions by which Mr. Coleridge has thus sought to define the respective provinces 
of science and literature, there can, in my opinion, be none as to the general 

52 



gig ST. MARK'S TRAINING COLLEGE. 

result at which he has arrived. I believe that he has assigned to each its due 

importance, and that each actually holds, in the system of the institution, its 
legitimate place, and receives its due share of attention. 

********* 

There is, however, a second stage in the education of a schoolmaster. He 
must not only liave acquired the knowledge which he has to communicate, but 
be acquainted with the best methods of communicating it, and thoroughly prac- 
ticed in the use of those methods. All the elnments of education hitherto spoken 
of, are common to him and to every other educated man, and are not peculiar to 
a training college : the functions of such a college are not discharged until a pro* 
fessional education is superadded. 

It is in the experience of every teacher, that to embrace a truth one's self, and 
to be able to present it under the simplest form to the mind of another, are es- 
sentially different things : the one is a condition necexsary^ but not sufficient to 
the realization of the other. 

I am not urging the claims of any of the particular schemes, or methods of 
instruction, which may at any time have been propounded, although I believe 
that the students in such an institution sliould be conversant with all of them ; 
■ I am simply insisting on the necessity of making teaching, as an art, the subject 
of study in a training college, in respect to each subject taught ; of viewing each 
such subject under a double aspect, as that which is to become an element of the 
student's own knowledge, and as that which he is to be made capable of present- 
ing under so simple a form, that it may become an element of the knowledge of 
a child. If it be said that such knowledge will be given by that practice of the 
art of teaching which will form the occupation of the student's future life, I ask 
whether it is not in the experience of every person conversant with education, 
that a master may be possessed of all the knowledge he is called upon to teach ; 
and far mnre than it — he may, in the ordinary sense of the word, and even in its 
highest sense, be an educated man ; and to these qualifications he may add the 
experience of a whole life spent in tuition, and yet never have become a skillful 
teacher. 

Appealing to my own experience as an inspector, I can bear testimony to the 
fact that among the schools of which my opinion is recorded the least favorably, 
are some, whose demerits are not to be attributed to any want of education or 
of general intelligence in their masters, or of a character formed upon Christian 
principles, but simply to ignorance of the art of teaching. 

If I were asked (supposing the requisite knowledge of the subject taught) 
what constituted a good teacher ? I sh(>uld say, an habitual study of the best 
methods, and of the art of teaching. And if it were inquired of me why so few 
good teachers were to be found ? I should say, because so few study it — or look 
upon it, indeed, at all in the light of a proper subject of study. 

It is true that, as in all other branches of practical knowledge, some possess 
greater natural advantages for the acquisition of the art of teaching than others, 
and, by the prompting of these, being led to the study of it, become self-taught 
in it. And, in like manner, if any other branch of knowledge, now the subject 
of ordinary instruction, had never been .analyzed and simplified for that purpose, 
or taught systematically — and if all men were, under these circumstances, left to 
their own resources in the acquisition of it, and to their own choice whether 
they would acquire it or not — yet some, incited and encouraged to the pursuit 
of it by the bent of what is called genius, would find out for themselves the 
path which leads to it, overleap the intervening diflSculties, and attain it. 

I believe it to be thus Avith the art of teaching. Some few, by dint of natural 
qualifications, acquire that skill which a systematic course of instruction would 
make in a great degree common to all ; and thus the false opinion has grown up 
that no man can become a good schoolmaster who is not endowed naturally with 
peculiar qualifications for the office. 

It is to be borne in mind that the work of the elementary schoolmaster is one 
of no ordinary difficulty. A crowd of poor children is brought to him, in whom 
the moral sense is in abeyance — who have never been taught to think — who have 
little or no knowledge which may form the subject of thought, and are without 
the means of acquiring that knowledge. He must teach them to read, to write, 
to cipher, and impart to them the elements of religious knowledge : but this is 



ST. MARK'S TRAINING COLLEGE. g 1 9 

not all : he will fail of the really valuable results of education if he do nut fur- 
ther teach'them to think and to understands—store their minds with legitimate 
subjects of tliought, and cultivate the habit of self-instruction. 

For the accomplishment of these objects, the time allowed to him is short, the 
means limited, and often inadequate. 

If he have beforehand Weighed the difficulties and discouragements of his 
work, carefully and systematically studied the best methods of encountering 
them, considered the various circumstances of the application of those methods, 
and the mudiiications thereby rendered proper to them, and practiced hinaself in 
the use of them ; and if, actuated by the highest motives — in reliance on the 
Divine blessing— -strong in the requisite preparation, but without extravagant 
hopes of tlie result — he then give his heart to the work, and pursue it hopefully, 
cheerfully, and perseveringly — it will prosper in his hands. 

Without such a preparation, his first impulse will be to sit down and weep ; 
his second, in despair of any useful result, to shrink into the mere mechanical 
discliarge of his school tiuties. 

The elementary schoolmaster must be a man of action : his functions are 
affc/ressive, and call for the exercise of decision of character, a prompt judgment, 
a ready skill, and a facile intelligence. A passive, impressible, abstracted, and 
exclusively literary character, however pleasing as the subject of speculation, in 
connection with the office of a village schoolmaster, is foreign to the business of 
a great school. 

I can imagine no concurrence of circumstances better calculated to form an 
efficie.it schoolmaster, than a previous course of professional instruction, subdued 
in every phase and form of its development to that one object ; assigning not to 
a single teacher the realization of that object, but concentrating the labors of all 
— each in his own department — upon it. To youths who had enjoyed the advan- 
tages of a course of instruction like this, the duties of a schoolmaster's life, and 
its responsibilities, Would have become, in some sort, a second nature. That am- 
bition which receives so early its impulse, would, in minds thus preoccupied, 
obtain its legitimate direction, and the labor of their office would become less 
irksome to them when looked upon in tlie light of an exercise of skill not less 
than a duty. 

The following remarks on the results of the methods pursued in this 
Institution, and, incidentally, in other Institutions of the same kind, are 
taken from the Report of Mr. Moseley, in 1847 :— ' 

If, with reference to its professional bearings, there be any defect in the pre- 
scribed course, it does not appear to lie in this, that it aims at too high a 
standard of attainment in every subject to which the attention of the students is 
directed. 

It is not to be supposed that, to become good teachers, they can know too 
much of the subjects they have to teach. Of the elementary lessons it has been 
my duty to listen to and to pass a judgment upon, here and elsewhere, the pre- 
vailing and characteristic defect has been, not too much knowledge, but too 
little. Had the teacher known more of the subject of his lesson, it has been my 
constant observation, that he would have been able to select from it tilings 
better adapted for the instruction of children. Had his mind been more highly 
ciiltivated, and the resources of his intellect brought by education more fully 
under his control, he would have been able to place them under simpler forms, 
and in a better manner to adapt the examination founded upon them to the in- 
dividual capacities of the children he had to teach. Accordinffly, the simplest 
lesso7is I have listened to in trainhip schools, have commonly been those delivered 
by the ablest and best-instructed students. 

It is not the fact, that the teacher knows too much, which makes him unintelli- 
gible to the child, but, that he knows nothing which the child can comprehend, 
or that he has never studied what he has to teach in the light in which a child 
can be made to comprehend it. 

That fullness of knowledge on the part of the teacher, of which my experience 
has led me to appreciate the importance, is a fullness of the knowledge of things 
adapted to the instruction of ohildien, studied undur the forms in which they are 



820 



ST. MARK'S TRAINING COLLEGE. 



most readily intelligible to them ; of things learned in the light in which they 
are also to be taught. It includes, notwithstanding, the knowledge of many 
things which a child can never be expected to know. That the teacher may be 
able to present the subject under its most elementary form to the mind of the 
child, he must himself liave gone to the root of it. That he may exhaust it of 
all that it is capable of yielding for the cliild's instruction, he must have compassed 
the whole of it. 

In his preparation for the discharge of functions such as these, even with 
respect to that limited number of subjects which enter into the business of ele- 
mentary instruction, there is ample room, and verge enough, for a long course of 
study, which, whilst on the one hand it is strictly professional in its bearings, 
yields to no other, as a means of accomplishing the highest objects of a general 
education. 

It is not, liowever, to be denied, that in that function of a training school which 
is directed to the simple acquisition of knowledge separated from, or exercised 
out of the view of, that otlier wliich contemplates tlie imparting of it, there is a 
tendency to defeat the object for which such institutions have been established. 

Every man must be conscious of a separation made by education, between his 
own mind and that of a less educated man ; a separation which enlarges with 
each step of his intellectual progress, and which is widened to its utmost con- 
ceivable limits, when the relation is that of a poor ignorant child to a teacher 
otherwise higlily instructed, but who knows nothing likely to interest the child, 
or has been accustomed to study nothing in the light in which it may be made 
intelligible to the child. Their intercourse, under these circumstances, cannot 
but be mutually distasteful, and the school must be to both equally a place of 
bondage ; the child neither benefiting by it as a learner, nor the master as a 
teacher. 

Every thing which I have observed leads to the conclusion, that the course of 
the training school, to be successful, must not be limited to the one function of 
giving the student the learning he may require ; the other, that which concerns 
the art of teaching, being left to self-instruction and to pr.actice. 

One of those results of the recent examination of the Battersea Training 
School, which appeared tf) me the most important, was the progress the school- 
masters who came up for examination had obviously made, as teachers, since 
they left the Institution, placing them in this respect greatly in advance of the 
resident students. I have not observed the same result in institutions where 
the importance of the study of the art of teaching is not to the same extent felt, 
and wliere the I'elation of the elementary school to the training college is not so 
constantly kept in view. 

It struck me as remarkable, in the lessons dehvered by the candidates for cer- 
tificates in the model-school at St. Mark's, that there was no attempt made to 
transfer the knowledge to be communicated directly from the mind of the teacher 
to the minds of the cliildren. 

Their idea of an oral lesson seemed to be comprised in an examination. Nor 
was it a qtic.stioning of knowledge from their own minds to those of the children, 
by that process which is called the interrogative method, but, simply, a viva voce 
examination into what the children actually knew, limited for the most part to 
the subject-matter of some lesson which they had previously read; and as it did 
not thus enter apparently into the teacher's idea of an oral lesson that the chil- 
dren sliould know any thing more wdien it was completed than when it began, so 
did tills seem to be tlie result. 

In the printed form of report on the qualifications of candidates for certificates, 
one of the questions we are instructed to answer has reference to tlie character 
of the " Exposition" of the candidate in teaching, whether it be fluent or not. 
The answer recorded to this question in almost every case which' aame under 
our observation at St. Mark's is, " No exposition." With reference to the same 
question at Battersea, we have recorded that, in the lessons we listened to there, 
there was too much exposition, and too little examination. At Chester the tAvo 
seemed to be more judiciously united in the proportions of a good lesson. There 
was tills feature, moreover, worthy of observation in the lessons delivered in the 
Chester School, that the teacher broke up his lesson into parts, teaching by the 
way of exposition, only so long at one time as not to weary the attention of the 



ST. MARK'S TRAINING COLLEGE. 821 

children, and overburden their memories, then examining upon that portion, 
afterward taking up the subject where he had loft it oif, and thus continuinj, 
the process until the lesson was completed, when he examined upon the whole 
of it. 

Oral teacliing requires, more than any other, constant self-teaching on the part 
of the master. It is a method which will be adopted by no master who is not 
of a dedicated spirit and fond of his work. Besides, liowever, that satisfixction 
which he will derive from it in the success of his school, he will not fail to expe- 
rience this other, that whatever, for this object, he teaches himself, will be fixed 
more firmly in his mind, and that his knowledge of it will receive a character of 
clearness and precision not, perhaps, otherwise to be gained. 

In the teaching of the students of all the Training Institutions I have observed, 
and it was perhaps to be expected, a perpetual tendency to travel out of the 
sphere of the intelligence of the children, and out of the limits of that kind of 
knowledge which is hkely to interest or to benefit them ; but nowhere does 
there appear to be less effort m;ide to subdue this tendency, and systematically 
to subject the lesson, both as to the matter and the manner of it, to the exi- 
gencies of the child, than at St. Mark's College. Nothing would tend so effectu- 
ally to correct this evil as the addition to the staff' of the Institution of a model 
elementary teacher, on whose efforts those of the students might, with advantage, 
be formed, and to which they might be encouraged to refer them as a standard. 



UOKMAL SCHOOL 

FOR THE TRAINING OF PAROCHIAL SCHOOLMASTERS, 

AT BATTKRSEA, ENGLAND. 



The Battersea Training Establishment is the most interesting institution 
in England for the professional education of teachers. It was founded in 
1839, by James Phillips Kay* (now Sir James Kay Shuttleworth), Secretary 
of the Committee of Council on Education, and E, C. Tufnel, Esq., Assist- 
ant Poor-Law Commissioner, with two distinguishing objects : — 

1. To give an example of normal education for schoolmasters, comprising the 
formation of character, the development of the intelligence, appropriate technical 
instruction, and the acquisition of method and practical skill in conducting an 
elementary school. 

2. To illustrate the truth that, without violating the rights of conscience, 
masters trained in a spirit of Christian charity, and instructed in the discipline 
and doctrines of the Church, might be employed in the mixed schools necessarily 
connected with public establishments, and in which children of persons of all 
shades of religious opinion are assembled. 

It was founded as a private enterprise, and at an expense of $12,000 to 
the individuals named, in the hope that it might be employed, if the experi- 
ment should prove successful, by the Government, in supplying teachers for 
schools of industry for pauper children, like those at Norwood, Manchester, 
Liverpool, and elsewhere ; for reformatory institutions for juvenile criminals ; 
for " ragged schools" for neglected and vagrant children in large cities ; and 
for schools of royal foundation at dock-yards and in men-of-war. The 
original constitution impressed upon the normal school was conceived in 
this view. But, in 1843, the institution, having proved successful, and it 
being no longer convenient for its founders personally to superintend its 
operations, was transferred to the management of the National Society, for 
the purpose of being also instrumental in spreading a truly Christian 
civilization through the masses of the people in manufacturing districts. 
In announcing this fact, the founders, in their Report in 1 843, remark : — 

Our personal experience had made us early acquainted with the absence of a 
growth in the spiritual and intellectual life of the masses, corresponding with 
the vast material prosperity of the manufacturing districts. 

We had witnessed the failure of efforts to found a scheme of combined educa- 
tion on the emancipation of infants from the slavery into which the necessities 
and ignorance of their parents, and the intensity of commercial competition, had 
sold them. 

To arrest the progress of degeneracy toward materialism and sensuality, ap- 
peared to us to be the task roost worthy of citizens in a nation threatened by 
corruption from the consequences of ignorance and excessive labor among her 
lower orders. 

It is impossible that the legislature should, year after year, receive and pub- 
lish such accounts of the condition of the people as are contained in the Reports 

• Mr. Kay in 1843 assumed the name of Shuttleworth, in consequence of receiving a legacy 
from a person of that name ; and in 1849 was knighted by the queen, for his services to the cause 
of elementary instruction. 



824 BAITERSEA TRAINING t!CHOOL. 

of the Hand-kiom Weavers' Commission, or of the Commission on the Employ- 
ment of Women and Children, or that on the Dwellings of the Poor and on the 
Sanitary Condition of Large Towns, without resolving to confer on the poor 
some great reward of patience, by offering national secm-ity for their future 
welfare. 

These considerations have a general relation, but the state of the manufacturing 
poor is that which awakens the greatest apprehension. The labor which they 
undergo is excessive, and they sacrifice their wives and infants to the claims of 
their poverty, and to the demands of tlie intense competition of trade. Almost 
every thing around them tends to materialize and mflame them. 

They are assembled in masses, — they are exposed to the physical evils arising 
from the neglect of sanitary precautions, and to the moral contamination of 
towns, — they are accustomed to combine in trades-unions and political associa- 
tions, — they are more accessible by agitators, and more readily excited by them. 

The time for inquiry into their condition is past, the period for the interference 
of a sagacious national forethought is at hand. We therefore felt that the im- 
minent risks attending tliis condition of the manufacturing poor established the 
largest claim on an institution founded to educate Christian teachers for the 
people. 

No material change has been made in the plan of the school in conse- 
quence of this transfer of management, or enlargement of the design; and 
the history of its establishment and original constitution will therefore be 
both appropriate and profitable to an understanding of its present opera- 
tions. The following account is drawn from the " First and Second Rej)orLs 
on the Training School at Battersea, to the Poor-Law Commissioners" 
published in a volume entitled " Reports on the Training of Pauper Chil- 
dren. 1841." 

The training of pauper children in a workhouse or district school cannot be 
successful unless the teacher be moved by Christian charity to the work of rear- 
ing in religion and industry the outcast and orphan children of our rural and city 
population. The difficulty of redeeming by education the mischief wrought in 
generations of a vicious parentage, can be estimated only by those who know 
how degenerate these children are. 

The pauper children assembled at Norwood, from the garrets, cellars, and 
wretched rooms of alleys and courts in the dense parts of London, are often sent 
thither in a low stage of destitution, covered only with rags and vermin ; often 
the victims of chronic disease ; almost universally stmited m their growth ; and 
sometimes emaciated with want. The low-browed and inexpressive physiog- 
nomy or malign aspect of the boys is a true index to the mental darkness, the 
stubborn tempers, the hopeless spu-its, and the vicious habits on which the 
master has to work. He needs no smaU support from Cliristian faith and charity 
for the successful prosecution of such a labor ; and no quality can compensate for 
the want of that spirit of self-sacrifice and tender concern for the well-being of 
these children, without which their instruction would be any thing but a labor of 
love. A baker, or a shoemaker, or a shop apprentice, or commercial clerk, cannot 
be expected to be imbued with this spirit, during a residence of six months in 
the neighborhood of a model-school, if he has not imbibed it previously at its 
source. 

The men who undertake tliis work should not set about it in the spirit of 
hirelings, taking the speediest means to procure a maintenance with the least 
amount of trouble. A commercial country will always offer irresistible tempta- 
tions to desert such a profession, to those to whom the annual stipend is the 
chief if not sole motive to exertion. The outcast must remain neglected, if 
there be no principle which, even in the midst of a commercial people, will 
enable men to devote themselves to this vocation from higher motives than 
the mere love of money. 

Experience of the motives by which the class of schoolmasters now plying 
their trade in this country are commonly actuated, is a graver source of want of 



BATTERSEA TRAINING SCHOOL. . 325 

confidence in their ability to engage in tliis labor, than the absence of skill in 
their profession. A great number of them undertake tlieSe duties either because 
they are incapacitated by age or infirmity for any other, or because they have 
failed in all other attempts to procure a livelihood, or because, in the absence of 
Avell-qualitied competitors, the least amount of exertion and talent enables the 
most indolent schoolmasters to present average claims on public confidence and 
support. Rare indeed are the examples in whicli skill and principle are com- 
bined in the agents employed in this most important sphere of national self- 
government. Other men wiU nut enable you to restore the children of vagabonds 
and criminals to society, purged of the taint of their parents' vices, and prepared 
to perform their duties as useful citizens in an humble sphere. 

The peculiarities of the cliaracter and condition of the pauper children demand 
the use of appropriate means for their improvement. The general principles on 
which the education of children of all classes should be conducted are doubtless 
fundan^entally the same ; but for each class specific modifications are requisite, 
not only in the methods, but in the matter of instruction. 

The discipline, management, and methods of instruction in elementary schools 
for the poor, differ widely from tliose which ought to cliaracterize schools for the 
middle or upper classes of society. The instruction of the blind, of the deaf and 
dumb, of criminals, of paupers, and of children in towns and in rural districts, 
renders necessary the use of a variety of distinct methods in order to attain the 
desired end. 

The peculiarity of the pauper child's condition is, that his parents, eitlier from 
misfortune, or indolence, or vice, have sunk into destitution. In many instances 
children descend from generations of paupers. They have been born in the 
worst purlieus of a great city, or in the most wretched hovels on the parish 
waste. They have suffered privation of every kind. Perhaps they have wan- 
dered about the country in beggary, or have been taught the arts of petty 
thieving in the towns. They have lived with brutal and cruel men and women, 
and have suffered from their caprice and mismanagement. They have seen 
much of vice and wretchedness, and have known neither comfort, kindness, nor 
virtue. 

If they are sent very young to the work-house, their entire training in religious 
knowledge, and in all the habits of hfe, devolves on the schoolmaster. If they 
come under his care at a later period, his task is difficult in proportion to the 
vicious propensities he has to encounter. 

The children to whose improvement Pestalozzi devoted his life were of a 
similar class, — equally ignorant, and perhaps equally demoralized, in consequence 
of the internal di.scords attendant on the revolutionary wars which, at the 
period when his labors commenced, had left Switzerland in ruin 

The class of children which De Fellenberg placed under the charge of Vehrii 
at Hofwyl were in like manner picked up on the roads of the canton — they were 
the outcasts of Berne. 

These cu-cumstances are among the motives wluch led us to a careful examina- 
tion of the schools of industry and normal schools of the cantons of Switzerland. 
These schools are more or less under the influence of the lessons which Pestalozzi 
and De Fellenberg have taught that country. They differ in some important 
particulars from those which exist in England, and the experience of Switzerland 
in this peculiar department of elementary instruction appears pre-eminently 
worthy of attention. 

These orphan and normal schools of Switzerland, which have paid the deference 
due to the lessons of Pestalozzi and De Fellenberg, are remarkable for the gen- 
tleness and simplicity of the intercourse between the scholar and his master. 
The formation of character is always kept in mind as the great aim of education. 
The intelligence is enlightened, in order that it may inform the conscience, and 
that the conscience, looking forth through this intelligence, may behold a tv ider 
sphere of duty, and have at its command a greater capacity for action. The 
capacity for action is determined by the cultivation of habits appropriate to the .' 
duties of the station which the cliild must occupy. 

Among the laboring class, no habit is more essential to virtuous conduct than 
that of steady and persevering labor. Manual skill connects the intelligence 



826 ' BATTERSEA TRAINING SCHOOL. 

with the brute force with which we are endued. The instruction in elementary 
schools should be so conducted as not only to assist the laborer in acquiring 
mechanical dexterity, but in bringing his intelligence to aid the labors of his 
hands, whether by a knowledge of the principles of form or numbers, or of the 
properties of natural objects, and the nature of the phenomena by which his 
labors are likely to be affected. In a commercial country, it is pre-eminently 
important to give him such an acquaintance with geography as may stimulate 
enterprise at home, or may tend to swell the stream of colonization which is 
daily extending the dominion of British commerce and civilization. Labor which 
brings the sweat upon the brows requires relaxation, and the child should there- 
fore learn to repose from toil among innocent enjoyments, and to avoid those 
vicious indulgences which waste the laborer's strength, rob his house of comfort, 
and must sooner or later be the source of sorrow. There is a dignity in the 
lot of man in every sphere, if it be not cast away. The honor and the joy of 
successful toil should fill the laborer's songs in his hour of repose. From religion 
man learns that all the artificial distinctions of society are as nothing before that 
God who searcheth the heart. Religion, therefore, raises the laborer to the 
highest dignity of human existence, the knowledge of the will and the enjoyment 
of the favor of God, Instructed by religion, the laborer knows how in daily toil 
he fulfills the duties and satisfies the moral and natural necessities of his existence, 
while the outward garb of mortality is gradually wearing off, and the spirit pre- 
paring for emancipation. 

An education guided by the principles described in this brief sketch, appears 
to us appropriate to the preparation of the outcast and orphan children for the 
gi'eat work of a Christian's life. * * * 

That which seemed most important was the preparation of a class of teachers, 
who would cheerfully devote themselves, and, with anxious and tender solicitude, 
to rear these children, abandoned by all natural sympathies, as a wise and 
affectionate parent would prepare them for the duties of life. 

To so grave a task as an attempt to devise the means of training these teach- 
ers, it was necessary to bring a patient and humble spirit, in order that the 
results of experience in this department might be examined, and that none that 
were useful might be hastily thrown aside. Our examination of the Continental 
schools was undertaken with this view. A visit was made to Holland at two 
successive periods, on the last of which we took one of Dr. Kay's most experienced 
schoolmasters with us, in order that he might improve himself by an examination 
of the methods of instruction in the Dutch schools, all the most remarkable of 
which were miimtely inspected. A visit has been paid to Prussia and Saxony, 
in which several of the chief schools have been examined with a similar design. 
Two visits were paid to Paris, in which the normal school at Versailles, the 
Maison Mfcre, and Novitiate of the Brothers of the Order of the Christian Doc- 
trine, and a great number of the elementary schools of Paris and the vicinity, 
were examined. The normal school at Dijon was especially recommended to 
our attention by M. Cousin and M. Villemain, and- we spent a day in that school. 
Our attention was directed with peculiar interest to the schools of Switzerland, 
in the examination of which we spent several weeks uninterruptedly. During 
this period we daily inspected one or more schools, and conversed with the 
authorities of the several cantons, with the directors of the normal schools, and 
with individuals distinguished by their knowledge of the science of elementary 
instruction. The occasional leave of absence from our home duties which you 
have kindly granted us in the last three years respectively, was mainly solicited 
with the view, and devoted to the purpose, of examining the method of instruc- 
tion adopted in the schools for the poorer classes on the Continent. 

This report is not intended to convey to you the results of our inquiries. It 
may suffice to describe the chief places visited, and the objects to which our at- 
tention was directed, in order that you may know the sources whence we have 
derived the information by which our subsequent labors have been guided. We 
entered Switzerland by the Jura, descending at Geneva, and, having obtained 
the sanction of the authorities, were accompanied by some members of the 
council in our visit to the schools of the town and neighborhood. Thence we 
proceeded to the Canton de Vaud, inspecting certain rural schools, and the 
■choola of the towns on the borders of the lake, on our way to Lausanne. Hera 



BATl'iiJKSEA TRAINING SCHOOL. 82 V 

we spent two day8, iu company with M, Gautliey, the director of the normal 
Bchool of the canton, whose vaUiable report has been translated by Sir John 
Boileau, our fellow-traveler in this part of our journey. 

At Lausanne we attended the lectures, and exaniined the classes in the normal 
school and the town schools, and enjoyed much useful and instructive conversa- 
tion with M. Gauthey, who appeared eminently well qualified for his important 
labors. 

At Fribourg we spent some time in the convent of the Capuchin friars, where 
we found the venerable Pere Girard officiating at a reUgious festival, but he 
belongs to the Dominican order. The Pere Girard has a European reputation 
among those who have labored to raise the elementary instruction of the poorer 
classes, consequent on his pious labors among the poor of Fribourg; and the 
success of his schools appeared to us chiefly attributable, — first, to the skill and 
assiduity with which the monitors had been instructed in the evening by the 
father and his assistants, by which they had been raised to the level of the pupil 
teachers of Holland ; and secondly, to the skillful manner in which Pfere Girard 
and his assistants had infused a moral lesson into every incident of the instruction, 
and had bent the whole force of their minds to the formation of the characters 
of the children. It was, at the period of our visit, the intention of Pfere Girard 
to publish a series of works of elementary instruction at Paris, for which we have 
since waited in vain. 

At Berne, we spent much time in conversation with M. De Fellenberg, at 
Hofwyl. We visited his great establishment for education there, as well as the 
normal school at Munchen Buchsee, in which visit we were accompanied by M. 
De Fellenberg. What we learned from the conversation of this patriotic and 
high-minded man we cannot find ^pace here to say. His words are better read 
in the establishments which he has founded, and which he superintends, and in 
the influence which his example and his precepts have had on the rest of Switzer- 
land, and on other parts of Europe. The town schools of Berne and other parts 
of the canton merited, and received our attention. 

At Lucerne we carefully examined the normal and orphan schools. Thence 
we proceeded through Schweitz, with the intention of visiting the colony of the 
Linth, in Glarus, but failed, from the state of the mountain roads. Crossing the 
Lake of Zurich at Rapperschwyl, we successively visited St. Gall and Appenzell, 
examining some of the most interesting orphan schools in the mountains, par- 
ticularly one kept by a pupil of De Fellenberg at Teuffen, the normal school at 
Gais (Kruisi, the director of which is a pupU of Pestalozzi), and the orphan 
school of M. Zeltveger at Appenzell. 

Descending from the mountains, we crossed the lake to Constance, where we 
found Vehrli, who had many years conducted the poor -school of De Fellenberg 
at Hofwyl, now in charge of the normal school of the canton of Thurgovia, in a 
large mansion once connected with the convent of Kruitzlingen. Here we spent 
two days in constant communication with Vehrli and his pupils, in the examina- 
tion of his classes, and deriving from him much information respecting his 
labors. From Constance we traveled to Zurich, where we carefully exaniined 
the normal and model schools, both at that time considerably shaken by the 
recent revolution. 

At Lenzberg we had much useful conversation with the director of the normal 
school of the canton of Aargovia ; thence we traveled to Basle, where we visited 
the orphan house of the town, and also that at Beuggen, as well as other schools 
of repute. 

We have ventured to give this sketch of our journey in Switzerland, as some 
apology for tlie strength of the opinion we have formed on the necessity which 
exists for the establishment of a training school for the teachers of pauper 
children in this country. Our inquiries were not confined to this object ; but 
both here, at Paris, in Holland, and in Germany, we bought every book which 
we thought might be useful in our future labors ; and in every canton we were 
careful to collect all the laws relating to education, the regulations of the normal 
and elementary schools', and the by-laws by which these institutions wer« 
governed. 

In the orphan schools which have emanated from Pestalozzi and De Fellen- 
berg, we found the type which has assisted us in our subsequent labors. la 



828 BATTErvSEA TRAINING SCHOOL. 

walking with M. De Fellenberg through Hofwyl, we listened to the precepts 
which we think most applicable to the education of the pauper class. In the 
normal school of the canton of Thurgovia, and in the orphan schools of St. Gall 
and Appenzell, we fomid the development of those principles so far successful as 
to assure us of tlieir practical utility. * * * 

We were anxious that a work of such importance should be undertaken by 
the authorities most competent to carry it into execution successfully, and we 
painfully felt how inadequate our own resources and experience were for the 
management of such an experiment ; but after various inquiries, which were at- 
tended with few encouraging results, we thought that as a last resort we should 
not uicur the charge of presumption, if, in private and unaided, we endeavored 
to work out the first steps of the establishment of an institution for the framing 
of teachers, wliich we hoped might afterward be intrusted to abler hands. We 
determined, therefore, to devote a certain portion of our own means to this 
object, believing that when the scheme of the institution was sufficiently mature 
to enable us to speak of results rather than of anticipations, the well-being of 
50,000 pauper children would plead its own cause with the government and the 
public, so as to secure the future prosperity of the establishment. 

The task proposed was, to reconcile a simplicity of life not remote from the 
habits of the humbler classes, with such proficiency in intellectual attainments, 
such a knowledge of method, and such skill in the art of teaching, as would 
enable the pupils selected to become efficient masters of elementary schools. 
We hoped to inspire them with a large sympathy for their own class ; to implant 
in their minds the thought that their chief honor would be to aid in rescuing 
that class from the misery of ignorance and its attendant vices ; to wean them 
from the influence of that personal competition in a commercial society which 
leads to sordid aims ; to place before them the unsatisfied want of the uneasy 
and distressed multitude ; and to breathe into them the charity which seeks to 
heal its mental and moral diseases. 

We were led to select premises at Battersea, chiefly on account of the very 
frank and cordial welcome with which the suggestion of our plans was received 
by the Hon. and Rev. Robert Eden, the vicar of Battersea. Mr. Eden offered 
the use of his village schools in aid of the training school, as the sphere in which 
the pupils might obtain a practical acquaintance with the art of instruction. 
He also undertook to superintend the training school in all that related to 
religion. 

We therefore chose a spacious manor-house close to the TJ[iames, surrounded 
by a garden of five acres. This house was altered and divided so as to afford a 
good separate residence to Dr. Kay,* who undertook to superintend the progress 
of the establishment for a limited period, within which it was hoped that the 
principles on which the training school was to be conducted would be so far 
developed as to be in course of prosperous execution, and not likely to perish by 
being confided to other hands. 

In the month of January, 1840, the class-rooms were fitted up with desks on 
the plan described on the minutes of the Committee of Council, and we furnished 
the school-house. About the beginning of February some boys were removed 
from the School of Industry at Norwood, whose conduct had given us confidence 
in their characters, and who had made a certain proficiency in the elementary 
instruction of that school. 

These boys were chiefly orphans, of little more than thirteen years of age, in- 
tended to form a class of apprentices. These apprentices would be bound from 
the age of fourteen to that of twenty-one, to pursue, under the guidance and 
direction of the Poor-Law Commission, the vocation of assistant teachers in 
elementar)^ schools. For this purpose they were to receive instruction at least 
three years in the training school, and to be employed as pupil teachers for two 
years at least in the Battersea village school during three hours of every day. 

At the termination of this probationary period (if thej^ were able satisfactorily 
to pass a certain examination) they were to receive a certificate, and to be em- 
ployed as assistant teachers, under the guidance of experienced and well-conducted 
masters, in some of the schools of industry for pauper children. They were at 

• For which he paid half the rent and taxes, in addition to his share of the expenses of the 
■Cbool. 



BATTERSEA TRAINING SCHOOL. 829 

this period to be rewarded with a certain remuneration, increasing from year to 

year, and secured to them by the form of the indenture. 

If they were unable to sati-sfy the examiners of their proficiency in every 
department of elementary instruction, and thus failed in obtaining their cer- 
tificate, they would continue to receive instruction at Battersea until they had 
acquired the requisite accomplishments. 

The number of pupil teachers of this class has been gradually increased, 
during the period which has since elapsed, to twenty-four. But it seemed 
essential to the success of the school that the numbers should increase slowly. 
Its existence was disclosed only to the immediate circles of our acquaintance, by 
whom some boys were sent to the school, besides those whom we supported at 
our own expense. For the clothing, board and lodging, and education of each of 
these boys, who were confided to our care by certain of our friends, we consented 
to receive £20 per annum toward the general expenses of the schools. 

Besides the class of pupil teachers, we consented to receive young men, to 
remain at least one year in the establishment, either recommended by our per- 
sonal friends, or to be trained for the schools of gentlemen with whom we were 
acquainted. These young men have generally been from twenty to thirty years 
of age. 

The course of instruction, and the nature of the discipline adopted for the 
training of these young men, will be described in detail. This class now amounts 
to nine, a number accumulated only by very gradual accessions, as we were by 
no means desitous to attract many students until our plans were more mature, 
and the instruments of our labor were tried and approved. 

The domestic arrangements were conducted with great simplicity, because it 
was desirable that the pupils should be prepared for a life of self-denial. A 
sphere of great usefulness might require the laljors of a man ready to live among 
the peasantry on their own level, — to mingle with them in their habitations, — to 
partake their frugal or even coarse meals, — and to seem their equal only, though 
their instructor and guide. It was desirable, therefore, that the diet should be 
as frugal as was consistent with constant activity of mind, and some hours of 
steady and vigorous labor, and that it should not pamper the appetite by its 
quality or its variety. 

The whole household-work was committed to the charge of the boys and young 
men; and for this purpose the duties of each were appointed every fortnight, in 
order that they might be equally shared by all. The young men above twenty 
years of age did not aid in the scouring of the floors and stairs, nor clean the 
shoes, grates, and yards, nor assist in the serving and waiting at meals, the prep- 
aration of vegetables and other garden-stutf for the cook. But the making of 
beds and all other domestic duty was a common lot ; and the young men acted 
as superintendents of the other work. 

This was performed with cheerfulness, though it was some time before the 
requisite skill was attained ; and perfect order and cleanliness have been found 
among the habits most difficult to secure. The pupils and students were care- 
fully informed, that these arrangements were intended to prepare them for the 
discliarge of serious duties in au humble sphere, and to nerve their minds for the 
trials and vicissitudes of life. 

The masters partook the same diet as the pupils, sitting in the center of the 
room, and assisting in the carving. They encouraged familiar conversation 
(avoiding the extremes of levity or seriousness) at the meals, but on equal 
terms with their scholars, with the exception only of the respect involuntarily 
paid them. 

After a short time a cow was bought, and committed to the charge of one of 
the elder boys. Three pigs were afterward added to the stock, then tlu-ee 
goats, and subsequently poultry and a second cow. These animals were all fed 
and tended,^and the cows were daily milked, by the pupil teachers. It seemed 
important that they should learn to tend animals with care and gentleness ; 
that they should understand tlie habits and the mode of managing these par- 
ticular animals, because the schoolmaster in a rural parish often has a common 
or forest-right of pasture for his cow, and a forest-run for his pig or goat, and 
might thus, with a little skill, be provided with the means of healthful occupation 
in his hours of leisure, and of providing for the comfort of his family. 



g30 BAttEftSEA TllAINING SCHOOI,. 

Moreover, sUch employments were deemed important, as giving the pupils, by 
actual experience, some knowledge of a peasant's life, and, therefore, truer and 
closer sympathy with his lot. They would be able to render their teaching 
instructive, by adapting it to the actual condition and associations of those to 
whom it would be addressed. They would be in less danger of dospisiiiLr the 
laborer's daily toil in comparison With intellectual pursuits, and of being led by 
their oWn attainments to form a false estimate of their position in relation to the 
class to which they belonged, and which they were destined to instruct. The 
teacher of the peasant's child occupies, as it were, the father's place, in the per- 
formance of duties from which the father is separated by his daily toil, and 
unhappily, at pf esent, by his want of knowledge and skill. But the schoolmaster 
ought to be prepared in thought and feeling to do the peasant-father's duty, 
by having sentirtients in common with him, and among these an honest pride in 
the labor of his hands, in his strength, his manual skill, his robust health, and the 
manly vigor of his body and mind. 

At first, four hours were devoted every day to labor in the garden. The 
whole school rose at half past five. The household-Work occupied the pupil 
teachers altogether, and the students partially, till a quarter to seven o'clock. 
At a quarter to seven they marched into the garden, and Worked till a quarter 
to eight, when they were summoned to prayers. They then marched to the 
tool-house, deposited their implements, washed, and assembled at prayers at 
eight o'clock. At half past eight they breakfasted. From nine to twelve they 
Were in school. They worked at the garden from twelve to one, when they 
dined. They resumed their labor in the garden at two, and returned to their 
classes at three, where they were engaged till five, when they Worked another 
hour in the garden. At six they supped, and spent from seven to nine in their 
classes. At nine, evening prayers were read, and immediately afterward they 
Retired to rest. # * * 

In these labors the pupils and students rapidly gained strength. They almost 
all soon wore the hue of health. Their food Was frugal, and they returned to it 
with appetites Which Were not easily satisfied. The most delicate soon lost all 
their ailments. * * * 

The gymnastic frame and the horizontal and parallel bars Were not erected 
until the constitutional and muscular powefs of the pupils and students had been 
invigorated by labor. After a few months' daily work in the garden, the drill 
Was substituted for garden-work during one hour daily. The marching exercise 
and extension movements Were practiced for several weeks ; then the gymnastic 
apparatus was erected, and the drill and gymnastic exercise succeeded each 
other on alternate evenings. The knowledge of the marching exercise is very 
useful in enabling a teaclier to secure precision and order in the movements of 
the classes, or of his entire school, and to pay a due regard to the carriage of 
each child. A slouching gait is at least a sign of vulgarity, if it be not a proof 
of careless habits — of an inattention to the decencies and proprieties of Ufe, 
which in other matters occasion discomfort in the laborer's household. Habits of 
cleanliness, punctuality, and promptitude are not very compatible with indolence, 
nor with that careless lounging which frequently squanders not only the laborer's 
time, but his means, and leads his awkWard steps to the village tavern. In 
giving the child an erect and manly gait, a firm and regular step, precision and 
rapidity in his movements, promptitude in obedience to commands, and particu- 
larly neatness in his apparel and person, we are insensibly laying the foundation 
of moral habits, most intimately connected with the personal comfort and the 
happiness of the future laborer's family. We are giving a practical moral lesson, 
perhaps more powerful than the precepts which are inculcated by words. Those 
who are accustomed to the management of large schools know of how much im- 
portance such lessons are to the establishment of that order and quiet which is 
the characteristic of the Dutch schools, and which is essential to great success in 
large schools. 

The gymnastic exercises Were intended, in like manner, to prepare the teachers 
to superintend the exercises and amusements of the school play-ground ; to 
instruct the children systematically in those graduated trials of strength, activity, 
and adroitness, by which the mUecles are developed and the frame is prepared 



BATTERSEA TRAINING SCHOOL. 831 

for sustaining prolonged or sudden efforts. The play -ground of the school is so 
important a means of .separating the children from the vicious companions and 
evil example of the street or lane, and of prolonging the moral influence of the 
master over the habits and thoughts of his scholars, that expedients which in- 
crease its attractions are important, and especially those which enable the master 
to mingle with his .scholars usefully and cheerfully. The schools of the Canton 
de Vaud are generally furnished with the proper apparatus for this purpose, 
and we frequently observed it in France and Germany. 

The physical training of our charge was not confined to these labors and 
exercises. Occasionally Dr. Kay accompanied them in long walking excursions 
into the country, in which they spent the whole day in visiting some distant 
school, or remarkable building connected with historical associations, or some 
scene replete with otlier forms of instruction. In those excursions their habits 
of observation were cultivated, their attention was directed to what was most 
remarkable, and to such facts and objects as might have escaped observation 
from their comparative obscurity. Their strength was taxed by the length of 
the excursion, as far as was deemed prudent ; and after their return home they 
were requested to write an account of what they had seen, in order to afford 
evidence of the nature of tlie impressions which the excursion had produced. 

Such excursions usefully interrupted the ordinary routme of the school, and 
afforded a pleasing variety in the intercourse between ourselves and the teachers 
and pupils. They spurred the physical activity of the students, and taught 
them habits of endurance, as they seldom returned without being considerably 
fatigued. 

Such excursions are common to the best normal schools of Switzerland. It is 
very evident to the educators of Switzerland that to neglect to take their pupils 
forth to read the great truths left on record on every side of them in the extra- 
ordinary features of that country, would betray an indifference to nature, and to 
its influence on the development of the human intelligence, proving that the 
educator had most hmited views of his mission, and of the means by which its 
high purposes were to be accomplished. 

The great natural records of Switzerland, and its historical recollections, abound 
with subjects for instructive commentary, of which the professors of the normal 
schools avail themselves in their autumnal excursions with their pupils. The 
natural features of the country ; its drainage, soils, agriculture ; the causes which 
have affected the settlement of its inhabitants and its institutions ; the circum- 
stances which have assisted in the formation of the national character, and have 
thus made the history of their country, are more clearly apprehended by lessons 
gathered in the presence of facts typical of other facts scattered over hill and 
valley. England is so rich in historical recollections, and in the monuments by 
which the former periods of her history are linked with the present time, that it 
would seem to be a not unimportant duty of the educator to avail himself of 
such facts as lie within the range of his observation, in order that the historical 
knowledge of his scholar may be associated with these records, marking the 
progress of civilization in his native country. Few schools are placed beyond 
the reach of such means of instruction. Where they do not exist, the country 
must present some natural features worthy of being perused. These should not 
be neglected. In book-learning there is always a danger that the thing signified 
may not be discerned through the sign. The child may acquire words instead 
of thoughts. To have a clear and earnest conviction of the reality of the things 
signified, the object of the child's instruction should as frequently as possible be 
brought under its eye. Thus, Pestalozzi was careful to devise lessons on objects 
in which, by actual contact with the sense, the children were led to discern qual- 
ities which they afterward described in words. Such lessons have no meaning 
to persons who are satisfied with instruction by rote. 

The excursions of the directors of the Swiss normal schools also serve the 
purpose of breaking for a time an almost conventual seclusion, which forms a 
characteristic of establishments in which the education of the habits, as well as 
the instruction of the intelligence, is kept in view. These excursions in Swit- 
zerland extend to several days, and even longer, in schools of the more wealthy 
classes. The pupils are thus thrown ui contact with actual society ; their re- 
Bources are ta.xed by the iucideut« of ea<:h day ; their moral qualities are Bome* 



g32 ., BATTERSEA TRAmiNG SCHOOL. 

times tried, and they obtain a glimpse of the perspective of their future life. It 
is not only important in this way to know what the condition of society is before 
the pupil is required to enter it, but it is filso necessary to keep constantly be- 
fore his eye the end and aim of education — tliat it is a preparation for the duties 
of his future life, and to understand in what respect each department of his 
studies is adapted to prepare him for the actual performance of those duties. 
For eacli class of society there is an appropriate education. The normal schools 
of Switzerland are founded on this principle. None are admitted who are not 
devoted to the vocation of masters of elementary schools. The three or four 
years of tlieir residence m the school are considered all too short for a complete 
preparation for these functions. The time, therefore, is consumed in appropriate 
studies, care being taken that these studies are so conducted as to discipline and 
develop tlie intelligence ; to form habits of thought and action ; and to inspire 
the pupil with principles on which he may repose in the discharge of his duties. 

Among these studies and objects, the actual condition of the laboring class, 
its necessities, resources,' and intelhgence, form a most important element. The 
teachers go forth to observe for themselves ; they come back to receive further 
instruction from their master. They are led to anticipate their own relations to 
the comraime or parish in which their future school will be placed. They are 
prepared by instruction to fultiU certain of the communal duties which may use- 
fully devolve upon them ; such as registrar, precentor, or leader of the church 
choir, and clerk to the associations of the village. They receive famdiar exposi- 
tions of the law affecting the fulfillment of tliese duties. 

The benefits derived from these arrangements are great ; not only in furnish- 
ing these rural communes with men competent to the discharge of their duties, 
but the anticipations of future utility, and the conviction that their present 
studies infold the germ of their future life, give an interest to their pursuits, 
which it would be difficult to communicate, if the sense of their importance were 
more vague and indistinct. 

To this end, in the excursions from Battersea we have been careful to enter 
the schools on our route, and lessons have been given on the duties attaching to 
the offices which may be properly discharged by a village schoolmaster, in con- 
nection with his duty of instructing the young. 

This general sketch may suffice to give an idea of tlie external relations of 
the life of a student in the framing school, with the important exception of that 
portion of his time devoted to the acquirement of a practical knowledge of the 
duties of a schoolmaster in the village scliool. This may be more conveniently 
considered in connection with the intellectual pursuits of the school. We now 
proceed to regard the school as a household, and to give a brief sketch of its fa- 
miliar relations. 

The most obvious truth lay at the threshold — a family can only subsist harmo- 
niously by mutual love confidence, and respect. We did not seek to put the 
tutors into situations of inaccessible authority, but to place them in the parental 
seat, to receive the willing respect and obedience of then- pupils, and to act as 
the elder brothers of the young men. The residence of one of us for a certain 
period, in near connection with them, appeared necessary to give that tone to 
the familiar intercourse which would enable the tutors to conduct the instruction, 
and to maintain the discipline, so as to be at once the friends and guides of their 
charge. 

It was desirable that the tutors should reside in the house. They rose at the 
same hours with the scholars (except when prevented by sickness), and superin- 
tended more or less the general routine. Since the numbers have become great- 
er, and the duties more laborious, it has been found necessary that the superin- 
tendence of the periods of labor should be committed to each tutor alternately. 
They have set the example in working, frequently giving assistance in the sever- 
est labor, or that which was least attractive. 

In the autumn, some extensive alterations of the premises were to a large 
extent effected by the assistance of the entire school. The tutors not only su- 

Eerintended, but assisted in the work. Mr. Tate contributed liis mechanical 
Qowledge, and Mr. Home assisted in the execution of the details. In the cheer- 
ful industry displayed on this and on other similar occasions, we have witnessed 



BATTERSEA TRAINING SCHOOL. 333 

with satisfaction one of the best fruits of the discipline of the school. The con- 
ceit of the pedaojogue is not likely to arise among either students or masters 
who cheerfully handle the trowel, the saw, or carry mortar in a hod to the top 
of the building ; such simplicity of life is not very consistent with that vanity 
which occasions insincerity. But fi-eedom from this vice is essential to that har- 
monious interchange of kind offices and mutual respect which we were anxious 
to preserve. 

The diet of the household is simple. The fruits and vegetables of the garden 
afford the cliief variety, without luxury. The teachers sit in the midst of their 
scholars. The familiar intercourse of the meals is intended to be a means of 
cultivating kindly affections, and of insuring that the example of the master shall 
uisensibly form the habits of the scholar. Every day confirms the growing im- 
portance of these arrangements. 

It has been an object of especial care that the morning and evening prayers 
should be conducted with solemnity. A hall has been prepared for this service, 
wliich is conducted at seven o'clock every morning in that place. A passage of 
Scripture having been read, a portion of a psalm is chanted, or they sing a hymn ; 
and prayers follow, generally from the family selection prepared by the Bishop 
of London. The evening service is conducted in a similar manner. The solem- 
nity of the music, which is performed in four parts, is an important means of 
rendering the family devotion impressive. We trust that the benefits derived 
from these services may not be transient, but that the masters reared in this 
Bchool will remember the household devotions, and will maintain in their own 
dwellings and schools the family rite with equal care. 

Quiet has been enjoined on the pupils in retiring to rest. 

The Sunday has been partially occupied by its appropriate studies. The ser- 
vices of the church have been attended morning and evening ; and, besides a 
certain period devoted to the study of the formularies, the evening has been 
spent in writing out from memory a copious abstract of one of the sermons. At 
eight o'clock these compositions have been read and commented upon in the 
presence of the whole school ; and a most useful opportunity has been afforded 
for religious instruction, besides the daily instruction in the Bible. Mr. Eden has 
likewise attended the school on Friday, and examined the classes in their ac- 
quaintance with the Holy Scriptures and formularies of the church. The religious 
department, generally, is under his superintendence. 

The household and external life of the school are so interwoven with the les- 
sons, that it becomes necessary to consider some of their details together, before 
the intellectual instruction is separately treated. 

With pupils and students alike, it was found necessary to commence at an 
early stage of instruction, and to furnish them with the humblest elements of 
knowledge. The time wliich has elapsed since the school has opened ought, 
therefore, to be regarded as a preparatory period, similar to that which, in Ger- 
many, is spent from the time of leaving the primary school to sixteen, tha 
period of entering the normal school, in what is called a preparatory training 
BchooL 

As such preparatory schools do not exist in this country, we had no alternativfi. 
We selected the boj-s of the most promising character, and determined to wade 
through the period of preparation, and ultimately to create a preparatory class 
in the school itself. Our design was to examine the pupils of this class at the 
end of the first year, and to grant to such of them as gave proof of a certain 
degree of proficiency a certificate as Candidates of the training school. At the 
end of the second year's course of instruction, it is intended that a second exam- 
ination shall occur, in which proficients may obtain the certificate of Scholar ; and 
at the close of the ordinary course, in the third year, another examination is to 
be held, in which the certificate of Master will be conferred on those who have 
attained a certain rank intellectually, and who support their claims by a correct 
moral deportment. 

Training schools, developed on this design, would therefore consist of — 

1. Preparatory classes of students and pupils. 2. A class of Candidates. 
3. A class of Scholars. And some students, who had obtained the certificate of 
Master, might remain in the school in preparation for special duties as the Mas- 
• 53 



834 BATTERSEA TRAINING SCHOOL. 

ters of important district schools, or as Tutors in other training schools. These 
ettidents would constitute — 4. ,A class of Masters. 

As soon as thp attainments of the students and pupils appeared to warrant 
the experiment, an hour was daily appropriated to examination by means of 
questions written on the board before the class, the replies to which were worked 
on paper, m silence, in the presence of one of the tutors. This hour is, on suc- 
cessive days of the week, appropriated to different subjects, viz. : grammar, ety- 
mology, arithmetic, mensuration, algebra, mechanics, geography, and biblical 
knowledge. The examination papers are then carefully examined by the tutor 
to whose department they belong, in order that the value of the reply to each 
question may be determined in reference to mean numbers, 3, 4, 5, and 6. These 
mean numbers are used to express the comparative difficulty of every question, 
and the greatest merit of each reply is expressed by the numbers 6, 8, and 10 
and 12 respectively, the lowest degree of merit being indicated by 1. 

The sum of the numbers thus attached to each answer is entered in the. ex- 
amination-book, opposite to the name of each pupil. These numbers are added 
up at the end of the week, and reduced to an average by dividing them by the 
number of days of examination which have occurred in the week. In a similar 
manner, at the end of the month, the sum of the weekly averages is, for the 
sake of convenience, reduced by dividing them by four ; and a convenient num- 
ber is thus obtained, expressing the intellectual progress of each boy. These 
numbers are not published in the school, but are reserved as an element by 
which we may be enabled to award the certificates of Candidate, Scholar, and 
Master. 

The examination for the quarterly certificates will necessarily also include the 
inspection of the writing, drawings, abstracts, and compositions. Oral examina- 
tion will be required to ascertain the degree of promptitude and ease in expres- 
sion of each pupil. They will likewise be required to give demonstrations of 
problems in arithmetic, algebra, and mechanics, on the blackboard ; to describe 
the geography of a district in the form of a lecture, and to conduct a class be- 
fore us, ere we award the certificates. 

The examination of the pupils Avill gradually rise in importance, and the quar- 
terly examinations will be marked by a progressive character, leading to the 
three chief examinations for the certificates of Candidate, Scholar, and Master, 
which will be distinguished from each other, both as respects the nature and 
number of the acquirements, and by the degree of proficiency required in some 
branches which will be common to the three periods of study. 

In another department of registration we have thought it important to avoid 
certain errors of principle to which such registers appear to be liable. We have 
been anxious to have a record of some parts of moral conduct connected with 
habits formed in the school, but we have not attempted to register moral merit. 
Such registers are at best very difficult to keep. They occasion rivalry, and often 
hypocrisy. On this account we did not deem it advisable to require that they 
should be kept ; but it was important that we should be informed of certain 
errors interfering with the formation of habits of punctuality, industry, cleanli- 
ness, order, and subordination ; and registers were devised for noting deviations 
from propriety in these respects. First, a time-book is directed to be kept, in 
which the observance of the hour of rising, and of the successive periods marked 
in the routine of the school is noted, in order that any general cause of aberra- 
tion may meet the eye at once. Secondly, one book is kept by the superintend- 
ents appointed from among the students to inspect the household work above 
stairs, another in relation to the household work below stairs, and a third by the 
tutor having charge of out-door labor. In these books the duties assigned to 
each pupil are entered opposite to his name. The superintendent, at the expi- 
ration of the period allotted to the work, marks in colunms under each of the 
following heads, — Subordination, Industry, Cleanliness, Order, — the extent of de- 
viation from propriety of conduct by numbers varying from 1 to 4. 

The register of punctuality in classes is kept by writing opposite to each pu- 
pil's name the number of minutes which elapse after the proper period before he 
enters the class. The sum of the numbers recorded in these books denotes the 
extent of errors in habits and manners into which any of the pupils fall, and di- 
rects our attention to the fact. Such records would, in connection with the re- 



nATTEU;>EA TUAININ^; S('HOOL. {5.^5 

Bults of the examinations, enable us to determine whether, in reference to each 
period, a certificate of Candidate, Scholar, or Maater, oitYiefimt, second, or third 
degree, should be granted. 

The reports of the superintendents are presented to Dr. Kay immediately 
after morning prayers. The record is read in the presence of the school, and 
any appeal against the entry heard. At this period the relation which the 
entire discipline holds to the future pursuits of the pupils is from time to time 
made familiar to them by simple expositions of the principles by which it is reg- 
ulated. * * * 

This is the household life of the school. Brief hints only of the principles which 
have deteruained and regulated the preparatory course can Snd a place in the 
remarks we have to offer on the preparatory course. 

The students have been stimulated in their application by a constant sense of 
the practical utility of their intellectual labors. After morning prayers, they are 
from day to day reminded of the connection between their present and future 
pursuits, and informed how every part of the discipline and study has a direct 
relation to the duties of a schoolmaster. The conviction thus created becomes a 
powerful incentive to exertion, which might be wanting if those studies were se- 
lected only because they were important as a discipline of the mind. 

The sense of practical utility seems as important to the earnestness of the stu- 
dent as the lively conviction attending object teaching in the early and simplest 
form of elementary instruction. In the earliest steps an acquaintance with the 
real is necessary to lively conceptions of truth, and at a later period a sense of 
the value of knowledge resulting from experience inspires the strongest convic- 
tion of the dignity and importance of all truth, where its immediate practical 
utility is not obvious. 

Far, therefore, from fearing tliat the sense of the practical utility of these 
studies will lead the students to measure the value of all truth by a low stand- 
ard, their pursuits have been regulated by the conviction, that the most certain 
method of attaining a strong sense of tlie value of truth.s, not readily applicable 
to immediate use, is to ascertain by experience the importance of those which 
can be readily measured by the standard of practical utility. Thus we approach 
the conception of the momentum of a planet moving in its orbit, from ascertain- 
ing the momentum of bodies whose weight and velocity we can measure by the 
simplest observations. From the level of the experience of the practical utility 
of certain common truths, the mind gradually ascends to the more abstract, 
whose importance hence becomes more easily apparent, though their present ap- 
plication is not obvious, and in this way the thoughts most safely approach the 
most difficult abstractions. 

In the humble pur^^uits of the preparatory course, a lively sense of the utility 
of their studies has likewise been maintained by the method of instruction adopt- 
ed. Nothing has been taught dogmatically, but every thing by the combination 
of the simplest elements, i. e. the course which a discoverer must have trod has 
been followed, and the way in which truths have been ascertained pointed out 
by a synthetical demonstration of each successive step. The labor of the pre- 
vious analysis of the subject is the duty of the teacher, and is thus removed from 
the child. 

Having ascertained what the pupil knows, the teacher endeavors to lead liim 
by gentle and easy steps from the known to the unknown. The instruction, in 
the whole preparatory course, is chiefly oral, and is illustrated, as much as possi- 
ble, by appeals to nature, and by demonstrations. Books are not resorted to 
until the teacher is convinced that the mind of his pupil is in a .state of healthful 
activity ; that there has been awakened in him a lively interest in truth, and 
that he has become acquainted practically witli the inductive method of acquir- 
ing knowledge. At this stage the rules, the principles of which have been orally 
communicated, and with whose application he is famihar, are committed to mem- 
ory from books, to serve as a means of recalling more readily the knowledge and 
skill thus attained. This course is Pestalozzian, and, it will be perceived, is the 
reverse of the method usually followed, which consists in giving the pupil the 
rule first. Experience, however, has confirmed us in the superiority of the plan 
we have pursued. Sometimes a book, as for example a work on Physical Geog- 
raphy, is put into his hands, in order that it may be carefully read, and that the 



536 BATTERSEA TiJAININi; .SCHOOL. 

student may prepare himself to give before the class a verbal abstract of the 
chapter selected for this purpose, and to answer such questions as may be pro- 
posed to liini, either by the tutor or by his fellows. During the prejiaratory 
course exercises of this kind have not been so numerous as they will be in the 
more advanced stages of instruction. Until habits of attention and steady ap- 
plication had been formed, it seemed undesirable to allow to the pupils hours for 
self-sustained study, or voluntary occupation. Constant superintendence is ne- 
cessary to the formation of correct habits, in these and in all other respects, in 
the preparatory course. The entire day is, therefore, occupied with a succession 
of engagements in household work and out-door labor, devotional exercises, meals, 
and instruction. Recreation is sought in change of employment. These changes 
afford such pleasure, and the sense of utility and duty is so constantly maintained, 
that recreation in the ordinary sense is not needed. Leisure from such occupa- 
tions is never sought excepting to write a letter to a friend, or occasionally to 
visit some near relative. The pupils all present an air of cheerfulness. They 
proceed from one lesson to another, and to their several occupations, with an 
elasticity of mind which affords the best proof that the mental and physical ef- 
fects of the training are auspicious. 

In the early steps toward the formation of correct habits, it is necessary that 
(until the power of self-guidance is obtained) the pupil should be constantly un- 
der the eye of a master, not disposed to exercise authority so much as to give 
assistance and advice. Before the habit of self-direction is formed, it is there- 
fore pernicious to leave much time at the disposal of the pupil. Proper intel- 
lectual and moral aims must be inspired, and the pupil must attain a knowledge 
of the mode of employing his time with skill, usefully, and under the guidance 
of right motives, ere he can be properly left to the spontaneous suggestions of 
his own mind. Here, therefore, the moral and the intellectual training are in 
the closest harmony. The formation of correct habits, and the growth of right 
sentiments, ought to precede such confidence in the pupil's powers of self-direc- 
tion, as is implied in leaving him either much time unoccupied, or in which his 
labors are not under the immediate superintendence of his teacher. 

In the preparatory course, therefore, the whole time is employed under super- 
intendence, but toward the close of the course a gradual trial of the pupil's 
powers of self-guidance is commenced ; first, by intrusting him with certain 
studies unassisted by the teacher. Those who zealously and successfully employ 
their time will, by degrees, be intrusted with a greater period for self-sustained 
intellectual or physical exertion. Further evidence of the existence of the prop- 
er qualities will lead to a more liberal confidence, until habits of application 
and the power of pursuing their studies successfully, and without assistance, are 
attained. 

Tlie subjects of the preparatory course were strictly rudimental. It will be 
found that the knowledge obtained in the elementary schools now in existence 
is a very meager preparation for the studies of a training school for teachers. 
Until the elementary schools are improved, it will be found necessary to go to 
the very roots of all knowledge, and to rearrange such knowledge as the pupils 
have attained, in harmony with the principles on which they must ultimately 
communicate it to others. Many of our pupils enter the school with the br(>adest 
provincial dialect, scarcely able to read with fluency and precision, much less 
with ease and expression. Some were ill furnished with the commonest rules of 
aritimietic, and wrote clumsily and slowly. 

They have been made acquainted with the phonic method of teaching to read 

fwacticed in Germany. Their defects of pronunciation have been corrected to a 
arge extent by the adoption of this method, and by means of deliberate and 
emphatic syllabic reading, in a well-sustained and correct tone. The principles 
on which the laut or phonic method depends have been explained at considerable 
length as a part of the course of lessons on method. 

We have deemed it of paramount importance that they should acquire a 
thorough knowledge of the elements and structure of the Enghsh language. The 
lessons in reading were in the first place made the means of leading them to an 
examination of the structure of sentences, and practical oral lessons were given 
on grammar and etymology according to the method pursued by Mr. Wood in 
the Edinburgh Sessional Schpol. The results of these exercises were tested by 



BATTERSEA TRAINING SCHOOI,. 537. 

the lessons of dictation and of composition which accompanied the early stages 
of tliis course, and by which a timely sense of the utility of a knowledge of 
grammatical construction and of the etymological relations of words was devel- 
oped. As soon as this feeling was created, the oral instruction in grammar 
assumed a more positive form. The theory on which the rules were founded 
was explained, and the several laws, when well understood, were dictated in the 
least exceptionable formulje, and were written out and committed to memory. 
In this way they proceeded through the whole of the theory and rules of gram- 
mar before they were intrusted with any book on the subject, lest they should 
depend for their knowledge on a mere effort of the memory to retain a formula 
not well understood. 

At each stage of their advance, corresponding exercises were resorted to, in 
order to familiarize them with the application of the rules. 

"When they had in this way passed through the ordinary course of grammati- 
cal instruction, they were intrusted with books to enable them to give the last 
degree of precision to their conceptions. 

In etymology the lessons were in like manner practical and oral. They were 
first derived from the reading-lessons of the day, and applied to the exercises and 
examinations accompanying the course, and, after a certain progress had been 
made, their further advance was insured by systematic lessons from books. 

A course of reading in English literature, by which the taste may be refined 
by an acquaintance with the best models of style, and with those authors whose 
works have exercised the most beneficial influence on the mind of this nation, has 
necessarily been postponed to another part of the course. It, however, forms 
one of the most important elements in the conception of the objects to be attained 
in a training school, that the teacher should be inspired with a discriminating but 
earnest admiration for those gifts of great minds to English literature which are 
alike the property of the peasant and tlie peer ; national treasures which are 
among the most legitimate sources of national feelings. 

Those who have had close uitercourse with the laboring classes well know 
with what difficulty they comprehend words not of a Saxon origin, and how fre- 
quently addresses to them are unintelligible from the continual use of terms of a 
Latin or Greek derivation ; yet the daily language of the middling and upper 
classes abounds with such words — many of the formularies of our church are full 
of them, and hardly a sermon is preached wliich does not in every page contain 
numerous examples of their use. Phrases of this sort are so naturalized in the 
language of the educated classes, that entirely to omit them has the appearance 
of pedantry and baldness, and even disgusts persons of taste and refinement. 
Therefore, in addressing a mixed congregation, it seems impossible to avoid using 
them, and the only mode of meeting tlie inconvenience alluded to is to instruct 
the humbler classes in their meaning. The method we have adopted for this 
purpose has been copied from that first introduced in the Edinburgh Sessional 
Schools; every compound word is analyzed, and the separate meaning of each 
member pointed out, so that, at present, there are few words in the English 
language which our pupils cannot thoroughly comprehend, and from their 
acquaintance with the common roots and principles of etymology, the new com- 
pound terms, which the demands of civilization are daily introducing, are almost 
immediately understood by them. We believe that there are few acquirements 
more conducive to clearness of thought, or that can be more usefully introduced 
into common schools, than a thorough knowledge of the English language, and 
that the absence of it gives power to the illiterate teacher and demagogue, and 
deprives the lettered man of his just influence. 

Similar remarks might be extended to style. It is equally obvious that the 
educated use sentences of a construction presenting difficulties to the vulgar 
which are frequently almost insurmountable. It is, therefore, not only necessary 
that the meaning of words should be taught on a logical system m our element- 
ary schools, but that the children should be made familiar with extracts from 
our best authors on subjects suited to their capacity. It cannot be permitted to 
remain the opprobrium of this country that its greatest minds have bequeathed 
their thoughts to the nation in a style at once pure and simple, but still inaccea- 
Bible to the intelligence of the great body of the people. 



•833 BATTERSEA TRAINING SCHOOL. 

In writing, they Were trained, as soon as the various books could be prepared, 
according to the method* of Mulliauser, which was translated and placed in the 
hands of the teachers for that purpose. 

In like manner, in arithmetic, it has been deemed desirable to put thom in- 
possession of tlie pre-eminently synthetical method of Pestalozzi. As soon as the 
requisite tables and series of lessons, analyzed to the simplest elements, could 
be procured, the principles on which complex numerical combinations rest were 
rendered fomiUar to them, by leading the pupils through the earlier course of 
Pestalozzi's lessons on numbers, from simple unity to compound fractional quan- 
tities ; connecting with them the series of exercises in mental arithmetic wliich 
they are so well calculated to introduce and to illustrate. The use of such a 
method dispels the gloom which might attend the most expert use of the com- 
mon rules of arithmetic, and wliich commonly afford the pupil little light to guide 
his steps off the beaten path illuminated by the rule. 

While these lessons have been in progress, the common rules of arithmetic 
have been examined by the hght of this method. Their theory has been ex- 
plained, and by constant practice the pupils have been led to acquire expertness 
m them, as well as to pursue the common principles on which they rest, and to 
ascertain the practical range within which each rule ought to be emploved. Tlie 
ordinary lessons on mental arithmetic have taken their place in the course of in- 
struction separately from the peculiar rules which belong to Pestalozzi's series. 

These lessons also prepared the pupils for proceeding at an early period in a 
similar manner with the elements of algebra, and with practical lessons in men- 
suration and land-surveying. 

These last subjects were considered of peculiar importance, as comprising 
one of the most useful industrial developments of a knowledge of the laws of 
number. Unless, in elementary schools, the instruction proceed beyond the 
knowledge of abstract rules, to their actual application to the practical necessi- 
ties of life, the scholar will have httle interest in his studies, because he will not 
perceive their importance ; and moreover, when he leaves the school, they will 
be of little use, because he has not learned to apply his knowledge to any pur- 
pose. On this account, boys who have been educated in common elementary 
schools, are frequently found, in a few years after they have left, to have 
forgotten the greater part even of the slender amount of knowledge they had 
acquired. 

The use of arithmetic to the carpenter, the builder, the laborer, and artisan, 
ought to be developed by teaching mensuration and land-surveying in element- 
ary schools. If the scholars do not remain long enough to attain so liigli a range, 
the same piinciple should be applied to every step of their progress. The prac- 
tical application of the simplest rules should be shown by familiar examples. As 
soon as the cliikl can count, he should be made to count objects, such as 
money, the figures on the face of a clock, <fec. When he can add, he should have 
before him shop-bills, accounts of the expenditure of earnings, accounts of wages. 
In every arithmetical rule similar useful exercises are a part of the art of a 
teacher, whose sincere desire is to fit his pupil for the application of his knowl- 
edge to the duties of life, the preparation for which should be always suggested 
to the pupil's mind as a powerful incentive to action. These future duties 
should be always placed in a cheering and hopeful point of view. The mere 
repetition of a table of numbers has less of education in it than a drill in the 
balance-step. 

Practical instruction in the book-keepincf necessary for the management of the 
household was for these reasons given to those who acted as stewards ; accounts 
were kept of the seeds, manure, and garden produce, &c., as preparatory to a 
course of book-keeping, which will follow. 

f The recently rapid development of the industry and commerce of this 

* See a description of MulhausPi''s method, p. 250. 

t It is somewiiat remarkable that since this paragraph was written I should have received a 
letter from one of the principal directors of a railway company, in which he informs me that the 
frequent recurrence of accidents had induced the directors of the railway to make a careful ex- 
amination into their causes. The directors rose from this inquiry convinced that these accidents 
were, to a large exteot, attributable to tlic i^^nurauce of the men whom they bad beeo obliged to 



BATTERSEA TRAINING SCHOOL. 339 

country by machinery, creates a want for well-instructed mechanics, which, in 
the present state of education, it will be difficult adequately to supply. The 
steam-engines which drain our coal-fields and mineral veins and beds; which 
whirl along every radroad ; which toil on tlie surface of every river, and issue 
from every estuary, are committed to the charge of men of some practical skill, 
but of mean education. The mental resources of the classes who are practically 
intrusted with the guidance of this great development of national power should 
not be left uncultivated. This new force has grown rapidly, in consequence of 
the genius of tlie people, and the natural resources of this island, and in spite of 
their ignorance. But our supremacy at sea, and our manufacturing and com- 
mercial prosperity (inseparable elements), depend on the successful progress of 
those arts by which our present position has been attained. 

On this account, we have deemed inseparable from the education of a school- 
master a knowledge of the elements of mechanics and of the laws of heat, suf- 
ficient to enable liini to explain the structure of the various kinds of steam- 
engines in use in this country. This instruction has proved one of the chief 
features even of the preparatory course, as we feared that some of the young 
men might leave the establishment as soon as they had obtained the certificates 
of candidates, and we were unwilling that they should go forth without some 
knowledge at least of one of the chief elements of our national prosperity, or 
altogether without power to make the workingman acquainted with the great 
agent which has had more influence on the destiny of the working classes than 
any other single fact in our history, and which is probably destined to work stUl 
greater changes. 

Knowledge and national prosperity are here in strict alliance. Not only do 
the arts of peace — the success of our trade — our power to compete with foreign 
rivals — our safety on our railways and in our steam-ships — depend on the spread 
of this knowledge, but the future defense of this country from foreign aggression 
can only result from our being superior to every nation in those arts. The 
schoolmaster is an agent despised at present, but whose importance for the 
attainment of this end will, by the results of a few yeans, be placed in bold 
relief before the public. 

The tutor to whom the duty of communicating to the pupils a knowledge of 
the laws of motion, of the mechanical powers and contrivances, and of the laws 
of heat, was committed, was selected because he was a self-educated man, and 
was willing to avail himself of the more popular methods of demonstration, and 
to postpone the application of his valuable and extensive mathematical acquire- 
ments. By his assistance the pupils and students have been led through a 
series of demonstrations of mechanical combinations, until they were prepared to 
consider the several parts of the steam-engine, first separately, and in their suc- 
cessive developments and applications, and they are at present acquainted with 
the more complex combinatit)ns in the steam-engines now in use, and with the 
principles involved in their construction and action. 

In geography, it has been deemed important that the tutors should proceed by 
a similar method. The lessons on land-surveying have familiarized the pupils 
with the nature and uses of maps. As one development of the art of drawing, 
they have been practiced in map-drawing. For this purpose, among other expe- 
dients, the walls of one class-room have been prepared with mastic, in order that 
bold projections of maps might be made on a great scale. 

employ as engineers, for the want of better; and to the low habits of these men, who, though 
they do not subject themselves to dismissal by such a defi;ince of regulations as to be found 
"dr«H/i," are in Ihe habit of stupefying themselves with dram-drinking! The directors of the 
company had delermined that the proper remedy for these evils was to provide amusement and 
insUuclion tor their men at night, and application has since been made to Mr. Tate, the tutor in 
mechanics, ii. c, in the training school, to afford his assistance in delivering lectures on mechanics 
to Ihe engineers, stokers, and other servants of the company. A large room has been provided 
for IhesB purposes, and it is understood to be the intention "of the company to draw their servants 
to this room by such amusements as may be more attractive than the tavern — to excite their 
aUention to subjects of instruction appropriate to their duties by a series of popular lectures— and 
then to open cl:isses. when they may learn mechanics, and such ot the elements ot natural science 
as may be useful to them in their calling. 

As a part of the amusements, application was made by one of the directors to Mr. Hiillah to 
open a class like those of the artisans of Paris, and to instruct them in singing on the method of 
Wilhem.-J. P. Kay. 



^40 BATTERSEA TRAINING SCHOOL. 

Physical geograpliy has been deemed the true basis of all instruction in the 
geography of industry and commerce, -which ought to form the chief subject of 
geographical instruction in elementary schools. The tutor has first endeavored 
to convince the pupils that nothing which presents itself to the eye in a well- 
drawn map is to be regarded as accidental ; the boldness of the promontcries, 
the deep indenture of the bays, the general bearings of the coast, are all refer- 
able to natural laws. In these respects the eastern and western coasts of 
Englanil are in striking contrast, in appearance, character, and in the circum- 
stances which occasion their peculiarities. The physical geography of England 
commences with a description of the elevation of the mountain ranges, the 
different levels, and the drainage of the country. The course, rapidity, and 
volume of the rivers are referable to the elevation and extent of the country 
which they drain. From the climate, levels, and drainage, with little further 
matter, the agricultural tracts of the country may be indicated, and when the 
great coal-fields and the mineral veins and beds, the depth of the bays and 
rivers are known, the distribution of the population is found to be in strict rela- 
tion to certain natural laws. Even the ancient political divisions of the country 
are, on inspection, found to be in close dependence on its drainage. The counties 
are river basins, which were the first seats of tribes of population. If any new 
political distribution were to be made, it would necessarily, in like manner, 
be affected by some natural law, which it is equally interesting and useful to 
trace. 

Geography, taught in this way, is a constant exercise to the reasoning powers. 
The pupil is led to trace the mutual dependence of facts, which, in ordinary in- 
struction, are taught as the words of a vocabulary. Geography taught in the 
ordinary way is as reasonable an acquisition as the catalogue of a museum, which 
a student might be compelled to learn as a substitute for natural history. A 
catalogue of towns, rivers, bays, promontories, &c., is even less geography than 
the well-arranged catalogue of a museum is natural history, because the classifi- 
cation has a logical meaning in the latter case, which is absent in the former. 

As a department of geographical instruction, the elements of the use of the 
globes in i'iK>ction with nautical astronomy has been cultivated with some 
diligence. 

The outlines only of the history of England have been read, as preparatory 
to a course of instruction in English history, which is to form one of the studies 
of the second year. The history of England has been read in the evening as an 
exercise in the art of reading, and the examinations which have followed have 
been adapted only to secure general impressions as to the main facts of our history. 

Skill in drawing was deemed essential to the success of a schoolmaster. With- 
out this art he would be unable to avail himself of the important assistance of 
the blackboard, on which his demonstrations of the objects of study ought to be 
dehneated. His lessons on the most simple subjects would be wanting demon- 
strative power, and he would be incapable of proceeding with lessons in me- 
chanics, without skill to delineate the machines of which his lessons treated. 

The arts of design have been little cultivated among the workmen of England. 
Whoever has been accustomed to see the plans of houses and farm buildings, or 
of public buildings of an humble character from the country, must know the ex- 
, treme deficiency of our workmen in this application of the art of drawing, where 
it is closely connected with the comfort of domestic life, and is essential to the 
skillful performance of public works. The survey now in progress under the 
Tithe Commissioners affords abundant evidence of the want of skill in map-draw- 
ing among the rural surveyors. 

The improvement of our machiney for agriculture and manufactures would be 
in no small degree facilitated, if the art of drawing were a common acquirement 
among our artisans. Invention is checked by the want of skill in communicating 
the conception of the inventor, by drawings of all the details of his combination. 
In all those manufactures of which taste is a principal element, our neighbors, the 
French, are greatly our superiors, solely, we believe, because the eyes and the 
hands of all classes are practiced from a very early age in the arts of design. In 
the elementary schools of Paris, the proficiency of the young pupils in drawing 



BATTERSEA TRAINING f-'CHOt H,. g^j 

is very remarkable, and the evening schools are iilled with yoniiif men and 
adults of mature or even advanced age, engaged in the diligent cultivation of 
this art. Last Midsummer, in some of the evening schools of tlie Brothers of tlie 
Christian Doctrine, classes of workmen were questioned as to their employments. 
One was an ebeniafe, another a founder, another a clock-maker, another a paper- 
hanger, another an upholsterer ; and each was asked his hours of labor, and his 
motives for attendance. A single example may serve as a type. A man witli- 
out his coat, whose muscular arms were bared by rolling his shirt-sleeves up to 
his shoulders, and who, though well washed and clean, wore the marks of toil on 
Iiis white, horny hands, was sitting with an admirable copy in crayon of La 
Domui della Segiola before him, which he had nearly completed. He was a 
man about 45 years of age. He said he had risen at live, and had been at wt)rk 
from six o'clock in the morning until seven o'clock in the evening, with brief 
intervals for meals; and he had entered the evening class at eiglit o'clock,' to 
remain there till ten. He had pleasure, he said, in drawing, and that a knowl- 
edge of the art greatly improved his skill and taste in masonry. He turned 
round with a good-humored smile, and added, he could live better on less wages 
than an Englishman, because his drawing cost him less than beer. Some thou- 
sand workingmen attend the adult schools every evening in Paris, and the 
drawing classes comprise great numbers whose skill would occasion much aston- 
isliment in this country. The most difficult engravings of the paintings of the 
Italian masters are copied in crayon with remarkable skill and accuracy. Com- 
plex and exquisitely minute architectural details, such, for example, as perspec- 
tive views of the Duomo at Milan, or the cathedrals at Rouen or Cologne, are 
drawn in pen and ink, with singular fidelity. Some were drawing from plaster 
casts and other models. We found such adult schools in many of the chief towns 
of France. These schools -are the sources of the taste and skill in the decorative 
arts, and in all manufactures of which taste is a prominent element, and which 
have made the designs for the calico-printers, the silk and ribbon looms, the 
papers, (fee, <fec., of France, so superior in taste to those of this country, notwith- 
standing the superiority of our maimfactories in mechanical combinations. 

These considerations lead us to account drawing an important department of 
elementary education. The manufacturers of Lancashire are well aware how 
difficult it is, from the neglect of the arts of design among the laborers of this 
country, to procure any skilled draftsmen to design for the cotton or silk manu- 
facturer. The elevation of the national taste in art can only be procured by the 
constant cultivation of the mind in relation to the beautiful in form and color, 
by familiarizing the eye with the best models, the works of great artists, and 
beautiful natural objects. Skill in drawing from nature results from a careful 
progress through a well-analyzed series ef models. The interests of commerce 
are so intimately connected with the results to be obtained by this branch of 
elementary education, that there is little chance that it will much longer suffer 
the grievous neglect it has hitherto experienced. 

The drawing classes at Battersea were first exercised in very simple models, 
formed of oblong pieces of wood, arranged in a great variety of forms by the 
master, according to the method observed in the Swiss and German schools. 
These were drawn in common and in isometrical perspective, the laws of per- 
spective being at the same time carefully explained, and the rules applied in 
each case to the object which the pupil drew. A very little practice made^us 
aware that a method comprising a more minute analysis of form was necessary 
to the greatest amount of success. Some inquiries which were pursued in Paris 
put us in possession of the method invented by M. Dupuis ; and a series 
of his models were purchased and brought over at the close of the autumn, 
for the purpose of making a careful trial of this method. Considerable difficulty 
was experienced in procuring the services of an artist to superintend the instruc- 
tion ; but at length the application of this method has been commenced, and is 
in progress. 

The experience of the French inspectors of schools (at an early period after 
the establishment of the system of inspection) convinced them that, to the per- 
fection of skill in drawing form, the practice of drawing from models is necessary. 
The best copyists frequently, or rather generally, were found to fail in drawing 
even very simple natural o^ects on their first trials. In the drawing schools at 



P42 BATTERSEA TRAINING SCHOOL. 

Paris, in •which the most elaborate engravings were admirably copied, an in- 
spector would discover that the pupils were unable to draw correctly the pro- 
fessor's desk and chair. It became, therefore, evident that the copy could not 
stand in the place of the natural object. Copying works of art might be essential 
to one department of .skill and taste, but it by no means necessarily gave skUl 
in drawing from nature. 

M. Dupuis was an inspector, and, observing this defect, he invented a series of 
models, a.^^cending from a simple line of wire through various combinations to 
complex figures. These models are iixed on an in.strument, on the level of the 
eye, and may, by the movement of the instrument, be placed in a varying 
perspective. By this means the pupil may learn to draw the simplest objects, 
and proceed by gradual steps through a series of combinations, of an almost in- 
sensibly increasing difficulty, until he can draw faithfully any object, however 
complex. The instrument which holds the object enables the teacher, by varying 
its position, to give at each lesson a series of demonstrations in perspective, ap- 
plying the rules to objects of a gradually increasing complexity, until they are 
understood in their relations to the most difficult combinations. Thus practical 
skill and theoretical knowledge are in harmony in this instruction. The taste 
may afterward be cultivated by drawing those works of art best adapted to 
create a just sense of the beautiful in form and color. 

That which a workman tirst requires is mechanical skill in the art of drawing. 
Nature itself otters many opportunities to cultivate the taste insensibly; and 
skill can be acquiied only by careful and prolonged practice in the art of drawmg 
from nature. In the more advanced parts of the course, we shall be able to 
satisfy ourselves as to the best mode of using the skill acquired for the formation 
of the taste. 

In tlie normal schools at Versailles one year's instruetion had sufficed to give 
the pupils a wonderful facility and skill in drawing from models. Some com- 
plicated pneumatic apparatus, consisting of glass, mahogany, brass, and in diffi- 
cult perspective, was drawn rapidly, and with great truth and skill. It is not, 
however, our intention to carry the instruction of our pupils in this art further 
than is necessary for the industrial instruction of their future scholars. 

Some of the reasons inducing us to attach much importance to the cultivation 
of vocal music have already been briefly indicated. We regard it as a powerful 
auxiliary in rendering the devotional services of the household, of the pari.sh 
church, and of the village school, solemn and impressive. Our experience satisfies 
us that we by no means over-estimated this advantage, though all the results are 
not yet obtained which we trust will flow from the right use of these means. 

Nor were we indifferent to the cheerfulness diffused in schools by the singing 
of those melodies which are attractive to children, nor unconscious of the moral 
power which music has when linked with sentiments which it is the object of 
education to inspire. We regard school songs as an important means of diffusing 
a. cheerful view of the duties of a laborer's life ; of diffusing joy and honest pride 
over English industry. Therefore, to neglect so powerful a moral agent in 
elementary education as vocal music, would appear to be unpardonable. We 
availed ourselves of .some arrangements which were at this time in progress, 
under the superintendence of the Committee of Council, for the introduction of 
the method* of M. Williem, which has been singularly successful in France. 

A method which has succeeded in attracting thousands of artisans in Paris 
from low cabarets and miserable gambhng-houses, to the study of a science and 
the practice of a captivating art, deserves the attention of the public. Mr. 
Hullah, in adapting the method of Wilhem to English tastes and habits, has both 
simplified and refined it. He has, moreover, adapted to it a considerable num- 
ber of old English melodies, of gi-eat richness and character, which were fast 
passing into oblivion, and which may be restored to the place they once held in 
the affections of the people, being now aUied with words expressive of the joys 
and hopes of a laborer's life, and of the true sources of its dignity and happiness. 

We have assisted in the development of this method, being convinced that it 
may tend to elevate the character of our elementary schools, and that it may 

• For a desci'iption of WUhem's method, see p. 275. 



BATTERSEA TRAINING SCHOOL. 343 

he of great use throughout the country in restoring many of our best old English 
nioloJies to their popularity, and in improving the character of our vocal music 
in village churches, through the medium of the parochial schoolmaster and 
his pupils. 

When the preparatory course was sufficiently advanced, a series of lectures on 
the construction and organization of elementary schools, and on the theory and 
art of teaching, were commenced. They have resembled those given in the 
German and Swiss schools under the generic term Paedagogik. 

They have treated of the general objects of education, and the means of at- 
taining them. The peculiar aims of elementary education ; the structure of 
school-houses in various parts of Europe ; the internal arrangement of the desks, 
forms, and school apparatus, in reference to different methods of instruction, and 
the varieties of those methods observed in different countries. The theory of the 
discipline of schools. Its practice, describing in detail the different expedients 
resorted to in different countries for the purpose of procuring order, decorum 
propriety of posture and manner, regularity and precision in movements, and in 
changes of classes and exercises, and especially the right means of securing the 
reverence and the love of the children. This last subject naturally connects the 
consideration of the mechanical and methodic expedients with tlie consideration 
of the sources of the schoolmaster's zeal, activity, and influence, ou which much 
has been said. To these subjects have succeeded lectures on the great leading 
distinctions in the methods of communicating knowledge. When the distinguish- 
ing principles had been described, the characteristic features' of the several 
methods were examined generalbj, and certain peculiar applications of each were 
treated. The application of these methods to each individual branch of instruc- 
tion was then commenced, and this part of the course has treated of various 
methods of teaching to read, especially giving a minute description of the phonic 
method. Of methods of teaching to write, giving a special account of the method 
of Mulhauser. On the njiplication of writing in various methods of instruction. 
Of methoiis of teaching to draw, giving a detailed account of that of M. Dupuis 
Of methods of teaching arithmetic, in which the method of Pestalozzi has been 
careful!)' explained, and other expedients examined. This brief sketch may in- 
dicate the character of the instruction up to the period of this report. Our 
desire is to anticipate as little as possible, but, on the contrary, to relate onlj 
what has been done. We have therefore only to add, that the instruction in 
Pcedagogik is in its preparatory stage, and that the course will be pursued, in re- 
lation both to the general theory and practice, and to the special application of 
the theory and practice to the development of the village school, and of the 
tuning school, through the whole period of instruction, as that part of the 
studies of the pupils by which the mutual relations of these studies are revealed, 
ansl their future application anticipated. 

We regard these lectures, combined with the zealous labor of the Hon. and 
Rev. Robert Eden, as the chief means by which, aided by the tutors, such a tone 
of feeling can be maintained as shall prepare the teachers to enter upon their 
important duties, actuated by motives which will be the best means of insuring 
their perseverance, and promoting their success. 

The Brothers of the Christian Doctrine, who devote their lives a cheerful 
sacrifice to the education of the poorer classes of France, can be understood best 
by those who have visited their Novitiate and schools at Paris. From such per- 
sons we expect acquiescence when we say, that their example of Christian zeal 
is worthy of the imitation of Protestants. Three of the brothers of this order 
are maintained for a sum which is barely the stipend of one teacher of a school 
of mutual instruction in Paris. Their schools are unquestionably the best at 
Paris. Their manners are .simple, affectionate, and sincere. The children are 
singularly attached to them. How could it be otherwise, when they perceive 
that these good men have no other reward on earth for their manifold labors 
than that of an approving conscience I 

The regime of the Novitiate is one of considerable austerity. They rise at 
four. They spend an hour in private devotion, which is followed by two hours 
of religious exercises in their chapel. They breakfast soon afterward, and arc 
in the day schools of Paris at uine. They dine about uoou, and coutiuue their 



844 BATTERSEA TRAINING SCHOOL. 

attention to the schools till five. They sup at six, and then many of them are 
employed in evening^ schools for the adults from seven to nine, or from eight to 
ten. wlien, after prayers, they immediately retire to rest. 

No one can taiter the schools of the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine without 
feeling instinctively that he is witnessing a remarkable example of the develop- 
ment of Cliristian cliarity. 

With such motives should the teachers of elemehtary schools, and especially 
those who are called to tlie arduous duties of training pauper children, go forth 
to their work. The path of the teacher is strewn with disappointments, if he 
commence with a mercenary spirit: it is full of encouragement, if he be inspired 
with the spirit of Christian charity. No skill can compensate adequately for the 
absence of a pervading religious influence on the character and conduct of the 
schoolmaster. * * * 

llie technical instruction in that knowledge which it will be the duty of the 
pupils to communicate in elementary schools, occupies a much greater portion of 
the time in tlie preparatory course than that which will be allotted to such 
studies in the two subsequent years. 

Every montli will ni>w bring into greater prominence instruction, theoretical 
and practical, in the art of teachinc/. The outlines only of a future course of in- 
struction in this most important element of the studies of a training school have 
been communicated. Some of tlie principles have been laid down, but the ap- 
plication of these principles to each subject of instruction, and the arrangement 
of the entire matter of technical knowledge, in accordance with the principles of 
elementary teaching, is a labor to which a large portion of the future time of the 
pupils must be devoted. 

Tliose studies which will prepare them for the performance of collateral duties 
in the village or parish have not been conmienced. 

The instruction in the management of a garden ; in pruning and grafting trees ; 
in the relative qualities of soils, manures, and the rotation of garden crops, is to 
form a part of the course of instruction, after the certificate of candidate is 
obtained. 

A course on the domestic economy of the poor will be delivered in the same 
year, which will be followed by another on the means of preserving health, 
especially with regard to the employments, habits, and wants of the working 
classes. Some general lectures on the relations of labor and capital will close 
this course. 

From the following extracts from the Report of the Founders of the In- 
stitution in 1843, it will be seen that they were induced, after three years' 
experience, to change one feature of their original plan, and, instead of tak- 
ing boys of the age of fourteen, to select their candidates for admission from 
youths who had attained the age of eighteen or twenty years. This change 
has special reference to teachers designed for large schools in commercial 
towns and manufacturing districts. They also advise a course of prepara- 
tory training, previous to their admission into a Normal School, similar to 
that pursued in Holland. 

In Holland, the elementary schoolmasters of every great town form a society, 
associated for their common benefit. Their schools are always large, varying in 
numbers from three to seven hundred, or even a thousand children, who are 
often assembled in one room. Every master is aided by a certain number of 
assistants of different ages, and by pupil-teachers. 

The course through which a youth passes from a position of distinction, as one 
of the most successful scholars, to tliat of master of a school, is obvious. He ia 
apprenticed as a pupil- teacher (an assistant equivalent, in the first stage, to the 
most superior class of our monitors in England). As pupil-teacher he assists in 
the instruction of the youngest classes during the day, witnessing and taking 
part in the general movements of the school, and in the maintenance of discipline 
and order. Ho resides with his own familj^ in the city, and before he is admitted 
apprentice, care is taken to ascertain that he belongs to a well-conducted house 



BATTERSE A TRAINING SCHOOL, 845 

hold, and that he ■will be reared b}' his parents in habits of religion and order. 
Every evening all the pupil-teacliers of the town are assembled to receive in- 
struction. The society of teachers provides from its own body a succession of 
instructors, by one of whom, on each night of the week, the pupil-teachers are 
taught sitme branch of elementary knowledge necessary to school-keeping. One 
of the most experienced masters of the town, likewise, gives them lectures on 
method, and on the art of organizing and conducting a school. 

The society of schoolmasters meets from time to time to receive from each of 
its members an account of the conduct, progress, and qualifications of each pupil- 
teacher in the town, not only in the evening class, but in the school duties of 
the day. 

On the reputation thus acquired, and preserved, depends the progress of the 
pupil-teacher in the art of school-keeping. As liis experience becomes more ma- 
ture, and his knowledge increases, he is intrusted with more important matters 
and higher classes in the school. He undergoes two successive examinations by 
the Government Inspector, being first admitted candidate and afterward assist- 
ant master, and he is then at liberty to complete his course of training by enter- 
ing the Normal School at Haarlem, from which he can obtain the highest certifi- 
cates of fitness for the duties of his profession. 

This appears to us a course of training peculiarly well adapted to the forma- 
tion of masters for the great schools of large towns, and likewise for supplying 
these great schools, during the education of the pupil-teacher, with the indispen- 
sable aid of a body of assistant masters, without which they must continue to be 
examples of an economy which can spare nothing adequate to the improvement 
of the people. 

The formation of a body of pupil-teachers in each great town, thus instructed 
by a society of schoolmasters, is an object worthy of encouragement from the 
Committee of Council, wlio might at least provide the fees and charges of ap- 
prenticeship, and grant exhibitions for the training of the most successful pupil- 
teachers in a Normal School at the close of their apprenticeship, even if the 
Government were "indisposed to encounter any of the annual charges incident to 
the plan. 

Few words are requisite to render apparent the difference between the life of 
a pupil-teacher so trained, and that of a young novice in a Normal School. The 
familiar life of the parental household, while it exercises a salutary influence on 
the habits and manners of the young candidate, is not remote from the great 
scene of exertion in which his future life is to be spent. He is unconsciously 
prepared by the daily occurrences in his father's family, and by his experience 
and instruction in the day and evening school, to form a just estimate of the cir- 
cumstances by wliich he is surrounded. He is trained from day to day in the 
management of the artful and corrupt chililreu even of the dregs of the city, and 
enableei to apply such means as the discipline and instruction of a common school 
afford, to the improvement of the moral and intellectual condition of the children 
of the common people. He becomes an agent of civilization, fitted for a peculiar 
work by habit, and prepared to imbibe during the year or year and a half he 
may spend in a Normal School those higher maxims of conduct, that more exact 
knowledge, and those more perfect methods of which it is the proper source. 
From such a period of training, he returns to his native city, or is sent to some 
other town, strong in the confidence inspired by his prolonged experience of the 
peculiar duties he has to perform, either to take a high rank as an assistant mas- 
ter, or to undertake the responsibility of conducting a town school as its cliief. 

These are the views which have led us to conclude that the admission of boys 
into a Normal School, as distinguished from a Mother School, is not a fit prepara- 
tion for the discharge of tlie duties of a schoolmaster in a large town. 

We have gradually raised the age of admission from 14 to 16, and thence to 
18 or 20 years, and we are now of opinion that few or none should be admitted 
into a Normal School under the latter age. 

Besides the reasons already stated why youths under 18 should not be ad- 
mitted into such a school, there are some arising out of the internal economy of 
a Normal School of sufficient importance to deserve enumeration. 

If youths are admitted, none who have arrived at adult age should be per 
fiiitted to eater. The youth necessarily eaters for a course of traiaiog which «z- 



g46 BATTERSEA TRAINING SCHOOL. 

tends over several years ; the adult student commonly enters for a year and a 
half or two years. The attainments of all are raeu'^er on their admission. In 
the course of a few years, therefore, the youngest pupils are necessarily at the 
head of the school in their attainments and skill, which is a source of great dis- 
couragement to an adult entering such an establishment, and a dangerims dis- 
tinction to a youth whose acquirements have suddenly raised him intellectually 
above all in his sphere of hfe. The tendencies of such a great disparity in the 
acquirements appropriate to the two classes of age are obviously injurious. We 
have experienced the consequences of this disparity as a disturbing force in the 
training schools, iind to counteract these tendencies has required a vigilance and 
provident care, wliich has increased our labors and anxieties. Few things have 
been more pleasing than the readiness with which some of the oldest students 
"who have entered the schools have taken their seats in the humblest positions, 
and passed with patient perseverance through all the elementar}' drudgery, 
though boys have held the most prominent positions in the first class, and have 
occasionally become their instructors. On the other hand, to check the conceit 
too frequently engendered by a rapid progress, when attended with such con- 
trasts, Ave have suggested to the masters, that the humble assiduity of the re- 
cently entered adult pupil ought to secure an expressive deference and attention. 

The intellectual development of the young pupils is a source of care insignifi- 
cant in comparison with that attending the formation of tJteir characters, and 
this could be accomplished with greater ease and certainty if they were the sole 
objects of solicitude. But, as members of an establishment into which adults are 
admitted in an equality or inferiority of position, the discipline is compUcated 
and the sources of error are increased. 

For these reasons, we prefer to admit into a Normal School only students of 
adult age, reared by religious parents, and concerning whose characters and 
qualifications the most satisfactory testimonials can be procured. The inquiries 
preliminary to the admission of a student should in all cases, where it may be 
practicable, extend to his previous habits and occupations, to the character of 
the household in which he has resided, and the friendships he has formed. In 
all cases those young men are to be preferred whose previous pursuits warrant 
Borne confidence in their having s^. predilection for the duties of a teacher of the 
poor. 

Our plans have therefor* tended to the introduction of young men of 18 years 
of age and upward for a training of one year and a half, which we are led to 
regard as the shortest period which it is desirable they should spend in such a 
school. 

With this explanation of a modification of one feature in their original 
plan, the Report for 1843 proceeds to discuss the main objects of a Nor- 
mal School. 

The main object of a Normal School is the formation of the character of the 
schoolmaster. This was the primary idea which guided our earliest efforts in the 
estabhshment of the Battersea Schools on a basis different from that of any pre- 
vious example in this country. We have submitted to your lordship the reasons 
which have led us to modify one of the chief features of our plan, but our con- 
victions adhere with undiminished force to the principle on which the schools 
■were originally founded They were intended to be an institution in which 
every object was subservient to the formation of the character of the schoolmas- 
ter, as an intelligent Christian man entering on the instruction of the poor, with 
religious devotion to his work. If we propose to change the means, the end we 
have in view is the same. Compelled by the foregoing considerations to tliink 
the course of training we proposed for youths does not prepare them for the 
charge of large schools in manufacturing towns, we are anxious that the system 
pursued in Holland should be adopted, as a training preparatory to the examin- 
ation of the pupil-teachers previously to their admission into a Normal School. 
Finding that the patrons of students and the friends of the establishment are 
unable, for the most part, to support a longer training for young men than one 
year and a half, we are more anidous respecting the investigation of their pro- 



BATTERSEA TRAINING SCHOOL. §47 

vious characters and connections, and more fastidious as to their intellectual 
qualifications and acquirements. 

When circumstances thus combine to prevent the residence of the students in 
the training school for a longer period than a year and a half, tlie inquiries as to 
previous character cannot be conducted with too much care, and the first month 
of training should, under anij circuni stances, he regarded as probationary. 

Under these arrangements, also, the impression produced upon the characters 
of the students during their residence is of paramount importance. 

They are commonly selected from an humble sphere. They are the sons of 
small tradesmen, of bailiffs, of servants, or of superior mechanics. Few have re- 
ceived any education, except that given in a common parochial school. They 
read and write very imperfectly ; are unable to indite a letter correctly ; and 
are seldom skillful, even in the first four rules of arithmetic. Their biblical 
knowledge is meager and inaccurate, and all their conceptions, not less on reli- 
gious than on other subjects, are vague and confused, even when they are not 
also very limited or erroneous. Their habits have seldom prepared them for the 
severely regular life of the Normal School, much less for the strenuous effort of 
attention and application requii-ed by the daily routine of instruction. Such con- 
centration of the mind would soon derange the health, if tlie course of training 
did not provide moderate daily exerci.se in the garden, at proper intervals. The 
mental torpor, which at first is an obstacle to improvement, generally passes 
away in about three months, and from that period tlie student makes rapid prog- 
ress in the studies of the school. 

These attainments, humble though they be, might prove dangerous to the 
character of the student, if his intellectual development were the chief concern 
of the masters. 

How easy it would be for him to form an overweening estimate of his knowl- 
edge and ability, nmst be apparent, when it is remembered that he will meas- 
ure his learning by the standard of that possessed by his own friends and neigh- 
bors. He will find himself suddenly raised by a brief course of training to the 
position of a teacher and example. If his mind were not tlioroughly penetrated 
by religious principle, or if a presumptuous or mercenary tone had been given to 
his character, he might go forth to bring discredit upon education, by exliibiting 
a precocious vanity, an insubordinate spirit, or a selfish ambition. He miglit be- 
come, not the gentle and pious guide of the children of the poor, but a hireling 
into whose mind had sunk the doubts of the skeptic ; in whose heart was the 
worm of .social discontent ; and who had changed the docility of ignorance and 
dullness, for tlie restless impatience of a vulgar and conceited sciolist. 

In the formation of the character of the schoolmaster, the discipline of the 
training school should be so devised as to prepare him for the modest respecta- 
bility of his lot. He is to be a Christian teacher, following Him who said, " He 
that will be my disciple, let him take up his cross." Without the spirit of self- 
denial, he is notliing. His reward must be in his work. There should be great 
simplicity in the life of sjich a man. 

Obscure and secluded schools need masters of a contented spirit, to whom the 
training of the children committed to their charge has charms sufficient to con- 
centrate their thoughts and exertions on the humble sphere in whieli they live, 
notwithstanding the privations of a life but little superior to the level of the 
surrounding peasantry. When the scene of the teacher's exertions is in a neigh- 
borhood which brings Iiim into association with the middle and upper classes of 
society, his emoluments will be greater, and he will be surrounded by tempta- 
tions which, in the absence of a suitable preparation of mind, might rob him of 
that humility and gentleness which are among the most necessary qualifications 
of the teacher of a common school. 

In the ti'ainiug school, habits should be formed consistent with the modesty of 
his future Ufe. On this account, we attach peculiar importance to the discipline 
which we have estabhshed at Battersea. Only one servant, besides a cook, has 
been kept for the domestic duties of the household. The whole household work, 
witli the exception of the scouring of the floors and cooking, is perforrneti by tlie 
students ; and they likewise not only milk anil clean the cows, feed and tend 
the pigs, but have charge of the stores, wait upon each other, and cultivate the 
gardea We cannot too emphatically state our opinion that no portion of this 



848 



BATTERSEA TRAINING SCHOOL. 



work could be omitted, without a proportionate injury to that contentment of 
spirit, without which the character of the student is liable to be overgrown with 
the errors we have described. 

The garden- work also serves other important ends. Some exercise and rec- 
reation from the scholastic labors are indispensable. Nevertheless, a large por- 
tion of the day cannot be devoted to it, and when three or four hours only can be 
spared, care should be taken that the whole of this time is occupied by moderate 
and healthful exertion in the open air. A period of recreation employed accord- 
ing to the discretion of the students would be liable to abuse. It might often 
be spent in listless sauntering, or in violent exertion. Or if a portion of the day 
were thus withdrawn from the observation of the masters of the school, it would 
prove a period in wliich associations might be formed among the students incon- 
sistent with the discipline ; and habits might spring up to counteract the influ- 
ence of the instruction and admonition of the masters. In so brief a period of 
training, it is necessary that the entire conduct of the student should be guided 
by a superior mind. 

Not only, by the daily labor of the garden, are the health and morals of the 
school influenced, but habits are formed consistent with the student's future lot. 
It is well both for his own health, and for the comfort of Ids family, that the 
schoolmaster should know how to grow his garden stuff, and should be satisfied 
with innocent recreation near his home. 

We have also adhered to the frugal diet which we at first selected for the 
school. Some little vari&ty has been introduced, but we attach great importance 
to the students being accustomed to a diet so plain and economical, and to ar- 
rangements in their dormitories so simple and devoid of luxury, that in after life 
they will not in an humble school be visited with a sense of privation, when their 
scanty fare and mean furniture are compared with the more abundant food and 
comforts of the training school. We have therefore met every rising complaint 
respecting either the quantity or quality of the food, or the humble accommo- 
dation in the dormitories, with explanations of the importance of forming, in the 
school, habits of frugality, and of the paramount duty of nurturing a patient 
spirit, to meet the future prjvations of the life of a teacher of the poor. 

Our experience also leads us to attach much importance to simplicity and pro- 
priety of dress. For the younger pupils we had, on this account, prepared a 
plain dark dress of rifle green, and a working dress of fustian cord. As respects 
the adults, we have felt the importance of checking the slightest tendency to 
peculiarity of dress, lest it should degenerate into foppery. We have endeav- 
ored to impress on the students that the dress and the manners of the master 
of a school for the poor should be decorous, but that the prudence of his life 
should likewise find expression in their simplicity. There should be no habit nor 
external sign of self-indulgence or vanity. 

On the other hand, the master is to be prepared for a life' of laborious exer- 
tion. He must, therefore, form habits of early rising, and of activity and perse- 
vering industry. In the winter, before it is light, the household work must be 
finished, and the school-rooms prepared by the students for the duties of the day. 
One hour and a half is thus occupied. After this work is accomplished, one class 
must assemble winter and summer, at a quarter to seven o'clock, for instruction. 
The day is filled with the claims of duty requiring the constant exertion of mind 
and body, until, at half past nine, the household retire to rest. 

By this laborious and frugal life, economy of management is reconciled with 
the efficiency both of the moral and intellectual training of the school, and the 
master goes forth 'into the world humble, industrious, and instructed. 

But into the student's character higher sentiments must enter, if we rightly 
conceive the mission of the master of a school for the poor. On the religious 
condition of the household, under the blesshig of God, depends the cultivation 
of that religious feeling, without which the spirit of self sacrifice cannot take its 
right place among the motives wliich ought to form the mainspring of a school- 
master's activity. 

There is a necessity for incessant vigilance in the management of a training 
school. The principal should be wise as a serpe7it, while the gentleness of his 
discipline, and his affectionate solicitude for the well-being of his pupils, should 
eucourage the most imreserved commuuicatious with him. Much of bis leisure 



BATTERSEA TRAINING SCHOOL. g ^g 

should bo devoted to private interviews with the students, and employed in in- 
stiliiii^ into their min Is hi^h principles of actium A cold !Ui I repulsive air of 
authority may preserve the appearance of order, re^'ularity, and submission in 
the liousehold ; but these will prove delusive si^us if the principal does not pos- 
sess the respect and confidence, not to say the affections, of liis char^'e. He 
eliould be must accessible, and unwearied in the patience witli which he listens 
to confessions and inquiries. Wliile it is felt to be impossible tliat lie should 
ent(!r into any compromise with evil, there should be-no sucli severity in his tone 
of rebuke as to check tliat coniidence which seeks guidance from a superior in- 
telligence. As far as its relation to the principal only is concerned, every fault 
should be restrained and corrected by a conviction of the pain and anxiety which 
it causes to an anxious friend, rather than by the fear of a too jealous authority. 
Thus conscience will gradually be roused by the example of a master, respected 
for his purity, and loved for his gentleness, and inferior sentiments will be re- 
placed by motives derived from the iiighest source. 

Where so much has to be learne 1, and where, among other studies, so much 
religious knowledge must be acquired, there is danger that religion siiouM be 
regar lei chiefly as a subject for the exercise of the intellect. A speculative re- 
ligious knowledije, without tliose habits and feelings which are the growth of 
deeply-seated religious convictions, may be a dangerous acquisition to a teacher 
of the young. How important, therefore, is it that the religious services of the 
household should become the means of cultivating a spirit of devotion, and that 
the reUgious instruction of the school should be so conlucted as not merely to 
inform the memory, but to master the convictions and t<j interest the feelings ! 
Rehgion is not merely to be taught in the school — it must be the element in 
which the stu lents live. 

This i-eligious life is to be nurtured by the example, by the public instruction 
of the principal, and by his private counsel and admonition; by the religious 
services of the household; by the personal intercourse of the students, and the 
habits of private meditation and devotion which they are led to form ; by the 
public worship of the church, and by the acts of charity aud .self-denial which 
belong to their futtu'e calling. 

How importan^ is it, that the principal should embody such ai. example of pu- 
rity and elevation of character, of gentleness of numners, and of unwearie I be- 
nevolence, as to increase the power of his teaching, by the respect and conviction 
which wait upon a ctmsistent life ! Into the religious services of the household 
he shoul 1 en leavor to in-tpire such a spirit of devotion as Avould spread itself 
through the familiar life, and hallow every season of retirement. The manage- 
ment of the village school atfords opportunities for cultivating habits of kimlness 
an I patience. The students should be instructed in the organization and con- 
duct of Sun lay-schools ; they should be trained in the preparation of the volun- 
tary teachers by previous instruction : in the visitation of the absent children; 
in the management of the clothing and sick clubs and libraries attached to such 
schools. They sh(juld be accustomcvl to the performance of those parochial du- 
ties in which the schoolmaster may lighten the burden of the clergyman. For 
this purpose, they should learn to keep the accounts of the benefit club. They 
should instruct and manage the village choir, and should learn to play the organ. 

While in attendance on the village school, it is peculiarly important that they 
should accompany the master in his vi>its to children detained at home by sick- 
ness, and should listen to the words of counsel and comfort which he may then 
administer; they should also attend him when his duty requires a visit to the 
parents of some refractory or indolent scholar, and should learn how to secure 
their aid in the correction of the faults of the child. 

Bef ire he leaves the training school, the student should have formed a distinct 
conception, from precept and practice, how his example, his instruction, an I his 
w.irks of charity and religion, ought to promote the Christian civilization of the 
community in which he labors. 

Turn we again to the contrast of such a picture. Let us suppose a school in 
which this vigilance in the formation of character is deemed superfluous; or a 
principal, the guileless simplicity of whose character is not strengthened by the 
wisdom of experience. A fair outward show of (jnler and industry, and great 
intellectual development, may, in either case, be consistent witli the latent prog- 

54 



550 BATTERSEA TRAINING SCHOOL. 

rcss of a rank corruption of manners, mining all beneath. Unless the searcliing 
intelligence of the principal is capable of discerning the dispositions of his charge, 
and anticipating their tendencies, he is unequal to the task of molding the minds 
of his pupils, by the power of a loftier character and a superior will. In that 
case, or when the principal deems such vigilance superfluous, and is content with 
the intellectual labors of his office, leaving the little republic, of which he is tlie 
head, to form its own manners, and to create its own standard of principle and 
action, the catastrophe of a deep ulcerous corruption is not likely to be long de- 
layed. 

In either case, it is easy to trace the progress of degeneracy. A .school, in 
which the formation of character is not the chief aim of the masters, must aban- 
don that all-important end to the republic of scholars. When these are selected 
from the educated and upper ranks of society, the school will derive its code of 
morals from that prevalent in such classes. When the pupils belong to a very 
humble class, their characters are liable, under such arrangements, to be com- 
pounded of the ignorance, coarseness, and vices of the lowest orders. One pu- 
pil, the victim of iow vices, or of a vulgar coarseness of thought, escaping the eye 
of an unsuspicious prhicipal, or unsought for by the vigilance which is expended 
on the intellectual progress of the school, may corrupt the private intercourse of 
the students with low buffoonery, profligate jests, and sneers at the self-denying 
zeal of the humble student; may gradually lead astray one after another of the 
pupils to clandestine habits, if not to the secret practice of vice. Under such 
circumstances, the counsels of the principal would gradually become subjects of 
ridicule. A conspiracy of direct insubordination would be formed. The influ- 
ence of the superior would barely maintain a fair external appearance of order 
and respect. 

Every master issuing from such a school would become the active agent of a 
degeneracy of manners, by which the humbler ranks of society would be infected. 

The formation of the character is, therefore, the chief aim of a training school, 
and the principal should be a man of Christian earnestness, of intelligence, of ex- 
perience, of knowledge of the world, and of the humblest simplicity and purity 
of manners. 

Next to the formation of the character of the pupil is, in our estimation, the 
general development of his intelligence. The extent of his attainments, though 
within a certain range a necessary object of his training, should be subordinate 
to that mental cultivation, which confers the powers of self-education, and gives 
the greatest strength to his reflective faculties. On this account, among others, 
we attach importance to the methods of imparting knowledge pursued in the 
Normal Scliool. While we have insured that the attainments of the students 
should be exact, by testing them with searching examinations, repeated at the 
close of every week, and reiterated lessons on all subjects in which any deficiency 
was discovered, nothing has been taught by rote. The memory lias never been 
stored, without the exercise of the rea.son. Nothing has been learned which has 
not been under.stood. This very obvious course is too frequently lost sight of 
in the humbler branches of learning — principles being hidden in rules, defining 
only their most convenient application ; or buried under a heap of facts, united 
by no intelligible link. (To form the character, to develop the intelligence, and 
to store the mind with the requisite knowledge, these were the objects of the 
Normal School, j 

In the village scliool a new scene of labor developed itself, which has been in 
progress since the period of our last report, and has now nearly reached its term. 
If we attach pre-eminent importance to the formation of character as the object 
of the Normal School, a knowledge of the method of managing an elementary 
school, and of instructing a class in each branch of elementary knowledge, is the 
peculiar object of the model-school attached to any training institution. In its 
proper province as subordinate to the instruction and training in a Normal School, 
it is difficult to exaggerate the importance to a teacher, of a thorough familiarity 
with the theory and practice of organizing and conducting common schools. With- 
out tliis, the most judicious labor in the Normal School may, so far as the future 
usefulness of the student as a schoolmaster is concerned, be literallv wasted. It 



is possible to conceive that the char icier may be formed on the purest rnociel; 
that the intelligence may have been kept in healthful activity ; and that the 
requisite general and technical instruction may have been acquired, yet without 
the aptitude to teach ; without skill acquired from precept and example ; with- 
out the habits matured in the discipline of schools; without the methods in 
which the art of teaching is reduced to technical rules, and the matter of instruc- 
tion arranged in the most convenient form for elementary scholars, the previous 
labor wants the link which unites it to its peculiar task. On the other hand, to 
select from the common drudgery of u handcraft, or from the humble, if not mean 
pursuits of a petty trade, a young man barely (if indeed at all) instructed in the 
humblest elements of reading, writuig, and arithmetic, and to conceive that a 
few months' attendance on a model-school can make him acquainted with the the- 
ory of its organization, convert him into an adept in its methods, or even rivet 
upon his stubborn memory any significant part of the technical knowledge of 
which he has immediate need, is a mistake too shameful to be permitted to sur- 
vive its universal failure. 

When we speak of the necessity of a thorough acquaintance with methods of 
organizing and teaching in comnuju schools, we mean to exalt the importance of 
previous training of the character, expansion of the intelligence, and sufficient 
technical instruction. Without tl'is previous preparation, the instruction in the 
model-school is empirical, and the luckless wight would have had greater suc- 
cess in his handcraft, than he can hope to enjoy in his school. 

For these reasons, among others, the attention of the students has especially 
of late been directed to the theory of the organization of schools, and to the ac- 
quirement of the art of teaching. 

The method of conveying instruction is peculiarly important in an elementary 
school, because the scholars receive no learning and little judicious trainitig at 
home, and are, therefore, dependent for their education on the very limited pe- 
riod of their attendance at school. On this account nothing superfluous should 
be taught, lest what is necessary be not attained. The want of a fit preparation 
ol the mind of the scholar, and the brevity of his school life, are reasons for adopt- 
ing the most certain and efficacious means of imparting knowledge, so that this 
short period may become as profitable as possible. The regularity of the child's 
attendance, the interest he takes in his learning, and his success, will be promoted 
by the adoption of means of instruction suited to the state of his faculties and 
the condition of society from which he is taken. If his progress be obstructed 
by the obscurity of his master's teaching, and by the absence of that tact which 
captivates the imagination of children, and rouses the activity of their minds, the 
scholar will become dull, listless, and untoward ; will neglect his learning and 
his school, and degenerate into an obstinate dunce. The ei^iest transition in 
acquirement is in the order of simplicity from the known to the unknown, and 
it is indispensable to skillful teaching that the matter of instruction should be 
arranged in a synthetic order, so that all the elements may have to each other 
the relation of a progressive series from the most simple to the most complex. 
This arrangement of the matter of instruction requires a previous analysis, which 
can only be successfully accomplislied by the devotion of much time. Such 
methods are only gradually brought to perfection by experience. The element- 
ary schoolmaster, however highly instructed, can seldom be expected to possess 
either the necessary leisure or the peculiar analytical talent ; and unless this work 
of arrangement be accomplished for him, he cannot hope, by the technical instruc- 
tion of the Normal School, to acquii-e sufficient skill to invent a method by ar- 
ranr^ing the matter of instruction. 

In order, therefore, that he may teach nothing superfluous ; that he may con 
vey his instruction in the most skillful manner, and in the order of simplicity, it 
is necessary that he should become acquainted with a method of commmiicating 
each branch of knowledge. 

This is the more important, because individual teaching is impossible in a 
common school. Every form of organization, from the monitorial tn the simulta- 
neous, includes more or less of collective teaching. The characteristics of skillful 
collective teaching are the simplicity and precision with which the knowledge is 
communicated, and the logical arrangement of the niatter of instruction. DLf- 



852 BATTERSEA TRAINING SCHOOL. 

fuse, desultory, or unconnected lessons are a waste of time ; they leave no perma- 
nent traces on the memory : they confuse the minds of children, instead of in- 
Btiucting iliem and strengthening their faculties. 

Certain moral consequences also flow from the adoption of' skillful methods of 
teacliiiig. Tlie relations of regard and respect which ought to exist between 
the master and his scholars are liable to disturbance, when, from his imper- 
fect skill, their progress in learning is slow, their minds remain inactive, and 
their exertions are languid and unsuccessful. A school in which the master is 
inapt, and the scholars are dull, too frequently becomes the scene of a harsher 
discipline. Inattention must be prevented — indolence quickened — impatience 
restrained — insubordination and truancy corrected; yet all these are early con- 
sequences of the want of skill in the master. To enforce attention and indus- 
try, and to secure obedience and decorum, the languid and the listless are too 
often subjected to the stimulus of coercion, when the chief requisite is method 
an 1 tact. The master supplies his own deficiencies with the rod; and what he 
cannot accomplish by skill, he endeavors to attain by the force of authority. 

Such a result is not a proper subject of wonder, when the master has received 
no systematic instruction in method. To leave the student without the aid of 
methiid, is to subject him to the toil of analysis and invention, when he has neither 
the time nor the talent to analyze and invent. 

The Report of 1843 dwells on the several methods previously noticed in 
the extracts already made from the Report of 1841, and concludes as follows : 

These several Methods^ have now been tested by experience on the most pub- 
lic theater, and have become an important part of the instruction of masters 
of elementary schools. The Manuals in which they are embodied render their 
acquisition comparatively easy even to those who do not enjoy the advantage of 
receiving lessons in the art of teaching by them from adepts. The school of 
method will place within the reach of the schoolmasters of the metropolis the 
means of acquiring the requisite skill; and the body of schoolmasters, whom the 
Normal Schools will annually disseminate, will diffuse them through the country. 
Every school conducted with complete efficiency by a master trained in a Normal 
School, will become a model to neighboring schools which have not enjoyed sim- 
ilar advantages. On this account aUine, it is important that no student from a 
Normal School should commence his labors in the country until he has acquired 
a mastery of the methods of teaching these necessary elements. 

In a course of instruction extendL'ig over a year and a half, a student ought to 
spend three hours daily, during six or eight months, in the practice of- the art of 
teaching in the village .school. When the course of instruction is necessarily lim- 
ited to one year, four months should be thus employed, and during the entire 
period of his training, instruction in method should form an element of the daily 
routine in the Normal School. 

By such means alone can a rational conception of method be attained, and that 
skill in the art of conducting a .school and instructing a class without which all 
the labors of the Normal School in imparting technical knowledge are wasted, be- 
cause the student has no power of conununicating it to others. 

In the Report of 1847, the Inspector, Mr. Moseley, makes the following 
remarks : 

There is one point of view in which we cannot but speak of the labors of this 
institution with unmingled satisfaction. It stands out honorably distinguished 
from all others as a place where the methods of elementary instruction are 
recognized as legitimate objects of research, and where teaching is studied as 
AN art. 

That shifting, dreamy state of the mind which is associated with mechanical 
pursuits, such as have usually been the previous pursuits of the students of 
training institutions, does not readily pass into a close and continuous application 
of the understanding, any more than, in respect to our bodily health, a state of 
constant physical exertion gives place quietly to a sedentary life. A laborer ia 
not easily converted into a student. It is not to be done by putting a book be- 



BATTERSEA TRAINING SCHOOL. 853 

fore him. He may sit with that book before him for months, and yet never begin 
to leant. 

Such a man requires to be roused from that mental apathy wliich lias (jrown 
upon liim by tlie disuse of his faculties, and to be taught the secret of his pow- 
ers. This is best effected by the direct contact of his own mind with that of a 
vigorous teacher, and for tliis reason oral instruction is specially adapted to the 
business of a training school. 

A system which limits itself to this expedient of instruction will probably, how- 
ever, fail of some important results. The teacher must also be a student. Un- 
less this be the case, the lessons he gives in his school will echo every day mon. 
faintly the instructions he received at the college. Each lesson should have had 
its preparation. However humble the subject, or the class of children to whom 
it is addressed, there is probably some information to be gathered from books 
which is applicable to it ; and it is in the direction of such applications that lie 
the legitimate studies of the teacher — studies not less valuable in their influence 
upon his school than upon himself. 

The labor of oral instruction is, however, so great, that to adopt it in respect 
to ever so small a number of students, supposes the union of several teachers ; 
and thus is obtained that division of the subjects taught among the teachers 
which enables each to confine his attention to a particular class of subjects, and 
thereby himself to acquire not only that greater knowledge of these subjects, but 
of the best means of teaching them, which is essential to his success. 

It is not only, however, because e.ach teacher teaches better, that a favorable 
influence is to be attributed to the labors of various teachers in an institution 
like this, but because there is an awakening and stimulating power in the rude 
aftacks made by a succession of vigorous teachers — each with a different subject, 
and an energy concentrated in it — on a sluggish understanding; and in the dif- 
ferent impressions they leave upon it. 

There are phases in every man's mind which adapt it to receive impressions 
from one teacher rather than another, as well as from one subject rather than 
from another. And thus, between one of a succession of teachers and some in- 
dividual student, there may be established sympathies which no other could 
have awakened, and there may be commenced a process of instruction in some 
individual mind, which the united labors of all the rest could not have moved. 

If any thing had been wanting to confirm in our minds the favorable opinion 
which has been earned for it among the friends of education, by the many ad- 
mirable teachers it has sent out, the experience of our examination would have 
supplied it. 

Fifty-four young men were assembled who, originally educated here, had for 
various periods of from one to seven years been in charge of elementary schools. 
An opportunity was afforded us of forming the personal acquaintance of these 
men, and each of them taught in our presence one of tiie classes of the village 
school. 

The impression we received of them from these efforts was eminently favora- 
ble. Nor was this favorable ojunion shaken by an examination of the papers 
written in answer to tlie questions we proposed to them. Although their course 
of regular instruction had in many cases long ceased, the knowledge they had 
acquired had not been lost. It was evident that their education had been of 
that kind which has a tendency to perfect itself, and that the process of instruc- 
tion commenced here in their mihds bad gone on. 



TRAINING COLLEGE 

FOR 

THE DIOCESE OF CHESTER, ENGLA]>(D, 



The following account of the Chester Diocesan Training College, 
England, is abridged from Reports by Rev. Henry Mosely, one of her 
Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, to the Committee of Council on Education 
for 1845 and 1846. The Reports will be found in the " Minutes of the 
Committee of Council on Education^'' for 1844 and 1845. 

The Chester Diocesan Training College was commenced by the Chester 
Diocesan Board of Education, in 1840. The College is situated on 
elevated ground, adjacent to the high road which leads from Chester to 
Park Gate, and is distant about one quarter of a mile from the north gate 
of the city, and a little less east, from the River Dee. It commands 
towards the west, an uninterrupted prospect of 12 or 14 miles, terminated 
by the hills of Denbighshire and Flintshire, and, from its upper -vsandows, 
an equally extensive view eastward, over Cheshire. With its garden and 
grounds, it occupies five acres of land, one of which is freehold, held by 
deed of gift from the Dean and Chapter of Chester, and four acres (being 
pasture land) on lease, renewable every 21 years, and held under the same 
corporation. The property is conveyed in trust, for the purposes of the 
Institution, to the Chester Diocesan Board of Education, the Bishops of 
Chester, and the Deans of Chester and Manchester. 

The material of the building is brickwork, with red sandstone facings. 
It has two principal fronts — the one towards the east extending on the line 
of the Park Gate-road ; and the other towards the west, being that of the 
Principal's residence, and commanding a view of the Denbighshire hills. It 
is a structure of a grave and massive yet picturesque cliaracter, and of the 
Tudor style of architecture, to which its irregular outline is well adapted. 
In the adjustment of its proportions, in its decorations suitable to the 
material, and in the selection of its architectural forms, it presents a com- 
bination of great merit and of a very appropriate character. The building 
was erected in the years 1841 and 1842, and prepared for the reception ot 
the students at an expense of about £10,752, raised by donations in the 
diocese, aided by a grant of £2500 from your Lordsliips. A model school- 
room has since been added to it, — additional accommodation provided foi 
20 students, — and your Lordships have contributed a further sum of £1200 
^towards those objects. The design of the Institution unites, with the 
training of schoolmasters, the instruction of a commercial school, — the 
pupils of which are received as boarders — and the instruction of an ele- 
mentary school. Provision is made within the walls for these several 
departments. 

The general management is vested in a Committee of the Chester 
Diocesan Board of Education, composed of 21 members. 

The following is an official statement of the objects of the Institution, 
and of the conditions upon which students are received into it : 

The object intended to be promoted by tliis Institution is to prepare, as far as a 
correctly religious, moral, and scientific training can do it, a supply of Masters, for 
the parochial-church schools in the diocese of Chester. 

The Institution is under the presidency of the Lord Bishop of the Diocese, and 
has the sanction of the very Reverend the Deans, 8nd the Reverend the Chapters 



856 CHESTER DIOCESAN TRAINING COLLEGE. 

of Chester and Manchester. The office of Principal is vested in the Reverend 
Arthur Rigg, M.A. of Christ's College, Cambridge. The Vice-Principal is also a 
graduate ot that uuiver;iity. , 

Tlie times tor the admission of students are two in the course of each year — 
viz., in January and in July. 

Aitention is directed to the following extracts from the Resolutions of the Train- 
ing College Ciinnnittee. 

Objects of the Inxtitution. — The Chester Diocesan Training College consists of 
an elementary school for the children of the poor, to be regarded as a model 
school 

A school for the education of Masters of elementary schools for the cliildren of 
the poor, to be regarded as a noimal school. 

As subsidiary to these objects, a middle sciiool for the education of the children 
from the middle classes. 

/Scheme of histr action. — " That subject to such alterations as the Training School 
Committee may from time to time sanction, the following be i\\e. general Scheme 
of Instruction m the Trauiing School : 

RELIGION. GENERAL. 

Holy Scriptures. English Grammar and Reading. 

Evidences of Christianity. Geography and History. 

Church Catechism. Wrir.nig and Arithmetic. 

Daily and Occasional Services of Liturgy Book-keeping 

XXXIX. Articles. Theory and i'ractice of Teaching 

Church History. Psalmody. 

History of the Reformation. 

Instruction may also be given, at the discretion of the Principal, with reference 
to the capacity of the pupil and the situation for wliich he is designed, in 

The Latin and Greek Languages, Linear Drawing, 

Natural Philosophy, Mapping, 

TrigOTioraetry, The French Language, 

Navigation, Elements of Geometry and Algebra, 

subject to the approval of the Training School Committee." 

Number of Pupils. Exiiibitioners — " That tlie number of pupils training a3 
masters, until the Board shall otherwise determine, be limited to titty — wlio shall 
pay £25 per annum tor their board and instruction (all payments being made 
quarterly in advance). That of these a number not exceeding half shall receive 
exliibitions of £12 lOs per annum each, to be appointed according to merit, and 
that tlie exliibition be held for a period not longer tlian three years, subject never- 
theless to forfeiture, if the individual appointed do not, in the opinion of the Com- 
mittee, by assiduity and good conduct continue to merit it." 

Caution Money. — "That each person, before his name be entered as a candidate 
for admi.-!sion, j)ay one pound ; this sum to be returned it he come into residence; 
— to be foifciled for the use of the Library Fund if he do not." 

Students to enter intoaBond.—"'Vhiit every pupil training for a master, or 
other person on his behalf be required to enter into a legal engagement, binding 
him to tlie following etfect, viz. : — 

" That in case he >liall decline, when so required by the Principal, to undertake 
the duties of a schoolmaster or assistant, wiJnn one year after he has left the* 
establislnnent, and also in case at any period not exceeding four years from his 
undertaking sucli duties, he shall decline to continue tlie same, the Diocesan Board, 
Traming College, Committee, or any one acting by their authority, sliall witli due 
regard to his liealth, services and other circumstances, have power to require of 
him the payment of any sum not exceeding twice tlie amount which shall have 
been paid to him or applied to his benefit as sucli student." 

Times of Admission. — " That pupils for training be admitted into the Establish- 
ment ludf-yearly, on certain days to be fixed by the Committee, of which due 
notice shall be given by the Principal." 

Age of Candidates. — " Tliat, except in special cases, when the examiners shall 
otherwi.se determine, no pupil be admitted before the age of fifteen, nor be recom- 
mended as a schoolmaster before the age of eighteen, having studied at least one 
year in the Institution ; and tfeat no pupil remain for a longer period than five 
years. And that no person be eligible as a pupil to the Training School, who, 



CHESTER DIOCESAN TRAWmG COLLEGE. 557 

from any bodily infirmity, is disqualified from efficiently discharging the duties of 
a schoolmaster.' 

Certijicate of Baptism. — "Tliat every pupil, on becoming a candidate for 
admission into the 'IVaiiiing School, be required to produce a certificate or sufficient 
testimonial of baptism, and a certificate from the minister of the parish in which 
he uas resided, according to the following form : 

" I, A. B., Incumbent or Curate of , do hereby certify that C. D. has 
resided in this Parish for the space of , and that I believe hira to be quali- 
fied in character and attainments to become a Candidate for admission into tha 
Training College at Chester." 

Examinations of Candidates. — "That candidates for admission be subjected to 
an examination to be conjaeted by the Principal, the Chancellor of the Diocese, 
the Canon in residence at Chester, and one of tiie elected masters of higher schools. 
That eacli cantiidate be required to read and spell correcily — to write a good plain 
hand — to be well versed in ilie first four rules of arithmetic — to possess a general 
knowledge of the Old and New Testament — and to be able to repeat accurately 
tlie Church Catechism." 

Every candidate for admission is required to answer the following ques- 
tions in writing, space being left for his answers on a printed copy of them 
which is placed before him; — 

What is your age ? * 

Have you been vaccinated ? 

Are you now and usually in a good state of ( 
health ? J 

Are you without any bodily defect ? 

Where did you receive your education ? 

What is your present situation in life — why 
leaving it — and what is the average of your J 
weekly earnings ? 

Have you been accustomed to teach either in ' 
a day or Sunday school — if so, where and for \ 
what period of time ? 

Have you any knowledge of music, singitig 
OT drawing? 



Who becomes responsible for your quarter's } m j i,- 

payment in advance? I Trade or calling, 

Address, ■ 

Date, Sign with your own / 

name and address. J 

Every candidate for admission is moreover required to sign the foUovring 
declaration : 

" I hereby declare that my object in entering the Chester Diocesan Training 
College is to qualify myself for a .schoolmaster, and that I will not take any situ- 
tion, either as a schoolmaster or otlierwise, without the consent of the Board, and 
repayment of the money expended on my preparatory Education, and that, when 
required, I will accept the office of schoolmaster under and in connexion with the 
Diocesan Board of Education." 

Fifteen exhibitions, each of £12 10s annually, have been founded by the 
Diocesan Board, and one of the same amount Ijy W. E. Gladstone, Esq., 
M.P. The whole charge upon the funds of the Institution, in respect to 
exhibition.s, amounts therefore to £187 10s. 

The National Society has founded a number of exhibitions to meet in 
part, the expenses of the residence of twenty masters, over twenty-one 
years of age, for a period not less than three and not more than eight 
months. The number of students at the period of my first inspection was 
56, of whom 14 were schoolmasters resident, temporarily, upon the exhi- 
bitions of the National Society. There average age was 27 years. The 
ages of the students of the class permanently resident in the Institution 
varied at the period of my first inspection from 17 to 37 years, their meau 
age being 25 years. 

The previous occupations of 21 of the regular students, being one-half 



858 CHESTER DIOCESAN TRAINING COLLEGE. 

of the whole number, had been of a mechanical character, connected for the 
most part with the manufacturers of the district ; they had, in point of fact, 
been, under one form or another, workmen. Of the remainder, 8 had 
been employed in schools, and the rest had for the most part been ware- 
housemen or clerks. 

I have been thus particular in recording the previous occupations of 
these young men, from an impression that, in estimating the probable re- 
sources of such an institution, and the results attainable from it, it is de- 
sirable to know who are likely to frequent it. 

I find that 8 are supported in the Institution at their own charge, 18 at 
the cost of their parents or other relations, and 9 by private patrons — 
chiefly benevolent clergymen. Of these. 14 are aided by exhibitions of the 
Diocesan Board. The previous instruction of the greater number was 
commenced in National Schools. Their school-days, however, had termi- 
nated at a very early period of life, and what they knew had chiefly been 
acquired during the intervals of daily labor. Attainments, however 
meagre, made under such circumstances, are evidences of a superior 
character — they are the fruits of self-dedication and self-sacrifice for the 
attainment of an important and a laudable object, and they bear testimony 
to a thirst for knowledge already created, and a habit of self-instruction 
already formed. 

These are qualifications of no mean value for the career on which they 
enter at tire Training College. On the other hand, it is to be borne in 
mind that there is nothing in mechanical occupations, however favorable 
in some cases to reflection, to exercise a prompt and facile intelligence, or 
cultivate a verbal memory and an opulent diction. With few exceptions 
they had been accustomed to teach in Sunday-schools, and the extensive 
Scriptural knowledge of which my examination supplied me with the 
evidence, was probably acquired in this occupation. Where their secular 
knowledge on admission extended beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic, 
it included in seven or eight cases, a little Latin, and in five, the first 
principles of algebra and geometry. The dialect and pronounciation of 
many of them I found to be strongly provincial, and the articulation in 
reading imperfect. 

Their arithmetical knowledge on their admission, often includes all the 
rules usually taught in books on arithmetic; but it is a knowledge limited 
to the application of the rule mechanically, with a greater or less amount 
of accuracy and facility ; and does not include any intelligence of tho 
principles of calculation on which it is founded, much less of the best 
means of bringing the minds of children to the intelligence of them. 

The students rise at 5 o'clock in the summer and at a i before 7, in the 
winter.* They make their own beds ; and in summer devote the interval 
between i past 5 and 7, to Scriptural instruction, and to the preparation of 
lessons for the next succeeding day. Prayers are read at 7 o'clock, and at 
a i past 7 they breakfast. The interval from a i before 8 to a i past 8 is 
devoted to industrial occupations, carried on for the most part in the open 
air, or (the weather being unfavorable) to psalmody. At i past 8 their 
morning studies commence, and are continued to i past 11. The interval 
between i past 1 1 and f after 1 2 they again devote to industrial pursuits, 
the weather permitting. They dine at 1 o'clock, and resume their studies 
at 2. The interval from 5 to + past 7 is allowed them for private reading 
and exercise, and it is in this interval that they take their evening meal. 
Their evening studies begin at i past 7, and are continued until a i past 8. 

•Any number, not less than four, -who come down to pursue their studies at an earlier hour 
than this in the winter are allowed to light the gas in the class rooms. 



CHESTER DIOCESAN TRAINING COLLEGE. 359 

At 1^ past 8 evening prayers are read, the service being choral and accom- 
panied by the organ, and at 9 they retire to rest. In the dormitories the 
gas-lights burn for three-quarters of an hour after they have retired to rest, 
a period which they have the opportunity of devoting to religious reading 
and to their devotions. 

The following is a list of the officers of the Institution : 

Rev. Arthur Rigg, M.A., Christ College, Cambridge, Principal. 

Rev. Richard Wall, B.A., St. John's College, Cambridge, Vice- 
Principal. 

Mr. Henry Beaumont, Master inthe Commercial School. 
*Mr. Richard Griffies, Master in the Commercial School. 
*Mr; Lawrence W. Riley, Master of the Model School. 

The teachers of the commercial school occasionally assist in the instruc- 
tion of the students of the training school. No other masters are employed 
than those above enumerated, all of whom are resident within the walls of 
the Jnstitution. 

The Principal is assisted in the general supervision of the Institution, by 
one of the students called the scholar, selected from among the exhibition- 
ers, and changed every week according to a cycle fixed at the commence- 
ment of each half year. His duties are as follows : — 

Duties of the Scholar. 

1. To inspect the bed-rooms and be responsible for their order. To open all windowi 
upstairs. 

2. To go to the post-ofRce at 9 o'clock A.M. and leave the order-book in the usual place. 

3. To ring the bell at all the doors at the appointed hours. 

4. To have a general care over all the in-door property of the building. 

5. To keep the library in order, and to be responsible for class-books, and to prepare the books 
for each lesson. 

6. To receive all letters for post at i to 8 P.M. 

7. To receive all articles for the tailor and shoemaker before 5 o'clock P.M. on Thursday. 

8. To take the board containing the scheme of work into the study on Thursday evening. 

9. To put up the calender for the week on the Saturday previous ; also to put up a copy of 
the psalm-tune for Sunday on the Monday evening previous. 

10. For neglect or breach of these rules the scholar may be punished at the discretion of the 
Principal. 

Another student, selected according to a weekly cycle from among those 
who will leave the Institution at the following vacation, is appointed under 
the designation of an "orderly." specially to assist the Principal in matters 
connected with the discipline of the Institution and the industrial occupa- 
tions of the students. His duties are as follows : 

Duties of Orderly. 

1. Not to allow any student to talk or make a noise before prayers (morning) and at meals. 

2. To see that shoes are on at least 5 minutes before prayers, Thursday and Sunday excepted. 

3. To order and arrange for prayers. 

4. To bolt the yard-doors when the bell has rung for each meal. 

5. To have the control, direction, &c., of the manner in which work is to be done ; the employ- 
ment of any who are idle ; and the general care, &c., of tools, &c., and all the out-door property 
of the building. 

6. To see that the students are seated 10 minutes after the bell has rung in the morning and 
2 in the afternoon. 

7. To attend to order in classes at lessons both as regards persons and places. 

8. The orderly to provide a towel every Saturday night for the use of the students in the 
yard. 

9. For neglect or breach of these rules the orderly m^ay be punished at the discretion of the 
Principal. 

The period devoted every week to each subject of instruction will be 
found specified in the following table : 



* These were recently students in the Institntiai. 



860 CHESTER DIOCESAN TRAINING COLLEGE. 

Time devoted in the course of the Week to each subject of Instruction. 

H. M. 
Scriptural knowledge .......... g q 

Evidences of Cliristianity ------- .-IQ 

Church History ------120 

English Grammar -----------3 30 

English History - 10 

English literature (including themes and writing from memory, &c.) - 2 40 
Educational essays, together with lectures, reading, and praxes on National 

School teaching ----.-.-.--ioq 

Arithmetic ............. 5 iq 

Algebra -------------XO 

Euclid -- 10 

Mensuration ------ ------lo 

Natural and Experimental Philosophy -------0 40 

Lecture (subject not prescribed) ...-...-iq 

Writing 140 

Geography ..-..-.--..-20 
Vocal Music --..-----.-.30 
Linear Drawing --.. --.-..20 
Preparation for lessons . -...----. 4 30 
Leisure 15 

During the last six months of the residence of each student, he practices 
the art of teaching in tlie luodel-school ; a week at a time being set apart 
for tliat occupation, according to a cycle prepared by the Principal, which 
brings back the teaching week of each, with an interval of about three 
weeks during the first quarter, and oftener if necessary during the last. 

The Institution provides all the books used by the students, whose price 
exceeds 3s, and the students contribute each 2s quarterly towards the 
purchase of them. 

On one of the days of my inspection, in the month of May, I found the 
students thus employed : — 

7 were engaged in carpentry. 

5 " cabinet-making. 

2 " brass-working and soldering. 

*8 " book-binding 

2 " painting. 

2 " graining. 

2 " turning in wood. 

2 " " in metal. 

1 " stone-cutting. 
4 " lithographing. 

2 " filing and chipping. 
2 " practical chemistry. 

2 " varnishing and map-mounting. 

2 " lithographioal drawing. 

15 " gardening, excavating, and transporting earth. 

All the rough ground about the building has been levelled and brought 
into cultivation by them ; the principal class-rooms painted in imitation of 
oak and excellently grained ; they have made several articles of furniture 
and various school apparatus ; and many of tlte books in the school have 
been bound by them. 

It is not, however, with reference to the pecuniary value of the labors 
of the students that the Principal attaclies importance to them, but with a 
view to their healthful character and their moral influence. They pursue 
their studies with the more energy, habits of indolence not having been 
allowed to grow upon them in their hours of relaxation, and their bodies 
being invigorated by moderate exercise ; and, inactivity being banished 
from the Institution, a thousand evils engendered of it are held in abeyance. 
AYhen first admitted, they do not understand why bodily labor is required 
of them, and are desirous to devote all their time to reading; they soon, 
however, acquiesce, and take a pleasure in it. 

By employing each student as far as possible in the pursuit to which he 

* All the students learn book-binding. 



CHESTER DIOCESAN TRAINING COLLEGE. 861 

has been accustomed, his active co-operation is assured, because it is easy 
to him, and there is a pleasure associated with tlie exercise df his skill in 
it ; and he becomes, moreover, in respect to tliis pursuit, an instructor to 
otliers — in this way, not less than by the marketable value of the results 
of his labor, contributing to the welfare of the Institution. 

The industrial occupations of the students receive the constant and 
active supervision of the Principal. He takes a lively interest in the 
labors of each — points out the scientific bearings of the craft he is exer- 
cising, sometimes suggests to him an improved manipulation of it, and 
combines and directs the whole to proper objects and to useful results. 
At the time of my second visit he had thus concentrated all the mechanical 
power of the Institution on the labors of the chapel. 

.J. Nothing could be more lively and interesting than the scene presented 
By the grounds and workshops during the intervals of study. In one place 
the foundations of the structure were being dug out ; in another the stone 
was quarried. In the workshops I found carpenters, turners, carvers in 
oak, and blacksmiths, plying their several trades ; and, in a shed, a group 
of stone-cutters carving with great success, the arch-mouldings, mullions, 
and lights of a decorated window, under the direction of one of their 
number, to whom they were indebted for their knowledge of the art. A 
lively co-operation and a cheerful activity were everywhere apparent, and 
an object was obviously in the view of all, which ennobled their toil. 

The expense of medical attendance is provided for, by the students them- 
selves, who have a sick-club, to which each contributes 2s 6d every half- 
year. This payment is found sufficient, very little sickness having pre- 
vailed. 

The students wear a collegiate dress, consisting of a cap and gown like 
those worn in the Universities. It is the object of this regulation to pre- 
serve a uniformity of appearance amongst them whilst they are within 
the bounds of the Institution, and to distinguish them when without. 

The administration of the entire household department is intrusted to 
the steward, who provides the food and washing of the students, the board 
and wages of domestic servants, the house-linen, knives and forks, earthen- 
ware, kitchen utensils, &c., at a fixed charge in respect to each student, de- 
pendent for its amount on the number in residence. The Principal does 
not otherwise interfere with his department than in the exercise of an 
active and a constant supervision over it. 

A dietary has been prescribed, but it has been found wholly unnecessary 
to enforce it. An entire separation between the rooms occupied by the 
students and the household department has been carefully provided for in 
the construction of the building, and is strictly and effectually enforced. 

The Principal is charged with the administration of the discipline. It 
is enforced by impositions consequent on a breach of the rules.* The 
power of suspension rests with the Principal; of expulsion with the Com- 
mittee of Management. 

A permanent record of all punishments is kept in a book provided for 
that purpose by the Scholar. 

The students who have left the Institution are accustomed to corres- 
pond with the Principal, and are invited at Christmas to dine with him. 
He is desirous, if it were practicable, to pay an annual visit to them. 
Inquiries are moreover made officially by the honorary secretary, from 
time to time, as to the way in which their duties are discharged, and the 
welfare of their schools. 



* The following may be taken as an example of these impositions. Five lines are required to 
be written out for every miraite that a student is late in the morning. No imposition had been 
enforced, exeept fbr this offence, between Cluistaiaa, 1843, a,nd the period of my iiispoction iu 
May, 1844. 



862 



CHESTER DIOCESAN TitAINING COLLEGE. 



Commercial and Agricultural School. 
The system of education in the commercial and agricultural school com 
prises the following subjects : — 



English Composition. 

Writing and Arithmetic. 

Book-keeping. 

Mensuration. 

Surveying and Engineering. 

Ancient and Modern History. 



Geography, Drawing and Music. 
The Elements of Natural Philosophy. 
Chemistry as applied to Agriculture, Horticnl- 

ture, and the Arts. 
Latin and Greek. 
French and German. 



The terms, including board, lodging, and education, are, — for pupils 
above 12 years of age, £35 per annum; for pupils under 12 years of age, 
£30 per annum. There are no extra charges. An entrance fee of £1 is 
required, and appropriated to the library and museum. 

Pupils are admitted to the commercial school between the ages of 8 
and 15 years. -^ 

The utmost attention is paid to their health and comfort, the domestic 
arrangements being under the superintendence of an experienced matron. 
Each has a separate room and bed. There are two vacations in the year; 
that in the sununer for five weeks, that in the winter for four weeks. 

3Iodel School. 

The appointment of Master of the model-school, is filled up from among 
the best qualified of the students of the College. He resides within the 
walls of the Institution, but is not charged with any other duties than those 
connected with his scliool. He is assisted in the instruction of the children 
by the students who are in the last six months of their residence (according 
to a scheme adverted to in a preceding part of this Report), and by 
monitors. 

The children come, for the most part, from the neighboring city, their 
parents being commonly laborers of a superior class, or small shopkeepers. 
Having been present on one of the days of admission, which come round 
monthly, I can bear testimony to the earnest desire shown by the parents 
to secure for their children the superior instruction offered by the school. 
There were, at that time, between 20 and 30 applicants more than could 
be admitted, and the names of many of these had already been for some 
months on the list of candidates. 

The following are the rules of the school. The scale of payment will be 
remarked as a novel feature in them. It has been framed in the hope of 
keeping the children longer at school, by offering the premium of a reduc- 
tion of the fee dependent upon the child's standing, and has been found to 
work well. 

Rules of Model National School in the Training College^ Chester. 

If these Rules are not obeyed, the Master cannot allow Children to remain at the School. 

1 . Boys who are above seven years of age and of good health may be 
brought to the school. 

2. Each boy must be zn the school at nine o'clock in the morning, and 
at two o'clock in the afternoon, unless otherwise ordered by the Master. 

3. The children themselves, and their clothes, must be quite clean, their 
hair cut short, and in every way they must be as neat as the parents or 
friends can make them. 

4. The 20 boys who have been longest in the school are free. 
The next 20 boys who have been longest in the 

school must each pay - - - Id per week. 

The third 20 boys who have been longest in the 

school must each pay - - - 2d " 

And the rest of the children - - - 3d " 



CHESTER DIOCESAN TRAINING COLLEGE. 



863 



5. On each Monday morning the pence for that week are to be brought, 
whether the child be at school or not. 

6. Books, slates, paper, pens, ink, and pencils, &c., are found for the 
children without cost to the parents. 

7. Any injury which may be done to books, &c., by a child, must be made 
good by his parents or friends. 

8. If a boy be wanted at home, the master's leave must be asked before- 
hand by a parent or grown-up friend. 

9. When children are late, or absent without the master's leave, a note 
will be sent requiring a parent or grown-up friend to come to the school to 
tell why the child was late or absent ; and if it should ever be the case 
that, at dilfereut times during one half-year, three such notes have been 
sent about the same boy, he will on the next like offence be subject to 
degradation on the payment list, or dismissal from the school. 

10. Care will be taken that children are not ill-treated while in school. 
Should there be any just ground of complaint, the parent must speak to 
the Principal of the College, without going to the school-room. 

11. Since more is required than the labors of a schoolmaster in school, 
in order " that children may be virtuously brought up to lead a godly and 
a Christian life," the parents or friends are desired, as they love the 
welfare of their children, to promote their education in every possible 
manner, — confirming at home, both by precept and example, those lessons 
of piety and morality, order and industry, the teaching of which are main 
objects of this Institution. 

In bringing under your Lordship's notice the conclusions to which I 
have been led by my inspection of this Institution, I cannot disguise from 
myself that, placed as it is in the immediate neighborhood of the vast 
population of Manchester and Liverpool, and destined to provide for the 
educational wants of a diocese, including within its limits the greatest 
manufacturing districts of the kingdom — districts than which no others are 
more remarkable for a dearth of elementary education,* and for the evils 
engendered of popular ignorance — it yields to no other similar institution 
in interest or importance. Neither does it yield to any other in the ad- 



* The foUowing is an abstract of the statistical returns made by the deaneries of the diocese of 
Chester to the Diocesan Board of Education and published in its Report for 1842 : — 











Proportion 


Proportion 






Number of 




per Cent, to 


per Cent, to 






Children for 


Number of 


the Population 


the Popula- 


BOARD. 


Population. 


whom accom- 


Children in 


of those for 


tion of those 






modation is 


Attendance. 


■whom accom- 


in Daily 






provided. 




modation is 
provided. 


Attendance. 


Chester - 


90,341 


15.178 


4.3UIJ 


16* 


i^ 


Nantwich 


.34,237 


4.559 


\..\-M 


13i 


3i 


Macclesfield 


134,70-2 


15,987 


3.350 


9i 


n 


Middlewich 


44,962 


6,844 


1..5.56 


15 


3i 


Frodsham 


73,tf.'59 


9,597 


2.957 


12J 


4 


Manchester 


i5.'50.17s 


51.311 


10 043 


9i 


U 


Bolton 


149,10-^ 


15.-47 


2.695 


lOf 


If 


Liverpool 


266.13.5 


■i\Mi< 


10.22S 


8i 


^t 


Wigau 


141,85s 


]-^.-224 


4.147 


12J 


2} 


Preston 


72.668 


15..517 


3.813 


21 i 


5i 


Lancaster 


34,033 


6,657 


1,.5S1 


19J 


4| 


Blackburn 


156,793 


25,125 


4.140 


m 


21 


Chorley - 


56.815 


8,345 


1,759 


14i 


3 


Ulverston 


2.5,760 


5,207 


1,621 


20J 


6* 


Whitehaven 


18,808 


6,890 


1,718 


361 


9* 


Kendal - 


33,833 


7,149 
236,475 


1,581 


2U 


4} 


Whole Diocese. 


1,884,082 


56,609 


12i 


3 



g04 CHESTER DIOCESAN TRAINING COLLEGE. 

vantages of its situation, the imposing character and the magnitude of its 
structure, and the scale of its operaiions. It is the only building which 
has yet been erected expressly for the purposes of a training college, and in 
the adaptation of its plan internally for the uses of such a structure, not 
less than in the appropriate character of its external architecture, it may 
serve as a model for every other. 

The direct influence of the College on the education of the district, is 
that -which it exercises through the schoolmasters whom it sends out. 
What this influence is likely to become, may be judged of from the fact 
that, of the 37 masters who had been so sent out up to February 1844, it 
has been ascertained in respect to 30, that the number of children in 
attendance upon their schools had increased in 13 months from 1428 to 
2469 : so that if every schoolmaster in the diocese could be replaced by 
one from this college, the number of children under instruction in it, would 
according to this rate of increase, double itself inlitlle more than a year. 
The Bishop of Chester, who takes a deep interest in the success of the 
College, and extends to it a paternal care, thus speaks of it in his charge 
to the clergy of the diocese, at the triennial visitation of 1844 : 

" It may be objected, that education is no new thing : that National 
schools have existed for a whole generation ; and that we have no right 
to look for a result in future which has not been produced already. 

" We have learnt, however, from past experience, that .schools may exist, 
■with very little of real education: very little of that culture which brings 
the mind into a new state, and prepares it for impressions of good which 
may be strong enough to resist temptation, and maintain a course of 
righteousness, sobriety, and godliness. That our schools have been useful 
as far as they have hitherto proceeded, it would be unreasonable to doubt ; 
that they are capable of becoming far more useful, it is impossible to deny. 
I believe that we have taken the right step, in applying ourselves to tlie 
education of masters as preparatory to the education of children. And I 
look to the Training College, now happily established at Chester, and able 
to send forth its 30 masters annually, to supply the schools now building, 
and demanded by our increasing population, as one of the bright stars in 
our present prospect : one of the premises on which I found my hopeful 
calculations, for the people themselves readily appreciate the nature of the 
education offered them. After all, their indifference to education has hither- 
to been the chief cause of their want of education. Many of our national 
schools have languished for lack of scholars, in the midst of an illiterate 
population. When once it is perceived that schools are really telling upon 
the habits of the scholars— that the children through the effect of moral 
discipline are becoming orderly, obedient, and intelligent — the school fills 
as naturally as water rises in the channel when the spring receives a fresh 
supply. The 30 ma.sters who first left our Training College found in their 
respective schools an aggregate of 1400 scholars. By the close of the first 
year the 1400 had swelled to 2400." 

It is not only by means of the schoolma-sters educated within its walla 
that the Training' College exercises an influence on the surrounding dia- 
trict, but indirectly also, by the interest which it adds to the subject of 
education among the clergy of the diocese — by the educational topics which 
come through its means under their discussion — and the new methods of 
instruction which it brings to their knowledge. The imposing character of 
its structure, ahso — the commanding scale of its operations, and the sanc- 
tion which the Bishop of the diocese lends to it, are not probably without 
their influence upon the springs of public opinion, or their practical bear* 
ing upon the interests of elementary education ; tending as they do to raise 
the character of the educator iu the estimation not less of the lower than 



CHESTER DIOCESAN TRAINING COLLEGE. 865 

of the upper classes of society, and to awaken the public sympathies in his 
behalf. 

Nothing is more remarkable than the order and decorum which pervades 
the College, not less daring the hours of relaxation than those of study. 
A duty appears to be prescribed for every moment, and every moment to 
find its active and useful employment. 

Entire silence prevails throughout the building during the hours of study ; 
the industrial pursuits of the students are characterized by the most per- 
fect decorum ; a routine is prescribed which regulates the order in which 
they assemble at prayers, and retire noiselessly to rest. All bespeaks a 
system rigidly enforced, and a high state of discipline. 

In a preceding part of this Report, 1 have spoken of the class of society 
from which the students are for the most part taken, and the circumstances 
under which they are supported in the Institution. From the laborious 
character of an elementary schoolmaster's life and its privations, it is im- 
probable that many persons would seek it, whose friends were in a position 
to pay for them an annual premium of £25, unless for some reason or 
other, they be disqualified for pursuing with success other avocations in 
life. 

In so far as the self-supporting character which is sought for this Insti 
tution, and lor others of the same class, is realized by the contributions of 
the relatives of the students themselves ; its tendency is, therefore, to lowei 
the general standard of ability and qualification for the office of school- 
master; afibrding facilities for introducing to that office persons unsuited to 
the discharge of its duties. For it is to be borne in mind, that precisely 
those qualities of mental and bodily activity, judgment, enterprise, and per 
severance, which lead to advancement in every other pursuit in life, are 
necessary to the elementary schoolmaster, and that the man is disqualified 
for that office wlio is unfit for any other. 

In recording my impression of the actual attainments of the students at 
the period of inspection. I must in the first place bear testimony to a re- 
markable disparity apparent not less in their acquired knowledge, than in 
their natural abilities and adaptation of character and manners to the office 
they seek — a disparity which dates from the period of their admission. I 
have found amongst them men of powerful understanding and (speaking 
relatively) of cultivated minds : and others whose limited attainments, 
made under circumstances of extraordinary difficulty and discouragement, 
have borne testimony to much natural intelligence, a persevering charactcfj 
and formed habits of study.* There are, however, others who appear 
scarcely to possess the ability or the industry requisite to supply — as to the 
commonest elements of knowledge — the deficiencies of a neglected educa- 
tion. It is too much to expect of the Institution, that, in the short period 
of their residence, itf should give to the latter class that aptj intelligence, 



* I find the following recorded among my notes of a private interview with one of the students 
of the College. I insert it here in illustration of the above remark : — 

" was a cotton »pinner ; is an intelligent person ; possesses great Scriptural know- 
ledge, much general information in literature, and some acquaintance with algebra and geometry. 
Taught himself these things while spinning ; having a book fixed up and reading in the interval 
of the return of the jenny. Afterwards he availed himself of the mutual instruction classes 
established at tlie place of his residence by the clergymen. He came to the Institution at his own 
expense for tiie first three quarters — his maintenance for three other quarters was provided by 
subscription." Exhibitions covering the whole e.xpenses of residence in the College, and thrown, 
in some degree, open to competition, would probably secure for the interests of education many 
men of a similar character. 

"t The meantime of the residence of a student appears to be about one year and a half. 

t In no respect are the deficiencies of these young men more apparent on their first entrance to 
the Institution than in the lack of a ready intelligence of those common elements of knowledge 
which are placed before them in their simplest forms. They seem to have little or no power of 
closely applying their thouguts, or of fixed attention ; and it is long before they aie in a state to 
profit by study, or by oral instruction. Their first effort is to shake off this sluggish habit of 

65 



866 CHESTER DIOCESAN TRAINING COLLEGE. 

that power of exposition, and those resources of method and simplification 
which unite to form the accomplished educator. It is enough that it bring 
these men up to the standard of the existing masters of National schools— 
that it should raise them above it is not to be hoped. 

Whilst the addition of men of this class to the number of elementary 
schoolmasters is not the legitimate function of a training institution, and 
can contribute nothing to the .interests of that cause which it is established 
to promote, it cannot fail to disappoint the hopes of tliese persons them- 
selves. The standard of elementary education is rising so rapidly, and the 
number of efficient educators so fast increasing, that already those of infe- 
rior skill, find great difficulty in obtaining employment. 

Their knowledge of geography includes many of the simpler elements of 
that science known as physical geography, which treats of the general con- 
formation of the earth's surface in connexion with tiie climates of different 
regions, their vegetable and animal productions, and the races of men who 
inhabit them. Viewed in this light, geography is a science which may, in 
the hands of a skilful instructor, be made the vehicle of much general 
knowledge of that kind which is most likely to awaken in the minds of 
children a curiosity to know more, and cultivate a habit of self-instruction , 
and he will not fail to avail himself of it, to bring the resources of his 
lending library to the aid of his lessons, and thus to establish in the child's 
mind a link between the mechanical ability to read and a pleasure deriv- 
able from reading. 

It is a novel feature of the Institution that it includes natural history in 
its course of instruction. I look forward with great interest to the pro- 
gress of this branch of knowledge, than which none is more humanizing in 
its influence upon the mind, or more healthful in the pursuit. The scene 
of a village-schoolmaster's life appears well adapted for the study of it, 
and followed, as it were, in the constant and manifest presence of Divine 
wisdom and goodness, it is eminently of a devotional tendency. It is to the 
able and well-directed labors of the Vice-Principal that the Institution 
owes those two characteristic and distinguished features of its course of 
instruction to which I have last adverted. 

The science of mechanics is taught with much care, and particularly 
that simple form of it which treats of the work of mechanical agents. It 
has been introduced successfully into their schools by some of the students 
who have left the College. By a manufacturing population it cannot fail 
to be appreciated, admitting as it does of a useful application to their daily 
pursuits, and possessing a marketable value. It is a characteristic of ele- 
mentary education such as this, that being allied to that which is to form 
the future occupation of the life of the child, it will not be cast away with 
his school-books, but when he becomes a man will be suggested again to 
his mind by things constantly occurring under his observation. Some scat- 
tered rays of knowledge being thus made to fall on the scene of his daily 
toil, his craft will assume something of the character of a science, and he 
will rise in the scale of intelligent beings by the mechanical exercise of his 
calling. 

Like St. Mark's College, the Chester Diocesan Training College has 
grown up under the hands of its Principal. It has been framed from its 
commencement upon his views, and has received in many respects an im- 
pression from his character. This Report would be incomplete did it not 
bear testimony to his many and admirable qualifications for the office in- 

mind ; and much of tKe valuable time allotted to them in the Institution is often expended before 
that effort is successful. Thus their progress during the latter part of their career is far greater 
than at first, and they sometimes leave when the real education of their minds is but just 
beginning. 



CHESTER DIOCESAN TRAINING COLLEGE. ggiy 

trusted to him ; and I cannot but look upon it as an event of no little im- 
portance to the interests of education, that his services have been secured 
in its cause. 

The following passages are taken from the Report of Mr. Mosely, for 1845 : 

According to the census of 1841, the diocese of Chester contained, in 
that year, in the counties of Chester and Lancaster, a population of 2,062,- 
364, of which number 236,126 were males, and 234,929 females, between 
the ages of 5 and 15, or 3 and 13, — that is of an age to go to school. 

Admitting that each adult teacher is capable of instructing 60 children, 
7,850 such teachers would be required for the instruction of the children of 
these two counties. In which number— supposing none of them to be less 
than 25 years of age, and to become incapacitated for their duties at 65 — 
117 will die annually, and 105 w^ill be superannuated. So that from these 
two causes 222 vacancies will occur annually. 

Assuming that 7 per cent, of this number are private teachers, there 
Avill remain 206 vacancies to be provided for among the teachers of public 
elementary schools, i. e., 103 masters, and the same number of mistresses. 

My experience in the iitspection of training colleges leads me to the 
conclusion that the persons who seek them are not generally possessed of 
such previous instruction as would render a period of less than two years 
adequate to qualify them for the office of the elementary schoolmaster. 

The training schools for masters in this diocese alone should, therefore, 
with reference to a really efficient state of the elementary education of the 
country, give instruction constantly to 206 students. 

The present number of students in the Chester Diocesan College, is 40. 
It aflbrds accommodation for 100. The part of it otherwise unoccupied, 
giving space to a commercial school, which at present consists of 30 boys. 

The task of instructing the senior students devolves entirely upon the 
Principal and the Vice-principal ; they are, however, assisted in their 
labors in the commercial and model schools by two of the students, whose 
course of instruction has been completed. This constitutes the entire staff 
of officers. 

The fee for admission is 25^ annually; 16 exhibitions of 12^ 10s. each, 
however, reduce the fee, in respect to the like number of students, by one-half. 

Seven hours a day are devoted to study in the class-rooms, If hours to 
industrial pursuits, 2^ hours in winter, and 4 in summer, to private study 
and exercise. 

The subjects of instruction, include Religious knowledge, English litera- 
ture. Science, and the Art of teaching. Ten hours and one-third in each 
"week, are devoted to the first, 21 hours to the second, 9 hours to the third, 
and 12 hours to the fourth, The students occupy 4^ hours in the prepa-^ 
ration of lessons, and they have, every week, 15 hours' leisure. 

The rest of their time is given to industrial occupations. These constir 
tute an integral part of the course of instruction, received as systematically 
as any other, and under a greater variety of forms, and with more success 
than in any similar institution with wiiich I am acquainted. 

Nothing can be more animated and interesting than the scene which 
presents itself to the stranger who visits the institution during the hours 
when these occupations are going on. 

Every student is seen plying some useful handicraft — -either that which 
was the means of his previous livelihood, or one taken up since he has 
been in the institution — and w^herever the eye rests, some new form of 
useful instruction in the mechanical arts suggests itself to the mind.* 

* On the day of my inspection I found the students thus distributed : — There were 5 carpenters, 
2 turners in wood, 4 in iron, 2 painters, 2 blacksmiths, 3 glass-stainers, 4 lithographers, 3 carvers. 
6 bookbinders, 2 students were varnishing maps, 1 was working a circular saw, 6 were oocupied 
in excavating and transport of earth, and there was 1 gardener. 



868 CHESTER DIOCESAN TRAINING COLLEGE. 

There can te no doubt of the admirable adaptation of a system iiKe 
this to the education of masters for Industrial Schools ; and the question 
how far it may be practicable and expedient to maintain such schools is 
pressed more and more, every day, upon the attention of tlie friends of the 
laboring classes, by the encroachments which labor is making upon that 
part of a poor child's life, which has hitherto been left for its education. 
Any plan would be likely to receive the confidence of the poor, combining 
instruction in useful learning, with some employment, which, whilst it 
served, by a trifling remuneration, to diminish the sacrifice they make in 
not sending their children to work, would be an obvious preparation for the 
life of labor in reserve for them. 

It is not, perhaps, without a show of reason, that they are accustomed 
to fear, lest by too long a contmuance at school, and by the influence of 
too much book learning, their children should be led to shrink from that 
self-denial of bodily toil, and should fail of those habits of steady industry, 
which are proper to their state of life. To talk to them of the moral 
advantages of instruction, of the elevating and ennobling tendencies of 
knowledge, of the social virtues which follow in its train, and of its influ- 
ence in the formation of religious character, and. through that character, 
upon the future and eternal welfare of a responsible being, is to seek to 
impress their minds with truths of which, alas, they have no experience. 
Engaged themselves in a perpetual struggle with the physical dilficulties 
of existence — too often increased by their own improvidence — when they 
look to the future welfare of their children, they have no other thought 
present to their minds than the remuneration of their labor. And, aiLcr 
all, if we would serve them effectually, and with that view, if we would 
secure their active concurrence in our efforts, we must, in some degree, 
meet their own views as to what is best for their children, and take them 
as they are, with all their ignorance, and their prejudices about them. 
Our success will be the greatest when we do the lea.st violence to these 
prejudices ; and they do not debar us from a wide field of labor for their 
advantage. 

In giving to its students a practical knowledge of the pursuits of the 
laboring classes, this institution places them on vantage ground. It helps 
to fill up that chasm which separates the educated from the uneducated 
mind, and too often interdicts all sympathy between the school-master and 
the parents of the children intrusted to his charge. 

So long as the domestic and inner life of the classes below us in the 
social scale — the whole world of those thoughts and feelings in which their 
children are interested — remain hidden from us, our elforts for their 
welfare, devised in ignorance, will, in a great measure, fail of their object. 
He who would explore this region close at our doors, and bring back to us 
tidings of it. would have a tale to tell as strange as of an undiscovered 
country, and far more important. 

According to that tlieory of a school-master which these considerations 
would seem to suggest, his education, far from separating the link which 
unites him to the classes out of which he is taken, should strengthen it. 
His sympathies are to be with his own people. He is to take a lively 
interest in their pursuits. The scene of their daily toil is to be familiar 
to him. Those ideas associated with their craft, which include, within 
such narrow limits, the whole of their acquired knowledge — and the terms 
of their art, however technical — he is to be conversant with. Then- 
intelligence is limited to the narrow circle which contains their daily 
bread. He is to enter that circle. The love of intellectual pursuits, per- 
haps never extinguished in the mind of man, loses its vivacity side by side 
■with the pressing wants of animal life. He is to reawaken it. Out of 



CHESTER DIOCESAN TRAINING COLLEGE. S69 

the friendly relations and generous sympathies which, result from an inter- 
course such as this, he is to build up a superstructure of mutual confidence 
and good will, and to dedicate the ascendency he thus acquires over the 
parent, to the welfare of the child. He is to reawaken in the bosom of the 
laboring man those natural sympathies which seem — under the influence 
of the manufacturing system — to be fast dying away, and to impel him to 
sacrifices in behalf of his child ; to impress him with a deep sense of the 
responsibility under which he lies in the matter of its spiritual and eternal 
welfare, and to direct him as to the best means of promotiong it. It is not 
in any unreal character that he is thus to appear on his hearth, or with any 
Jesuitical project of circumventing him for the advantage of his child; but 
simply that, taken from his own order, he is not to separate the link 
which unites him to that order ; that, by both parentage and education, 
associated witli the laboring classes, he is not to divest himself of those 
important advantages for fulfilling the duties of his mission, which that 
association supplies. With this view, neither in his dress, nor in his man- 
ners, nor in his forms of speech, is he to assume a distinctive or separated 
character, otherwise than as it regards that greater moral restraint, that 
gravity of speech, and sobriety of demeanor, which it would become the 
laboring man himself to cultivate. 

This theory of a school-master is diametrically opposed to that on which 
the system of every other training college with which I am acquainted, is 
founded. The tendency of every other is elevating. This would repress 
those aspirations which are natural to the new condition of his intellectual 
being on which the student has entered, and which are usually associated 
with the office he seeks, and it would tether him fast to that state of life 
from which he started. 

Nothing can be more just than that estimate of the moral necessities of 
the laboring man, which is its basis. Above all other things, that man 
wants a friend set free from the influences under which he is himself fast 
sinking — a friend, if it were possible, not divided from him by that wide 
interval which a few conventional distinctions are sufficient to interpose — 
to advise him, if not in the matter of his own welfare, in that of his 
children. 

It is. however, a theory which in practice would not be without its perils. 
So close an appro.ximation to the class below him, would have a tendency 
to separate the school-master from the class which is above him, — that 
class in whicli all his better and higher impulses will find their chief stay 
and Support, and where alone he can, as yet, look for a cordial sympathy. 
That ascendency which education gives him over the minds of his ordinary 
associates, will tend to foster an independence of spirit inconsistent, perhaps, 
with the relation in which he must of necessity stand to the patrons and 
promoters of his school ; and above all he will be the less likely to preserve 
those intimate and friendly relations with the clergyman, which are not 
less important to the spiritual welfare of the parish school and the parish, 
than to the personal comfort, and the self-respect of the school-master. 

I have every where found a disposition on the part of the clergy to 
extend a friendly syiupathy to the labors of the school-master, and I believe 
that they very generally rejoice in the opportunity which the superior 
education of the training colleges affords to them, of stretching out to him 
the right hand of Christian fellowship. Asperity of manners, an inde- 
pendent bearing, and a rude deportment, would repel these kindly feelings. 

On the other hand, it may be questioned whether the opinion that the 
co-operation of the laboring classes in the work of the schoolmaster is to 
be gained by a closer approximation to themselves in his modes of thought 
and his way of life, is founded on correct estimate of the springs of public 



870 CHESTER. DIOCESAN TRAINING COLLEGE. 

opinion amongst them, and whether some separation and the interposition of 
a few conventional distinctions do not serve to give weight to his counsels, 
and enhance the estimate formed of the value of his labors. 

My own opinion is that a sincere and earnest interest in the welfare of 
their children, shown by a labor of industry and love, will overpower 
every other consideration in the minds of the poor, and that however great 
may be the advantage which a close association with them, and an intimate 
knowledge of their condition, give to the school-master, it will, in general, 
be dearly purchased by a conformity with their habits of life and modes of 
thought and action. It is an intercourse in which, whatever they may gain 
he will probably lose. 

That state of things in which a breach between the class of elementary 
school-masters and the clergy shall have become wide and general, cannot 
be contemplated otherwise than with unmingled apprehension. The 
ascendency which education gives to them amongst the uneducated masses 
— ministering to their characteristic independence of spirit, their profes- 
sional pride and their ambition-^niight, in such a case, prove a temptation 
and a snare too great for them to withstand, and by a slow but irresistible 
process, convert them into active emissaries of misrule. 

With reference to the industrial pursuits which have suggested these 
remarks, it appears to me worthy of consideration whether in this institu- 
tion they may not have acquired an ascendency which is not without its 
unfavorable influence on the literary pursuits of the place, and whether 
too large a sacrifice of healthful recreation is not made when, in fine 
weather, the students pass from their class-rooms into the workshops, 
instead of into the open air. 

Of the whole number of students, I find that 18 spell incorrectly, 12 
read and 8 write itnperfectfj' ; 10, upon the evidence of the exercises they 
have sent in, may be characterized as illiterate; 10 others have afforded 
in their exercises the evidence of a considerable amount of general literary 
attainment and mental culture; 20 write beautifully; 9 have acquitted 
themselves well in Scriptural knowledge, and the .same number in Church 
History and the Liturgy; 4 in their answers to the questions on the Art of 
Teaching; 20 in Arithmetic, and some of these admirably ; 5 in Natural 
Philosophy; 18 in Mechanics and Astronomy; 12 in Geography; 9 in 
English History; 45 in Aigebra. 

At my previous examinations I have been struck by the remarkable 
disparity which presents itself in this institution as to the general ability 
and acquired knowledge of the students. I have found among them some 
of vigorous intellect and of considerable attainments, and others whose 
defects of previous education and want of the natural endowments proper 
to an elementary teacher will not, I fear, be remedied by a residence 
however long continued. 

If a sufficient number of candidates presented themselves for admission, 
to allow a selection from amongst them of those who are really qualified, 
this source of embarrassment might be removed. Such a number of can- 
didates would, I doubt not, be found, if the obstacle which the fee presents 
to their admission could be overcome. At Battersea Training College the 
expedient has been adopted of lending to an eligible student that portion 
of his fee which is not covered by an exhibition ; and the number of such 
exhibitions has been augmented by subscriptions to a fund specially devoted 
to that object. 

It is, however, in my opinion, worthy of grave consideration whether 
the expenditure of the public money for educational purposes would not be 
greatly economised by the foundation of Government exhibitions in the 
training colleges. 



CHESTER DIOCESAN TRAINING COLLEGE. QVl 

The office of the school-master does not offer to a man desirous to pro- 
vide for his children, and in a position to pay an annual fee of 25/., adequate 
advantages, either in respect to the remuneration attached to it or its social 
position. If, indeed, a shopkeeper, a warehouseman, a small manufacturer, 
or a farmer well to do in the world, have one child, who, by reason of a 
feebleness of character, or of bodily health, or perhaps of intellect, may 
be considered unequal to a more active and enterprising career in life, the 
training college will perhaps be sought as an asylum for him. Straitened 
as are these institutions (especially the Diocesan Colleges) in their resour- 
ces, it is not easy to refuse a candidate who is thus prepared to pay the 
whole fee for admission. At the expiration of his course of instruction 
the qualifications of a student received under these circumstances, not- 
withstanding all the labor which may have been bestowed upon his 
instruction, will scarcely be found such as would obtain for him the public 
confidence, were it not for the guarantee which his residence in the training 
college has supplied. And so, after all, the public money will have been 
expended, and the public sympathies exhausted, not in raising the standard 
of intelligence in the existing body of school-masters, but at best in bring- 
ing up to the existing standard, men who would not otherwise have 
reached it. 

I have brought out this evil, perhaps, beyond its just proportions; but 
it has been in the hope of fixing your Lordships' attention upon it, and 
with a view to its remedy. I have reason to know that it is operating in 
the training institutions as a great evil, and, I believe, that, if they fail of 
their results and disappoint the public expectation, this will lie at the root 
of the matter. It would be quite possible, if this fee were dispensed with, 
through the agency of the Inspectors, to fill the training colleges with men 
— in their qualifications for admission — very far indeed above the general 
standard of those who are now found in them. Were the question, whether 
from such a class of persons a body of efficient educators could be formed, 
wholly problematical as to its results, having such an object in view, it 
would surely be worthy a large expenditure of the public money to bring 
it to the test of an experiment. But it is not difficult to show that a 
really eligible candidate becomes, when admitted a student in our best 
training colleges, by a process in which there are very few instances of 
failure, a school-master capable of realizing all that we hope from him. 
Considering that the faith of the public in education hangs upon the fruit 
of these colleges, not less than the success of each individual school-master 
in the sphere of action particularly assigned to him, it would be folly to 
measure the services of such a man for the public welfare by the 40Z. 
or 50/. of the public money which may have been expended in edvicating him. 

My Report to your Lordships on this institution would not convey to you 
a just impression of it, did it not bear testimony to the very arduous char- 
acter of the labors of the two gentlemen — the Principal and the Vice- 
Principal — on whom the entire management of it devolves. Besides that 
general supervision which the Principal exercises over it in all its depart- 
ments, its whole correspondence is intrusted to him, and he takes an active 
part in the teaching of the students, not only during the hours devoted to 
study, but whilst they are engaged in their industrial occupations. If to 
these, his ordinary labors, be added those with which for the last two years 
he has been charged in superintending the building operations which have 
been going on at the model school-room and the chapel, it will, I think, be 
felt that claims are made upon his services which are incompatible with 
his own health and with the best interests of the institution. 

The Model School. — The second week of my inspection I devoted to an 
examination of the model school. 



872 



CHESTER DIOCESAN TRAINING COLLEGE. 



One hundred and sixty-three hoys were present on the day of my exam- 
ination. These children, like those of every other model school which I 
have visited, appear to belong to a grade in society removed a little above 
that from which the children who usually attend National Schools are 
drawn. They attend with remarkable regularity, the average nuniher of 
absentees during a period of six months, except by reason of sickness or 
with leave, being only one daily. 

I have appended in this Report* a statement on this subject, which I 
have read with great interest. 

The school is held in high and well deserved estimation by the parents, 
and it is obvious that under the influence of that estimation, they are 
prepared to make those sacrifices of the occasional services of their chil- 
dren, lest they should lose their learning, which in other schools they will 
not make. The irregularity of the attendance of the children of National 
Schools, I find to be every where alleged as an obstacle fatal to all the 
hopes of education. Here that obstacle is removed. 

I have appended to this Report a copy of the note which is addressed to 
the parents of a child absent without leave. This note forms one part of 
the page of a book, resembling a cheque book, from which it is torn ; a 
record of the notice being preserved on the other part. The arrangement 
is exceedingly convenient in practice, and might be introduced generally 
in National Schools with advantage.! 

The discipline is admirable, it is maintained apparently with great ease, 
and affords the evidence of a subordination, influenced by moral causes, 

* MODEL SCHOOL.— ATTENDANCE. 



From January 13th to June 26th. (A. D. 1845.) 




Present. 


Sick. 


Leave. 

508 
4 


Late. 


Absent. 

197 

1 


Total. 


Total - 
Daily Average 


14,532 
126 


884 
7 


58 


16,011 
139 




From July 2Slh to November 7th. 




Total - 
Daily Average 


10.214 
139 


297 

4 


479 
6 


27 1 127 

-| ' 


11,141 
150 



From 2nd May, 1845, to 26th August, 1845 — 84 School days ; during this time there -were 151 

Notes sent — for boys being late 38, and absent 113 
Excuses for being — 

Late — Domestic arrangements bad, 20. — Errands, 10. — Idlers, 8. 

Absent — Wanted by parents, 50. — At home, no reason given, 9. — Sick, 25 — ^No shoes, 4.^ 
Truants, 3. — Domestic arrangements bad, 3. — Miscellaneous, 11. — Left, 8. 



ind >°|'<J 

rofboy )-«S (. 



t No. Chester, 

Name and 

ntunber of boy )- "S 

Last day for answer 

No. of boy sent 

When answered. 

Rsasons f^ven 



184 



No. 



Chester, 



184 



has been lat« 

or absent this morning, or this afternoon, without leave, 
from the National School in the Training College. 

> RULE. 
A parent or grown-np friend must come, or send a 
note, to the School, to tell why the boy was late or ab- 
sent, on or before next, or we shall con- 
sider that he has left the school. 

MuiTSS. 



CHESTER DIOCESAN TRAINING COLLEGE. §73 

and cheerfully yielded. So far as this is apparent in the order and regu- 
larity of the school, it is greatly promoted by the school songs which 
accompany all the clianges of the classes, and which the children sing as 
they assemble and when they leave. 

The singing is tlie more remarkable, as its character is maintained ap- 
parently with very little etfort, and the sacrifice of very little time. 

Accustomed to oral instruction on the gallery, the children exhibit great 
power of attention, much quickness of apprehension, and greater resources 
of language tlian I am accustom.ed to find in schools of this class. They 
appear to be interested in what they are taoght, to appreciate the value of 
learning, and to take a pleasure in it. That listlessness of manner and 
dreaminess so intimately associated in the mind of an inspector with the 
aspect of an elementary school, had certainly no place here on the days of 
my inspection. The children not less than their teachers, seemed to be in 
earnest in the business of the school, and the fervor and vivacity apparent 
on the one part, is at least commensurate with the zeal and ability exhibi- 
ted on the other. 

So far as this school, taught exclusively by the stvidents of the college, 
may be taken as affoi'ding direct evidence of the skill they attain in the 
art of teaching, no other than a favorable estimate can be formed of it. 
The notes in which I have recorded the impressions which I derived from 
the opportunity afforded me of being present at a lesson delivered by each 
student, do not however bear an unqualified testimony to this fact. 

Amongst them were some excellent teachers, earnest, vigorous, well 
instructed, and efficient, but there were others, wanting not only in the pe- 
culiar and professional qualifications of a teacher, but themselves very 
imperfectly educated. If I might be allowed a general criticism, it would 
be that the students whom I saw teach were not acquainted to the extent 
that might have been expected with the best methods of simplifying the 
primary elements of instruction. I doubt whether these had ever been 
made the subject of study with them. There was no evidence of any in- 
dependent power to present the knowledge they themselves possessed under 
that form in which it is best adapted to the intelligence of children, or of 
any systematic instruction directed to that object, or indeed of any due 
appreciation of its importance to the success of elementary instruction. 



NORMAL SCHOOLS 

FOR THE 

TRAINING OF FEMALE TEACHERS IN ENGLAND. 



Besides the Normal School of the Home and Colonial Infant and 
Juvenile School Society already described, which is mainly devoted to 
the training of female teachers for a class of schools for which females 
are pre-eminently fitted by nature, there was established, in 1842, at 
Whiteland, Chelsea, by the National Society, an " Institution for the 
Training of Schoolmistresses." Since its establishment 93 pupils have 
been sent out as teachers, of which number 82 were in charge of schools 
in 1848. It has already been instrumental, in the opinion of Her Majesty's 
Inspector of Schools, Rev. F. Watkins, in rearing the standard of attain- 
ments of the schoolmistresses, and elevating their social position. The 
course of instruction, as presented in his Report to the Committee of 
Council on Education for 1848, extends through two years, but does not 
embrace any peculiar features as to subjects or methods, except as to 
the industrial employment of the pupils. In the printed Regulations for 
the admission of pupils, it is said: 

" Their attention will not be coniined to the studies of the school-room. 
Whatever skill or knowledge may be of use in a poor man's family, either 
to increase the comlbrts of his fireside, to assist in bringing up his children, 
or to prepare his daughters to gain, in whatever capacity, a respectable 
livelihood, this will be diligently imparted. For this purpose they are care- 
fully instructed in the art of plain needlework, knitting, marking, darning, &c. 
To give them practice and experience in this department, they are expected to 
cut out and make up the various articles of clothing secured to the poor chil- 
dren of the schools by their clothing clubs. The pupils are also required to cut 
out and make up their own clothes, as well as to undertake all other plain nee- 
dlework which may be sent to the Institution. The teachers are practiced in 
the art of setting needlework for children, by preparing the work for the differ- 
ent classes in the school. The pupils have also been in the habit of making 
themselves useful in the laundry." 

The Inspector makes the following remarks on the previous education 
of some of the pupil teachers of the institution. 

" It must be said, that some of them are exceedingly ignorant, being unable 
to work the four simple rules of arithmetic correctly, possessing little knowl- 
edge either of the Old or New Testament, altogether unskilled in geography, 
grammar, or English history, and utterly unable to spell words of the most com- 
mon occurrence. It is hardly necessary to say, that this state of ignorance is 
not owing to any want of sufficient instruction ih the training school, but to the 
deplorable neglect of sound elementary education in the families of those who 
are raised a little above the poorest class. It is from these families that the 
majority, I am told, of the young women in training are drawn. They have 
been educated, (if it be not misusing the term,) at ' private boarding-schools.' 
A little external dressing has been given to them, but rarely any internal cul- 
ture. They have been taught some fancy needlework, and to write in a run- 
ning hand; they can read fluently, but not with expression ; they have learned 
by heart passages of Holy Scripture, a few hymns, and other pieces of poetry, 
put have seldom been directed to their meaning. On such material it is diffi- 



876 NORMAL SCHOOLS FOR FEMALE TEACHERS IN ENGLAND. 

cult for the most skillful teacher of a training school to work with any effect 
She must carefully pull down before she begin to build up any structure on 
such an unsteady foundation; she must, indeed, lay a new foundation on dif 
ferent principles, and with a careful hand. It is, therefore, hardly fair to expect 
great results from the examination of pupils in the training colleges for mis- 
tresses, until ihey shall have received a more sound elementary education, and 
a longer period of training than two years shall have been allotted to them." 

There exists also at Salisbury a similar seminary, styled the " Salis- 
bury Diocesan Institute for the Training of Schoolmistresses." The 
institution was opened in 1841, and has been since maintained by dona- 
tions and subscriptions to the amount of about £500 a year, for the pur- 
pose of providing a sufficient supply of " well-educated, right-minded, and 
thoroughly-trained young women for the schools of the diocese." Up to 
1848, only 58 had left the institution to take schools. The following ex- 
tract touches a most important point of inquiry before admitting pupils 
to a Normal School — and especially female pupils. In the Eighth Re- 
port of the Diocesan Board of Education, it is stated : 

" Since the beginning of 1846 two of the pupils died, and five have shown 
such symptoms of weak constilutiuns as to give no reasonable hope that they 
can ever undeitake the anxious and trying duties of schoolmistresses. The 
Committee are very earnest in pressing this point upon the consciences of those 
who give or sign certificates with too much facility ; and they say most truly, 
that, though it is not an uncommon opinion that the work of a schoolmistress 
may be undertaken by those whose constitution unfits them for other more ac- 
tive employments, the truth is. that the drain upon the constitution and spirits 
of a schoolmistress is very great, and none but those whose lungs are quite 
healthy, and whose constitution is in all respects good, can discharge its duties 
with any comfort, or for any length of time." 

The Inspector, in the Report of his visit to the school in 1848, observes : 

" It appears to me, that at present the domestic employments of the pupils, 
if not too much of a servile, are too little of an instructive, economical charac- 
ter. It is said, and doubtless with great truth, that occasional employment in 
even such works as scrubbing, cleaning shoes, &:c., has a beneficial tendency 
in correcting faults of vanity, indolence, &;c., and in giving a practical lesson 
of humility ; and I should be far from wishing to abolish it. Indeed, I hold 
it to be of great importance to employ the pupils in works that tend to increase 
their sympathy with the poor. But surely it is of not less importance that 
young women intended for a really liberal profession should have ample oppor- 
tunities of learning the cost of materials, the best and cheapest modes of pre- 
paring them, and the comparative expense of various modes of housekeeping; 
and so of acquiring experience which will be available to them, both in the 
management of their own affairs, and in conversing with the parents of their 
pupils, who will be glad to consult them if they find them practical guides. 
With well-arranged offices, under the superintendence of the mistress or a good 
assistant, the elder girls might profitably devote some portion of their time to 
these matters, and might connect them with their siucfies, both by composing 
essays on subjects of domestic economy, and by keeping the accounts of the 
establishment upon the most approved system." 



COURSE OF LECTURES ON EDUCATION. 877 

Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on Education ; its Principles and 
Practice, by William Knighton, Professor of the Art of Teaching in 

THE WhITELAND TRAINING ScHOOL FOR MiSTRESSES. 

I. — The Principles or Theory of Education. 
Education a science and an art — a science, inasmuch as it investigates the principles 
upon which tuition is, or ought to be, conducted ; an art in affording rules for its con- 
duct and putting them into practice ; object of education in its highest and widest sig- 
nification; tho etymology of the word referred to ; the human being a religious and 
moral, an intellectual, and a physical animal ; education therefore threefold, of the body, 
the mind, and the soul or spirit ; their relative importance ; the end of man's existence 
on earth, not his happiness or gratification, but performance of duty ; this brings with 
it the truest happiness ; our duty threefold also. (1 ) All attempts to form a moral 
being without the aid and influence of religion hitherto unsuccessful — history convinces 
us of this fact ; warranted in concluding religion and morality inseparable ; how the re- 
ligious and moral powers are to be cultivated ; the Bible the rule of faith ; how the 
Bible, and its auxiliary to the ignorant mind, the Catechism, are to be taught, a ques- 
tion for practical education. (2.) The intellectual nature of man ; necessity of its cul- 
tivation if man is to fill properly the sphere allotted to him on earth; constant necessity 
for the exercise of the intellect in the daily affairs of life ; advantages of its cultiva- 
tion — disadvantages of its neglect ; different powers of the mind all useful in different 
■ways ; attention, association of ideas, conception, abstraction, imagination, and reason 
or judgment, all to be cultivated harmoniously ; evils of allowing one faculty undivided 
sway; qualities which constitute a well-regulated mind, a habit of attention, a power 
of regulating the succession of tlioughts, mental activity, habits of reflection and asso- 
ciation, proper relation of objects of pursuit, government of the imagination, culture, 
and regulation of the judgment, proper moral feeling. (3.) The physical nature of 
man; necessity of knowing something of it; evils of neglecting its development; 
benefits of health, vigor, and bodily activity to all ; caution not to make to much of it. 

II. — The Practice of Education. 

1. The school-room — its adaptation to the purposes of education the primary consider- 
ation ; the infant school-room — its gallery, dimensions, construction, and convenient 
disposition in the room ; uses of infant gallery ; the blackboard or large slate, pictures, 
card-stands ; should books be used in the infant school ? Yes, but for the highest class 
only ; smaller boards or slates for classes. Juvenile school-room — importance ol a gal- 
lery ; utility of parallel desks for classes — those of the National Society excellent ; each 
row of seats should differ in height; general arrangement of classes to suit the room ; 
for both schools a play-ground necessary ; its importance in moral training ; " the uncov- 
ered school-room ;" how it should be used ; neatness and cleanliness of the covered 
and uncovered school-room to be attended to ; influence of this upon the children's 
character ; ventilation ; temperature. The class-room — necessity of it in a large 
school ; its arrangement and most convenient position. 

2. The Pupils^— 'E\\\s of grown-up children in infant schools ; sympathy of numbers ; 
influence of this principle in the school and in the world; examples— Bacon's " Idols 
of the Forum ;" the result of want of attention to this principle, and neglect of its cul- 
tivation in education ; advantages likely to be derived by both sexes from their ming- 
ling in schools; evils to be guarded against in schools for girls alone ; power of the 
gallery vastly increased in the mixed school; its power of condemnation, and its utility 
in inflicting severe punishment on an individual offender ; different method of treatment 
to be adopted with town and country children ; object in the town to turn the mental 
activity, the " sharpness," to proper account, and direct it to proper objects of pursuit ; 
in the country to develop the open unsuspecting character and increase the mental 
acuteness by judicious training ; difference between training and teaching. 

3. The '^VocAer.^Mental qualities and habits of thought most valuable for the 
teacher; piety, patience, perseverance, and a sympathy with children to be cultivated 
assiduously ; impartiality or freedom from injustice indispensable to form a really good 
teacher; activity of mind and body essential; immense influence exercised by the 
teacher on the pupil-teachers and scholars ; good example better than good precepts ; 
importance of attention in minute rnatters to the rules of the school ; discipline thus 
inculcated and enforced — " Let all things be done decently and in order;" attention to 
trifles necessary ; time often wasted ; danger of being puffed up with pride ; necessity 
of humility ; impossibility of those succeeding who take no interest in the work ; hap- 
piness of managing a well-kept improving school ; impression respecting the misery of 
school-keeping (juite erroneous ; dress should be cleanly, neat, and simple. 

4. Organization of the School. — Superiority of pupil-teachers to monitors ; pupil-teach- 
ers may be taught much with the highest class in simultaneous lessons ; evils produced 
by neglect of the school in order to devote too much time and labor to pupil-teachers ; 
advantages of a good classification ; evils of maintaining the same classification in all 
subjects ; those quick in acquiring a knowledge of reading often dull in arithmetic ; 
necessity therefore of all working arithmetic at the same lime, in order to admit of a 



878 COURSE OF LECTURES ON EDUCATION. 

new classification for that subject ; time-tables not to be lightly or hastily constructed 
or altered ; advantages of the classes passing successively under the teacher's own eye ; 
difficulties likely to be encountered in opening a school; practical suggestions for over- 
coming them ; rules for avoiding waste of time. 

5. Discipline. — Necessity of enforcing discipline ; which is the stronger motive to 
obedience, love or fear? conclusions to be drawn from the answer ; evil influence of 
constant change of rules ; necessity of adhering to those once established ; good efl^ect 
of early attention to rules on the subsequent character of the pupils; nature of punish- 
ment, parental, legal, and vindictive ; necessity of some punishment (not corporal) to 
enforce discipline ; its nature and object to be explained to the children in Bible les- 
sons ; when correction had recourse to, utility of referring to these lessons ; vindictive 
punishment disclaimed; the gallery the great instrument for severe punishment ; may 
be inflicted without meaning the offender, by reference to the fault in a Bilile lesson ; 
detention in school, except for late attendance, not to be resorted to ; nothing but the 
most imperative necessity can justify expulsion ; solemnity which should accompany 
it ; necessity for a thorough command of temper in the teacher; difficulties connected 
with the use of emulation as a mental stimulus ; doubts with respect to its being a 
healthy one; minor matters of discipline too frequently neglected. 

6. Method of Teaching. — Simultaneous gallery lessons most advantageously given in 
the way inculcated in the "Training System" by Mr. Stow; Bible lessons or lessons 
on the Catechism or Liturgy in the morning very advantageously given according to this 
method ; advantages of the mingling of questions and ellipses judiciously ; of " pictur- 
ing out" as a mental exercise ; secular lessons in the afternoon similarly ; rule not to 
tell the children what can be drawn from them by exercising their judgment or associ- 
ation of ideas or imagination ; their mental jjowers thus cultivated ; guessing to be 
avoided; the lessons to be made as interesting as possilile ; care to be taken not to 
sacrifice utility in the attempt to render the lesson interesting or attractive ; importance 
of a proper division of simultaneous lessons ; of systematic lessons on Holy Scripture ; 
of courses of lessons on scientific or other secular subjects : evils of want of system ; in 
division of lessons care to be taken that the narrative comes first and the application 
subsequently; reason of this; general rules for dividing Bible lessons; for secular; 
method of giving such lessons ; voice, manner, enunciation ; importance of the black- 
board, or large slate ; necessity of some slight facility in sketching in order to be able 
to illustrate the lesson. 

7. On Teaching Reading. — Synthetic method best in teaching to read ; a simple word 
presented, and its sound and appearance taught ; analysis of it subsequently ; advanta- 
ges and disadvantages of the phonic method of teaching the alphabet; no necessity to 
begin with the alphabet ; simultaneous reading of 10 or 15ata time useful, if the teacher 
reads well ; danger of carrying this too far ; importance of the teacher reading clearly, 
distinctly, and calmly ; simultaneous method excellent in eradicating the propensity to 
sing, often found in schools. 

8. On Teaching Arithmetic. — Importance of attention to first principles ; explanations 
of rules too frequently neglected ; necessity of proper classification for arithmetic ; the 
ground-work of an arithmetical education its most important part; necessity of atten- 
tion to elementary classes ; different methods of teaching numeration, and the simple 
rules ; immense practical importance of simplicity in explanation, and clearness of 
definition; mental arithmetic should he taught for its utility, not for show; the kind of 
questions likely to be practically useful ; examples. 

9. On Teaching Geography. — The nature of maps to be first explained and illustrated 
by a ground plan of a school ; great outlines of the country or continent delineated on 
the blackboard useful ; importance of giving facts with names, and thus calling in the 
association of ideas to the aid of the memory ; manners and conditions of the inhabi- 
tants of different countries too often neglected; the outlines of general history may be 
advantageously combined with geography ; a box of sand of great use in teaching geog- 
raphy in infant schools. 

10. On Teaching Grammar. — Interesting lessons may be given by a judicious teacher 
on the distinctions between the parts of speech ; examples of such ; general rules on 
the illustration of each particular part; in elementary lessons on grammar the slates 
should be constantly in the children's hands ; necessity of a very gradual progress in 
the lessons on this subject ; absurdity of supposing that it can be properly taught in a 
very short time ; utility of grammatical analysis ; composition to be taught with gram- 
mar ; varieties in methods of parsing adopted by different authors ; Latham's Grammar 
a very philosophical work; should be studied by teachers ; Broomley's abridgment of 
it, useful as a manual. 

11. On. Teaching Writing. — Writing on slates maybe taught from the very com- 
mencement of a child's school life ; useful exercise to make them attempt the forms of 
letters as infants ; strokes and such like thus rendered useless ; habits of order, neat- 
ness, cleanliness, and obedience, may be cultivated in teaching writing ; in advanced 
classes all should commence to write each individual line at the same time ; a second 
line should not be commenced till the first has been inspected ; reason of this rule ; 
writing from dictation the best method of teaching spelling ; composition, as combined 
with grammar lessons, also teaches writing and spelling. 



KNELLER HALL TRAINING SCHOOL. 

FOR 

TEACHERS OF PAUPER CHILDREN. 



The Kneller Hall Training School, located at Twickenham, twelve 
miles out of London, is under the direct control of the Committee of 
Council on Education ; and was established in 1846, for the special pur- 
pose of training teachers for workhouse and penal schools. 

According to the returns of the Poor Law Board, there were on the 
1st of January, 1851, 43,138 children, under sixteen years of age, in 
the workhouses of England and Wales, and in connection with these 
workhouses. 838 teachers were employed. 

The number of children of the same age, receiving outdoor relief at 
the same date, was 276,613, These children did not attend the work- 
house schools, and in all probability they did not attend any day school, 
but they indicat e an educational want of the most desperate kind. 

From the reports of the Prison Inspectors for 1850, it appears that out 
of 166,941 prisoners confined in the gaols of England and Wales in 
1849, 12,955, or nearly eight per cent, were under seventeen years of age. 
With the exception of the schools at Parkhurst and Redhill, (the latter 
a private institution,) little has been done for the reformatory mfluence 
of education upon this class. 

These returns show an aggregate of 332,706 children, toward whom 
the state stands more or less in loco parentis, and for whose moral, 
physical, intellectual, and industrial training, every dictate of humanity 
and wise economy demands that the state should make immediate and 
thorough provision in schools and teachers of the right kind. The gen- 
eral condition of these children as to education, as compared with the sys- 
tem now to be introduced, is set forth in the following remarks by Rev. 
H. Mosely, one of the inspectors of schools, appointed by the Commit- 
tee of Council, in a report on the Kneller Hall Training School. The 
quotations are from official documents on the condition of the poor. 

The system of education under the old poor law was that of parish 
apprenticeship. Pauper children were bound apprentices to such per- 
sons as were supposed capable of instructing them in some useful call- 
ing. In some cases this was by compulsion, the apprentices being as- 
signed to different rate-payers, who render themselves liable to fines if 
they refuse to receive them, which fines sometimes went to the rates. 
and in other cases were paid as premiums to persons who afterward 
took these apprentices. Another method of apprenticeship was by pre- 
miums paid from the rates to masters who, in consideration of such 
premiums, were contented to take pauper children as apprentices. 

The evils of this system were manifold : — 

1st. As it regarded the independent laborer, whom, by its competi- 
tion, it prevented " from getting his children out, except by making them 



880 EDUCATION OF PAUPER CHILDREN. 

parish paupers, he having no means of offering the advantages given by 
the parish," and in whom it discouraged that which in a parent is the 
strongest motive to seU-denial, Ibrelhought, and industry — a desire to 
provide ibr his children. 

2diy. As it regards those to whom the children were apprenticed ; 
who, when they took them on compulsion, took them at an inconven- 
ience and a disadvantage — to whom these parish apprentices " were 
much worse servants and less under control than others," — who often 
found them '• hostile both in conduct and disposition, ready listeners, 
retailers of falsehood and scandal of the lamily affairs, ready agents of 
mischief of the parents and other persons ill disposed to their employ- 
ers," — who " not unfrequently excited the children to disobedience, in 
order to get their indentures cancelled," — they were the unwilling serv- 
ants of unwilling masters ; they could not be trusted, and yet could not 
be dismissed. The demoralization of the apprentices made them unde- 
sirable inmates. They disseminate in the parish the morals of the 
workhouse. 

3dly. As it regards the children themselves : — 

1. They were often apprenticed to " needy persons, to whom the pre- 
mium offered was an irresistible temptation to apply for them," and 
" after a certain interval had been allowed to elapse, means were not un- 
frequently taken to disgust them with their occupation, and to render 
their situations so irksome as to make them abscond." 

2. They were looked upon by such persons as "defenseless, and de- 
serted by their natural protectors," and were often cruelly ill-treated. 
So that to be treated " worse than a parish apprentice" has passed into 
a proverb. 

3. Not only was their moral culture neglected, but their moral well- 
being was ofien totally disregarded. The lacts relaied under this head 
are tearful. There was a mutual contamination. The c-ystem appears, 
says Mr. Austin, to have led directly to cruelty, immorality, and suffer- 
ing, although, in some cases, exceptions to the rule, apprenticeship 
was not unproductive of certain beneficial results to both master and 
apprentice. 

4. Their instruction in any useful calling was for the most part neg- 
lected, because their masters were often unfit to teach them, and 
because they were obstinately unwilling to learn. The position which 
the parish apprentice occupied in the liouse was therefore commonly 
that of the household drudge. 

It is scarcely to be wondered at, that among a race thus born in 
pauperism, and educated to it, pauperism became hereditary. 

" When a family is once on the parish," says Mr. Chad wick, (re- 
port of 1833. London and Berkshire.) '' it is very difficult to get them 
off. We have seen three generations of paupers, (the lather, the son, 
and the grandson.) with their respective families at their heels, troop- 
ing to the overseer every Saturday for their weekly allowances." 

'■Pauper parents," says Mr. Carleton Tufnell, (report on the edu- 
cation of pauper children, 1839,) "reared pauper children, and their 
habit of dependence on the poor's rate seemed to descend as part of 
their natures from generation to generation. To stop this hereditary 
taint would be to annihilate the greater part of the pauperism of the 
country." 

"In many unions," says Mr. Jelinger Symons, (report for 1848, on 
parochial union schools, Wales and the Western district,) " the same 
family names of paupers continue for a century in the rate-books. Pau- 
perism is an hereditary disease. There is a pauper class, and hence 
the importance of eradicating the seeds of it in pauper children." 



EDUCATION OF PAUPER CHILDREN. 



881 



" To say that the old poor law, with its parish apprenticeship by way 
of education, had failed, is to speak too leniently of it." (I quote this 
passage from Mr. Temple's notes.) '• It was rapidly demoralizing the 
whole lower order. The mass of evil was such as to unite all real 
statesmen of all parties in one effort to abolish it." 

When the Poor Law Board abolished the system of education by 
apprenticeship, they took upon themselves the responsibility of provid- 
ing some better form of education. Every workhouse was accordingly 
required to provide a schoolmaster who should educate the children. 
For which purpose they were to be completely separated from the 
adults, and instructed for at least three hours every day. 

Lest the guardians should be tempted to employ inefficient school- 
master.', that they might not have to pay them high salaries, it was 
afterward provided that the salaries of workhouse schoolmasters should 
be paid out of a grant voted specially for that purpose by Parliament; 
and, later still, these salaries were ordered to be determined by your 
Lordships, upon examination by Her Majesty's Inspectors. 

"This system had (says Mr. Temple) the inestimable advantage 
over the other, of making some one responsible for the education of the 
children. The pauper child had now some one to care for him, 
which before he had not. His education was now an object of real in- 
terest to some one." 

It had, however, conspicuous defects. 

Under the old system the children were liable to evil associations and 
bad examples out of the walls of the workhouse ; now they received 
the evil impression of the workhouse itself, and became liable to con- 
tamination within its walls, by unavoidable contact with adult paupers. 
Abundant evidence is to be found of these facts, and of their conse- 
quences, in the reports of your inspectors. 

'' Great mischief," says Mr. Stuart, in his report on the Blything in- 
corporation, 1833, " is done by familiarizing the minds of the children to 
the restraints of the workhouse, which destroys all reluctance to being 
sent back to it in after-life." 

" A boy educated in. perhaps, the best shool in niy district," says Mr. 
Bowyer, '• being ill-used by his master, ran away, and brought a com- 
plaint against him before a magistrate. After hearing his story, the 
magistrate, knowing him to be a friendless orphan, asked him where he 
intended to go? 'Home, sir,' said the boy. 'But, my lad, you have no 
home,' said the magistrate. 'Oh, sir,' was the re'ply, 'I mean the 
workhouse.' " 

" I have known them," says Mr. Chadwick, " when sent out on liking 
to respectable people, to have come back to the workhouse, being dis- 
satisfied with the treatment those respectable persons gave them, as 
compared with the workhouse treatment." 

" There are two obstacles to the establishment of satisfactory schools 
in workhouses," says Mr. Hall, (in his report on Berks and Oxon, 1838,) 
" that operate every where under the present system. One is the mix- 
ture which seems unavoidable between the children and the adult pau- 
pers. This is especially detrimental among the females. The girls 
are set to work in the kitchens, the sleeping wards, and the wash-houses, 
with young women of depraved character." Nor does much im- 
provement seem to have taken place since this report was written, for 
Mr. Browne reports, in 1849, that in more than 70 workhouses in his 
district the children are not separated from the adult paupers ;" and that, 
" even in the better description (i. e., where such separation is supposed 
to exist) of workhouses, opportunities of contact continually arise. 
The children and the adult inmates not only meet at meals and dinner 
service, but the elder girls are often kept from school to nurse infants 

66 



882 EDtlCATION OF PAUPER CHILDREN. 

or they wash, or cleanse the house, or assist in the kitchen in company 
with the women." 

When it is borne in mind that the inmates of worithouse? almost 
invari;ibl3' include prostitutes, '-who seem to irequent them as lying-in 
hospitals." the evil of this association may be judged of. ''Out of 
thirteen children whom I found in one workhouse," says Mr. Bowyer, 
(1848.) '-being nursed by the girls, nine were the bastard children of 
mothers of this class." 

It is impossible not to feel that Mr. Tufnell speaks in measured terms 
of a system like this, when in 1849 he says of it. -'The experience of 
this year has still further convinced me of the hopelessness of expect- 
ing any general or permanent benefit to arise from the training of pau- 
per children, as long as they remain within the precincts of the union 
workhouse." 

Another defect inseperable from the education of the workhouse 
school IS the false position of the teacher in a workhouse. •' The chil- 
dren form, on the average, a clear moiety of the number of inmates ; the 
spirit of the internal regulations is, however, mainly directed to (he 
government of the adults ; nor can it well be otherwise so long as the 
two are united under the same roof" (Mr. Ruddock's report on the 
southern district, 1847-48.) This fact at once consthutes an anomalous 
position for the schoolmaster. He must be in subordination to the gov- 
ernor of the workhouse, and yet their duties are essentially different. 
Nor can their characters be alike; the one chosen to control an adult 
community inured to indolence and vice ; the other, to form the minds 
of ciiildren, to bestow upon them the care and the love of a parent, and 
to 'bring them up to industry and to the lear of God. The viewsof two 
such officers and their functions can not but be continually clashing, and 
we need not be surprised that it is often found impossible to maintain a 
good understanding between them," (Mr. Tufnell in 1847-48.) "The 
children, too." (says Mr. Templer.) "'are in a false position. The 
ar.rangements are all made with a view to the adults. But the children 
are totally unlike the adults in their faults, their needs, their chance of 
being reclaimed." ',' Whilst (in a workhouse) the industral and moral 
training is entirely sacrificed, the intellectual is cramped and thwarted." 

But the most striking point, of view in which the present arrangement 
appears defective is, the impossibility of uniting with it the suitable 
industrial training- of the children. The laborer's cottage, however 
bad a school in other respects, has this advantage, that it is a good 
place for the industrial training of his children; he knows the import- 
ance to them of being brought up to labor. I have myself known 
parents — capable of making sacrifices that their children may go to 
school, and willing to do so if they thought it for their welfare — yet 
object to do so alter the children were of an age to work, lest, as they 
said. '• they should not take kindly to labor." 

The example of industry which a laborer's cottage affords; his 
watchful eye lest habits of idleness should grow upon his children • and 
the exigencies of the household, which claim that all its members 
should contribute to the common fund which feeds and clothes all. make 
of it a school of industry ; and, perhaps, the best school in which indus- 
try can be learned. 

The old poor law system of education by apprenticeship, with all its 
vices, had, moreover, its system of industrial training; a bad system, 
no doubt, tending to make labor repugnant to the children, hut still 
calculated to accustom and to inure them to it. The very pastimes of 
another child, and that part of its life which is passed in the fields or in 
the streets, is industrial training, compared with the gloomy existence 
of a workhouse child. 



EDUCATION OF PAUPER CHILBREN 883 

In the great maiority of workhouses the children are stated to have 
no induslrial training at all. Where they have, it is commonly of a 
sedentary kind. " They are sometimes taught a little shoe-making or 
tailoring; the best of their occupations are carpentering or bookbind- 
ing ; but in many cases they make hooks and eyes, or sort bristles, and 
pick oakum." "A boy thus brought up" (says Mr. Bowyer) "is unfit- 
ted for an agricultural laborer; he can neiiher dig, hoe, nor plough; 
is puzzled with harness, and afraid of ahorse. Any hard or continu- 
ous labor exhausts his body and wearies his mind. He has formed a 
completely false conception of the life that awaited him." 

" One lad," (says the chaplain of a union in Wales, writing to Mr. 
Ruddock.) ''strong and active to all appearance, was engaged as a 
farm laborer, but being unable to handle any tool, except in the most 
clumsy manner, was jeered at by the men, consequently he became dis- 
couraged, and feeling alone and friendless, he returned to the work- 
house, where he will probably be an incumbrance lor life, as he has de- 
clared that he never wishes to leave it again." 

*' Children thus shut up," says Mr. Henderson, (report on Lancashire, 
1833 ) " in ignorance and idleness, and exposed to tte moral contamina- 
tion of a workhouse, are almost necessarily unfit for the duties required 
of them as apprentices. All labor is an intolerable hardship, their 
masters, objects of aversion, and they rarely acquire habits of industry 
in atter-life." 

" An orphan or deserted child educated from infancy to the age of 
twelve or fourteen in a workhouse." (says Sir J. P. Kay Shuttleworth,) 
'• ii' taught reading, writing, and arithmetic only, is generally unfitted 
for earning his livelihood by labor." # 

It is not only with reference to the forming of the habits of labbr in 
pauper children that the present system is defective, but with reference 
to the full development of the power to labor — of the thews and 
sinews of the laborer. 

•'Pauper children" (says Mr. Temple) "are decidedly, as a class, 
below the children of the independent laborer in physical de- 
velopment. 

" Their physical conformation and physiognomy," (says Sir J. P. Kay 
Shuttleworth, in his report on the training of pauper children,) " betray 
that they have inherited from their parents physical and moral constitu- 
tions, requiring the most vigorous and careful training to render them 
useful members of society. They arrive at the school in various stages 
of squalor and disease; some are the incurable victims of scrofula; 
others are constantly liable to a recurrence of its .symptoms ; almost all 
exhibit the consequences of the vicious habits, neglect, and misery of 
their parents." " The stunted growth of many of these children" (says 
Mr. Tremenheere,) '• was apparent; whether from early privations else- 
where, or the depressing influence of long confinement within the walls 
of a workhouse, with not enough of healthful exercise, or stimulus of 
change of scene and new objects, or whether, also, it may have resulted 
from a long continued uniformity of diet." 

If to other children, then especially to these, other than sedentary 
occupations, freedom, exercise,. and the open air are necessary to healthy 
physical development and growth. 

"Hence," (says Mr. Tufnell, in 1847-48.) "with a view to securing 
the health of the boys, garden or field labor is, I am satisfied, superior 
to most others." " I find a great unanimity," says Mr. Symons. (1849,) 
" as to the kind of industrial labor deemed the fittest for boys by guar- 
dians who reflect on the subject. Spade husbandry is almost invaria- 
bly chosen, not only on account of the return derivable from it, but 



884 KUUCATiON OF PAUPER CHILDREN. 

from its aptness for developing moral character as well as bodily- 
strength and health." 

"The introduction of industrial training," (says Mr. Bovvyer. 1849.) 
" has been every where attended by a marked improvement in the ap- 
pearance and bodily vigor of the boys ; and their progress in their 
studies, so far from being retarded by it, has generally been promoted, 
notwithstanding the reduction m the number of hours devoted to in- 
struction." "And," (Mr. Browne, 1849.) "industrial training for boys 
ought, I am convinced, to consist in the cultivation of land. It is re- 
markable that boys employed in field-work make greater progress than 
those who are not so employed, although the latter may give to study 
nearly twice as much time as the former." 

The ages of the pauper children (nearly 25 per cent, are above the 
age of 12 years) are such as to render industrial training in field labor 
practicable in their case to an extent that it is not, in other elementary 
schools. 

To break, then, the link which in the mind of the pauper child binds 
him to the workhouse as a home, which associates it in his mind with 
the state of life allotted to him and his destiny — to take from him the 
stamp and impression of it — and to emancipate him from the regime of 
its course of thought and standard of opinion, — to free him from its pes- 
tilent associations and evil example — and, above all, to prepare him to 
take his place in the ranks of independent industry, by a judicious 
course of industrial training, for all these objects a substitute is needed 
lor the workhouse school. 

This fact has received a practical recognition from the Legislature 
in tlie Act of 7 aiid 8 Vict. c. 101., which provided for the formation of 
school districts and district pauper schools, where the children should be 
collected from the workhouses of the district, instructed in such useful 
knowledge as is suitable to their condition, and trained to industry. 

This Act gave to the Poor Law Commissioners power to form school 
districts. But it affixed certain limits of area and population, and it 
provided that the expense of starting, to be borne by the unions of the 
district, should not exceed one-fifth of the entire annual expenses of 
those unions; provisions which rendered the Act inoperative; the limit- 
ations were impracticable, and no school could be built for the money. 
In 1847, an Act was passed removing the limitation as to c^st, but 
depriving the commissioners of their power to erect the school without 
the consent of the guardians or a majority of them. 

This new condition has rendered the new Act nearly as inoperative 
as the old one. Six district schools only have been formed in the entire 
country. In other respects, the declared intentions of the Legislature 
remain without effect. " It is obvious" (says Mr. Temple) " that the 
reasons for the establishment of district scliools are not of a nature to 
be readily appreciated by boards of guardians." The object of such 
schools is national ; their operation, to be successful, must cover a large 
surface, and extend over a long period ; and their results, however cer- 
tain, are remote, belonging rather to posterity than ourselves. Consid- 
erations of this class are not likely to have weight with boards of 
guardians. The operation of such boards is local, isolated, and inde- 
pendent, and their function is temporary, having in view the present 
necessities of the poor, and the protection of the present rate-payers. It 
has jiothing to do with posterity. 

With reference to the probable occupation of the students of your 
normal school, as masters, at some future time, of district schools, the 
Committee of Council provided in 1846, for the erection, in connection 
with it, of " a model school of industry for the pauper children of some 
of the London unions." Nothing can be more important than to give 



KNELl.ER HALL TRAINING SCHOOL. 885 

to the students the benefit of that experience which euch a school 
would offer, o- to the coualiy the model of a pauper school conducted 
on sound princ pU's. 

In the traming of teachers for that object, labor is an essential ele- 
ment. Teachers of industry must practice it, and must be inured to it. 
A schoolmaster unable to work would be almost as much misplaced in 
his field garden as one unable to read and write would be in his school. 

Industrial work enters accordingly very largely into the dail}^ routine 
of Kneller Hall. Appended is a list of the rules by which it is 
regulated. 

RULES FOR REGULATING THE FIELD-WORK. 

1. The gong will sound at five minutes before two, and the bell will immediately begin to 
ring, and continue till two. The return bell will ring at a quarter before five. 

2. The students are to muster at the tool-house, and the names to be called over by the 
captain of the field as soon as the bell stops. 

3 Students not in lime to answer to their names will remain out till five o'clock. 

4. S:udents more than a quarter of an hour after time, or a second time in the same week 
too late to answer to their names, will go to work all day the next day. 

5. No leave of absence will be giveu to any student, unless applied for before 11 in the 
morning, and notified, when obtained, to the captain of the field. 

6. As'soon as names have been called, the captain of the field will read out what work 
each student is to do, and what tools he will require ; and each student as his name is read 
will take his tools and proceed to work. 

7. As soon as the second bell rings each student will clean his tools, and proceeding to the 
tool-house deliver Ihem up to the captain. 

8. The ground will be gradually divided into plots, and as each plot is marked off it will be 
assigned to one of the students, who will be capiain of that plot. 

9 No work will be done on any plot except under the direction of its captain, but he will 
not be always working there. 

10 The captain of a plot will keep a weekly report of work done on his plot, and an ac- 
count of all expenditure and receipts from it. 

11. The students will take turns weekly, two by two, to attend upon the horse in the after- 
noons These turns are not to be shifted'from one to another without leave. 

12. The students will take turns weekly, one by one, to milk the cows. They are to be 
milked immediately before tea in the afternoon, and immediately after prayers in the 
morninj. 

13. Both the above rotations to be in alphabetical order. 

14. The industrial master will give a weekly report of the way in which each student's 
work has been done for that week. 

DUTIES OF THE CAPTAINS. 
General. 

1. To prevent indecorous noise in the bedroom. 

2. To report to the principal, in writing and immediately, any thing requiring attention in 

the bedroom. 

3. To light and put out the gas. 

4. To warn any of ihe students whom they see breaking the rules. If a captain has been 
present at such a breach of rules, and has not warned those who are so doing, he alone will 
be held responsible. 

5. To see that their rooms, viz., the library, lecture-rooms, &c.,be properly cleaned. 

Special. 
I.— The Captain of the Library. 

1. To report every morning in writing to the principal the names of students present at 
prayers that morning and the evening before. 

2. To collect the exercise books on the days appointed, whether done or undone, and bring 
them to the principal at seven in the evening, reporting absentees. 

3. To give the principal on Friday night at evening prayers a statement of the lectures 
given during the week. 

4. To take charge of and distribute ink, pens, and other stationery. 

II.— The Captain of the Field. 

1. To give the industrial master every evening a list of the students who will have charge 
of the practicing school the next day, specifying the time and classes. 

2 To obtain from the industrial master every morning at breakfast time a list of the work 
to b'' done by each boy in the practicing school, and to give the necessary information to the 
student in charge of the boys when at work. 

3. To inform the industrial master every morning before twelve, whether any and what 
students have obtained leave of ab.sence from work. 

4 To call the names at two o'clock. 

5. To give out fools. 

6. To receive them back acain. See that they are properly cleaned and replaced. If the 
Industrial master afterward finds any tools not replaced, or not properly cleaned, the captain 
of the field will be liable to a day's work. 

7. To prepare for the principal a weekly report of the work done every day, and of th« 
farm and garden accounts, both then to be countersigned by the industrial master. 



KNELLER HALL TRAINING SCHOOL 



HI. — The Captain of the Laboratory. 
1. Always to have every thing in readiness for the chemical lecturer. 
2 To k.eep the keys of the laboratory, and to allow no one to go there, except in his com- 
pany, or with written leave from the principal, or by express order from the chemical 

lectur"" 



jrer. 



3. To keep an exact account of the state of the chemical and physical apparatus, as to 
breakages, need of rtpairs,&c. ; and to report every week to the chemical lecturer. 

The system of training will be best understood from a description of 
the daily routine, the course of lectures, the methods of maintaining dis- 
cipline, and the management of the practicing school, in a memorandum 
by Mr Temple, the principal of the school. 

The students rise at six, and prayers (taken from the Liturgj') are read at half- 
past. Lectures commence after prayers and continue till breakfast time at eight. 
The half-hour after breakfast is employed, at the discretion of the students, in pre- 
paring for the ensuing lectures. The lectures recommence at nine and continue 
till one, which is the hour for dinner. At a quarter past two the students are re- 
quired to be ready to proceed to the field, where they are employed in manual labor 
till half-past four, when they return to prepare for tea at five. Aftea tea their time is 
occupied with exercises, writing out their notes of lectures, and occasionally with 
lectures till a quarter before ten, when they take supper. Prayers are read at ten, 
and all lights extinguished before half-past. 

The students are required to brush their own clothes, and to clean their own 
boots and shoes. They have charge of the lecture-rooms, library, and chemical 
laboratory. But they do not make their own beds or sweep out the bedrooms, 
nor clean the knives and forks or plates after meals. They wait upon themselves 
at dinner, but do not lay the cloth or bring the dishes from the kitchen. 

On Saturdays there are no lectures after breakfast, but the time is chiefly occu- 
pied with reading and correcting essays written during the week. Saturday after- 
noon is a half holiday, when masters generally join them at cricket or football; 
or such students as desire to do so are allowed to go out to walk. On Saturday 
evening a lecture is generally given, which only those are required to attend who 
have signified their intention to do so. 

On Sundays they rise at eight, and morning prayers are read in the chapel at 
half-past eight. This service consists of the office for Morning Prayer, as directed 
to be used when the Litany is to be read. The Litany is not, however, read then. 
The service occupies about half an hour, and is followed by breakfast. A second 
service commences at eleven, consisting of the Litany, Cominunion Service, and 
Sermon. Dinner is at one, as usual ; and the afternoon service is read at half-past 
four. In the evening all the school attend a Divinity lecture immediately before 
supper. After supper prayers are read at the usual time. 

The subjects of the k-ctures have been — divinity, history, geography, grammar, 
mathematics, physics, and music. 

The Divinity lectures commenced with reading simultaneouslj- the first three 
gospels. As, however, it was deemed desirable that the text of one at least of the 
gospels should be accurately known, and it seemed unwise to attempt more, par- 
ticular stress was laid upon St. Matthew, and the substance of that gospel was al- 
most got by heart. The Acts of the Apostles were then read, and then the Old 
Testament was commenced. The historical books of the Old Testament were read 
in order, down to the time when the Prophetical wi-itings begin. The Prophets 
were then read simultaneously with the history, so that each might illustrate and 
explain the other. The lecture has continued to the end of Ezekiel. 

These lectures were given every day before breakfast throughout last year. Since 
Christinas, that hour has been assigned to the delivery of the same course to the 
students then admitted ; and the course has been continued to the last year's class 
three days in the week, from nine to ten. 

On the alternate days a course of lectures has been given, to the same class, on 
the history of the Church. This course will continue after the vacation, and will 
include the study of our own formularies and of the Catechism. 

On Sunday evening St. Paul's Epistles have been read in chronological order. 

The lectures on history were so arranged that the history of England occupied 



KNELLER HALL TRALMNG SCHOOL. §87 

exactly a year, one hour a day being devoted to the subject. The Vice-Principal 
then gave a course of lectures, to the same class, on the history of linglish litera- 
ture and the characteristics of the great lingLsh writers. 

(Jo. Tuesday morning the V'ice-Priucipai gives out a subject, generally, but not 
always, of an historical character, on which every student is required to compose 
an English essay. These essays are collected immediately after breakfast on Sat- 
urday, and in the course of the morning are read aloud in the presence of all the 
students, either before the Vice-Principal or myself. Opportunity is then taken 
to point out defects in style or in grannnar ; and the presence of the body of stu- 
dents is found to have a wholesome influence in stimulating all to do their best. 

In geography, the course commenced with the geography of England which was 
carefully studied in detail. The physical geography of the world then followed, so 
as to explain the great features of the land and water, the elements of geology, the 
phenomena of the atmosphere, the geographical distribution of plants and animals. 
These lectures wiU continue till Christmas and will include the political and com- 
merc.al geography of the world, treated in connection with the great physical lec- 
tures. One hour a day has been devoted to this subject throughout. 

Mathematical geography was ti'eated as a part of jjopular astronomy, to which 
subject two hours a week were assigned for three quarters of a year. These lec- 
tures commenced after the summer vacation, and terminated at Easter. 

Three hours a \teek were given to grammar for three quarters of a year. It 
was then thought advisable to give the students the opportunity of comparing the 
forms and rules of their own language with those of another, and French les- 
sons were substituted for the grammar twice a week. A lecture was also given 
on Saturday evenings to such as chose to attend, on the outlines of logic as con- 
nected with grammar. 

Two hours a day were assigned to lectures on mathematics and physic. Since 
Christmas the chemical laboratory has been in use, and two additional hours a 
week have been devoted to lectures on chemistry. The students who have been 
already once examined for certificates of merit, have read i\lr. Tate's arithmetic, 
algebra, mechanics, and mensuration ; six books of Euclid, with numerous deduc- 
tions, partly worked without any assistance, partly with such hints as appeared to be 
necessary ; and the commencement of analytical geometry and of differential calcu- 
lus. Their attainments on first entering are found to be very various, and their 
powers not less so. It is not possible therefore to keep them all at the same level. 
Of the ten students mentioned, one will, without doubt, be thoroughly master of the 
differential calculus before he leaves, and one sufficiently so to render further help 
unnecessary. The rest do not come up to these. 

The chem cal lectures are intended to bear particularly upon agriculture. Tliey 
have not continued long enough, as yet, to supply means of judging as to their suc- 
cess ; but I have little doubt, from the interest which they attract, that they will be 
found extremely useful. 

Three hours a week have been given to music. The students also sing a hymn 
at morning and evening prayers, and chant the Canticles and sing Psalms in the 
Sunday services. 

The teaching has been entirely oral. The lectures are given from notes, and 
afterward written out by the students. Text-books have been used, but only as 
supplying a frame-work to be filled up by the lecturer. The students at their first 
admission are not in a condition to prepare their own lessons by reading. They 
require the contact of mind with mind, the living presence of the lecturer, the per- 
petual commentary supplied by voice and gesture, and the slight but constant 
adaptation of each step in the course to the state of their own knowledge. Even 
a written lecture, as a means of educating such men, is very inferior to one delivered 
extempore from notes ; but a mere examination upon the contents of a book is 
almost useless. They seem unable, in fact, to derive fiwn books any thing beyond 
the bare statements contained in them, and their reading results in the accumula- 
tion of a mass of undigested facts. 

On the other hand, there is a definiteness about the knowledge derived from 
books, which oral teaching taken alone can not give. And it is advisable too that 
the students should not leave the school without some practice in reading for 
themaelves, so that they may be able. ^?.'hcn away, to continue their own education 



888 KNELLER HALL TRAINING SCHOOL. 

with a chance of real improvement. The students therefore who have been in 
training for a year and half will now be required to attend fewer lectures, and to 
read more than hitherto. Their reading will be directed and their progress per- 
petually tested, but the lectures will be subordiiiate to the books. 

The industrial training of the students has been conducted under the guidance of 
the gardener. 1 have generally joined in their labors, in order that this essential 
part of the system might not be undervalued. The vegetables for the use of the 
school have been grown, and we have besides broken up a considerable portion (five 
acres) of our ground (about thirty -five acres in all,) and made it fit for the operations 
of a larger number of students. We have a horse and an increasing stock of pigs, 
and we propose shortly to purchase a cow. The students have care of these animals 
and attend to them well. 

Thei-e can be no question as to the beneficial effect of the manual labor ; and 
even if the students were intended to take schools in which the children we're not 
to be so employed, I should think it expedient to adopt the same system in their 
training. 

The following regulations have been made for the maintenance of discipline : 

GENERAL RULES. 

The students are to rise when the gong sounds at six, and to be down to prayers at half-past 
six. The gong will sound a second time at twenty-five minutes past six. Students who are 
late for prayers will be sent to work all day in the field. 

No student is to go into the bedrooms between half-past six in the morning and ten min> 
utes before one. 

No student is to leave the premi.=es without permission. 

No student is to go out of the house after dark. 

No student is to go into the kitchen, housekeeper's room, or any part of the building 
northwards from these two rooms, for any purpose whatever. 

Every student on coming in from work is to change his shoes before going up stairs. 

Every student is required to be clean in his person. 

Chapel. 
The chapel hours on Sunday will be half-past eight, eleven, and half-past four unless other- 
wise specially ordered. 

The students who have passed their first examination for certificates will read the lessons 
in turn. Two will read the morning lessons, and two the afternoon. 

The readers are always to look over the lessons before the time of service, and are to endeavor 
to read simply and reverently. 

The two readers are to sit in the seat at the bottom of the chapel, facing the Communion 
Table. 

Bedrooms. 
Two captains are appointed over each bedroom. 
The duties of the captains are — 

I'o prevent all indecorous noise or disturbance in the bedrooms. 
To light the gas at the sound of the gong, at six in the morning, during winter. 
To open two windows in each bedroom before coming down to prayers in the morning. 
To put out the gas at the sound of the gong, at half-past ten in the evening. 
To keep lists of the students in their respective bedrooms, and mark against the name 
of each whether he was present at morning prayers. Tliese lists to be given to the 
Principal or Vice-Principal, on Saturday evening, after prayers. 
To report to the Principal any thing in the bedrooms which appears to require attention, 
(broken windows, deficiency of water, &c.,) 

Library and Leeiure-ronms. 

The library and lecture-rooms to be swtpt out every day immediately after dinner. 

The students who are not captains are to do this in turn. 

The captains are to see that this is done, and to be reponsible for it. If the Principal finds 
occasion to remark more than twice upon the state of any room, the captain who has charge 
of it will be sent to the field all day. 

The library to be decently arranged again, and the books put away, at the sound of the sup- 
per gong. 

No conversation allowed in the library, such as to interrupt those who are reading. 

Hall. 

The captains, in rotation, to be presidents of the lower tables in the hall. One of the captains 
and two of the other students to come to the upper table in rotation. 

Two students to act as waiters at each table, and to remove the dishes, plates, &c., while 
the rest remain seated. All except the captains to take this duty in turn. 

Essays and Analysis. 
The weekly essays are to be collected by the captains, and placed in the Principal's study 
every Saturday morning immediately after breakfast. 



, KNELLER HALL TRAINING SCHOOL. §89 

All analysis, or abstracts, or other work done in the exercise books are to be collected by the 
captains immediately after tea, and brought to the Principal's study on the following days: 

Mathematics and physics on Tuesdays. 

Divinity on Wcdne.Miays. 

G-ography and history on Tlmrtdays. 

Grammar and literature on Fridays. 

Conclusion. 

Every student is to make a copy of the.^e rules. 

The captains are charged with the duty of seeing that all these rules are observed, and arc 
required to warn any student who disobeys them, and, if any persist after warning, to re- 
port to the Principal. 

These rules, as will be obvious on perusal, were not made all at once, but aa 
occasion arose. They will of course require many modifications, for the same 
reason, hereafter. 

But our reliance for the maintenance of discipline has been, and must be, much 
more on perpetual watchfulness, and personal intercourse with our pupils, than on 
a fixed routine. It has been our object, by living with the students, sharing their 
meals, joining in their out-of-door employments and-recreations, to place ourselves 
on such a footing with them as to render the open exercise of authority almost un- 
necessary. They are not subjected to any system of espionage. We do not profess 
to be always with them. They are left a good deal to themselves, and aluays 
treated with confidence. No opportunity is ever taken to watch them, without 
their own knowledge. But care is taken that no artificial barrier shall grow up 
between us and them, and that the great temptation to disorder shall be taken 
away by their being made to feel that they are governed well. 

The practicing school has been in operation since Lady-day. The children 
come from the neighboring village. The numbers are at present tv^'enty-four. 

They come at nine and stay till one, being dismissed for about ten minutes at 
eleven. At a quarter past two they return, and are taken with the students to the 
field. The field-work leaves oft' at half-past four. They come back to school, in 
summer, at six and stay till seven. 

The foUovving is at present the order of lessons in the first class : 

9 Prayers, 
1st Lesson till 9J St. Mark's Gospel. 
2d " 10 Writing. 

3d " lOi Mental arithmetic. 

4th " ll" Dictation. 

Dismissed for ten minutes. 
5th Lesson till 11^ Reading. 
6th " r2 Slate arithmetic. 

7lh " 124 Geography. 

8th " 1 Object lesson. 

Evening. 
9th Lesson from 6 to 6i Reading ; On Mondays 
lOlh '• 7" Arithmetic s and Fridays. 

On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, the evening hour is given by the whole school 
to singing. 

On Mondays and Wednesdays the class goes into Mr. Tate's lecture-ronm,from 
twelve to one, where he gives them a lesson, or makes one of the students do so 
in his presence ; in the latter case he overlooks the notes of the lesson before it is 
given, and criticises it after. 

On Mondays from eleven to twelve, and on Fridays from ten to eleven, Mr. Til- 
leard has the class in the same way ; and on Saturdays, from nine to ten, I take 
them myself. 

The school is divided into three classes. The students being divided into three 
divisions ; each division is charged with teaching one class. By this ineaiis there 
is a perpetual change of masters, no one having a class for tnore than two hours. 

On Mondays, from eleven to one, I take the third class myself; on Wednesdays, 
at the same time, the second ; on Fridays, the first. 

Minute-books are kept of the lessons done every day. When I take the class, 
I test its progress for the week, and give directions for the lessons of the next 
week. -^ 



890 KNELLER HALL TRAINING SCHOOL. 

Two of the students in rotation take charge of the children in the field ; joining 
in their work and superintending it. 

It will be obvious that tlle.•^e arrangements are preliminary and provisional — not 
final. But so far we suceed as I could wish. The children are fond of iheir mas- 
ters, work very heartily and tnez-rily in the field, never seem tired of the lessons, 
and like coming to school. The students enter into the plans with spirit, improve 
visibly in the art of giving lessons, and superintend the field-work with firmness and 
method. 

It would be absurd to hope that so small a school would give them an opportu- 
nity of learning the art of teaching and educating in perfection. A large school is 
in many respects a more powerful machine than a small one, and exhibits features 
distinctly which are hardly noticed in the other. 

Nor again can such a schod place before the students a complete specimen of 
their own future labi)rs. In many ways the school in a workhouse difTers from all 
others, and the schoolmaster's duties differ accordingly. 

Ihe school can be intended to teach them only one part (though a very Impor- 
tant part) of what they will have to do, and for that purpose I have no doubt of its 
fiiness. To tnake our system perfect, a pauper school of considerable size is 
indispensable. 

Contemporaneously with the opening of the practicing school I commenced a 
course of lectures on methods of teaching. These lectures will of course take par- 
ticular notice of the peculiarities in those schools for which our student are in- 
tended ; they are given twice a week. 

I w 11 conclude with two remarks. One refers to the great diflnculty with which 
we have to contend in the exaggerated estinjate, in the minds of all the students, 
of knowledge as compared with mental cultivation. The wide extent of subjects 
covered by the examination for certificates of merit has had, I think, a tendency 
to encourage this mistake. 

The other point, to which I wish to draw attention, is the great advantage that 
would be gained if the examination, especially in all the literary part of it, were 
confined to definite text-books. 

These considerations bear more peculiarly on the case of Kneller Hall than on 
that of any other training school. It must be the aim of every such school, but 
an aim peculiarly required in us, to train masters who shall be able nfit merely to 
teach, but to educate •, masters who will discrimin.ite between information and 
mental discipline. The workhouse children are liable to one temptation beyond 
all others — a servile dependence of mind, which makes them willing to remain 
in a degraded position. They are cowed by the sense of having no friends or pro- 
tectors ; they know not how to right themselves when they are wionged — how to 
support themselves when distressed. To give them mere knowledge, to make 
them good arithmeticians, or good grammarians, will not give them what they 
neeil. They may learn, perhaps with readiness, when skillfully taught, whatever 
information they may be required to learn. But even a very intelligent knowledge 
is compatible with slight appreciation of the uses of that knowledge. ^A hat they 
require is the contact of a cultivated mind, of a mind superior, not so much in 
knowledge as in the degree in which that knowledge has refined and strengthened 
the character. This, next to religious temper and moral principal, is what is 
needed in a workhouse schoolmaster, and whatever bears on this demands our 
attention. 



REPORTS AND DOCUMENTS 

ON 

COMMON SCHOOLS AND OTHER MEANS OF EDUCATION. 
BY HENRY BARNARD. 



History op the System of Common Schools in Connecticut, from 1638 to 1S38, 
with a History of Yale College from 17C0 to ]800. 160 pages. Pri(^e §1. 

First Annqal Report, as Secretary of the Board of Commissioners of Common Schools 
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Seco.nd do 1840. 56 pages. Price 25 cents. 

Third do 1841. 40 pages. Price 25 cents. 

Fourth do 1842. 58 pages. Price 25 cents 

Legal Provision respecting the Education and Employment of Children in 
Factories and Manufacturing Establishments in England, France, Prus- 
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50 cents. 

Legislation respecting Common Schools in Connecticut, from 1842 to 1850. 
1850. 104 pages. Price 25 cents. 

Fifth Annual Report of the Superintendent of Common Schools in Connec- 
ticut, submitted to the Legislature in May, 1850. 160 pages. Price 50 cents. 

Sixth do . . • . . . 1851. 168 pages. Price 50 cents. 

Seventh do 1852. 52 pages. Price 25 cents. 

Eighth do 1853. 288 pages. Price 50 cent.s. 

The Connecticut Common School Journal, commenced in August, 1838, and dis- 
continued in September, 1842. The four volumes bound in one, two, or four. Price $3. 

The Connecticut Common School Journal. Volumes 5, 6, 7, 8. 1850. Price 
$1.25 per volume. 

Reports and DocumUnts on the Common School System of Connecticitt, from 
1839 to 1842, (being selections from the Connecticut Common School Journal.) 400 
pages. Price $1. 

Report ON the Public Schoolsof Rhode Island. J845. 254pages. Price 50 cents. 

Documents relating to the Public Schools of Rhode Island. 1848. 560 pages. 
Price Si. 

Documentary History of the Public Schools of Providence, from 1800 to 
1849. 96 pages. Price 50 cents. 

Journal of the Rhode Island Institute of Instruction, — commenced |in 1845, 
and discontinued in 1849. 3 vols.— bound in sheep. Price S3. 50. 

Tribute to Gallaudet, with a History of Deaf Mute Instruction and Institutions in 
Europe and the United Slates, and particularly of the American Asylum at Hartford. 
1H52. 00 pages. Price ,f I. 

School District, Town and Village Libraries : Hints for the Organization, 
and Management, and Selection oP Books for Popular Libraries. 1854. 
150 pages. Price $1. 

Education in its relations to Health, Insanity, Labor, Pauperism, and 
Crime. 16 pages. Price $1 per dozen copies. 

Hints on Reading. Being selections from various authors on the selection and right use 
ol Books. 16 pages. Price $1 per dozen. 

Practical Illustrations of the Principles op School Architecture. 176 
pages, with 163 wood cuts. 1851. Price 50 cents. 

School Architecture ; or Contributions to the Improvement of School-houses 
IN the United States. 1854. 416 pages, with 300 wood cuts. Price $2, cloth. 

Normal Schools in the United States. 1852. 215 pages. Price 75 cents. 

Normal Schools IN Europe. 1851. 450 pages. Price $1.50. 

Reports on Education AND Schools in Connecticut. 1853. 462pages. Price$l. 

Public Education in Europe. 1834. 800 pages. Price $3. 



SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE. 



School Architecture ; or, Contributions to the Improvement of 
School-houges in the United States. By Henry Barnard, Superin- 
tendent of Common Schools in Connecticut. Fifth Edition. 1854. 

This volume will be found on examination to contain : I. An exposi- 
tion, from otRcial documents, of common errors in the location, construc- 
tion, and furniture of school-houses, as they have been almost univers- 
ally built, even in States where the subject of education has received 
the most attention. II. The principles to be observed in structures 
of this kind. III. Plans of school-houses adapted to schools of every 
grade, from the Infant School to the Normal School, either recommended 
by experienced educators, or recently erected. IV. Illustrations of the 
best styles of seats and desks, and the best mode of warming and venti- 
lation. V. Catalogue of apparatus suitable to each grade of schools. 
VI. Catalogue of books on education, and books of reference for school 
libraries. VII. Rules for the care and preservation of school-houses. 
VIII. Examples of dedicatory exercises. IX. Hints respecting the 
classification of schools. 

Fagb. 

Double Inclined Plane, 58 

Wooden H orse, 58 

Slanting Ladder 58 

Plan of Russell's Gymnasium, 59 

Inclined Ropes, 60 

Vaulting Bar, 60 

Rotary Swing, 54 

Plan of Water-closet, 63 



PREFACE. 

Report of Committee on School-houses, to 
the National Convention of the Friends 
of Education, in 1850, 7 

SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE. 

1. Common Errors to be avoided. 

Extracts from Official School Documents, 
showing the condition of School-houses in 

Connecticut, 16 

Massachusetts, 26 

New York, 29 

Vermont, 34 

]\ew Hampshire, 36 

Maine, .' 37 

Rhode Island, 38 

Michigan, 39 

New England, generally, 44 

Uliislrationn, 

School-houses as they are, 45 

II. General PRtNciPLES to be observed. 

1. Site. 2. Yard. 3. Size of Building. 4. 
Size of School-room. 5. Class room. 6. 
Light. 7. Warming. 8. Ventilation. 9. 
Desk. 10. Seats. 1). Aisles. 12. Ac- 
commodation for Teacher. 13. Library 
and Apparatus. 14. External Appearance. 
15. Residence f(ir Teacher. 16. Privies. 
17. Gymnastic and Calisthenic Exercises, 47 

Plans' of School-houses. 
Circumstances to be regarded, 49 

Plans of School-houses with one 
School-room. 

District Schools, — General Condition, 50 

Infant and Primary Schools, do 50 

Location, Yard, and Play Grounil, 51 

Play Ground of Infant and Primary School, 52 

Apparatus for Gymnastic Exercises, 56 

lilustrattoiis. 

Play Ground of Infant School, 53 

Climbing Stand, 56 

Horizontal Bars 56 

Parallel Bars 57 

Wooden Swing, 57 



Plans of School-houses recommended 
BY Practical Teachers and Educa- 
tors. 

Plan by Dr. WilliomA. Alcott, 64 

Illustration, 

School-room for 56 pupils, 65 

Plan by Horace Mann, 64 

llltistrations. 

School-room, 65 

Location in Union District, 65 

Plan by George B. Emerson, 66 

General Principles to be observed, 66 

Illustrations-, 

Perspective of School-honse, &c., 67 

Front Projection, with Trees, &c.,... 68 

Movable Blackboard, 70 

Section of Fire-place, 70 

Ventilating Apparatus, 71 

Schol-room for 121) pupils 72 

School-room for 48 pupils, 72 

Plan by Messrs. Town and Davis 73 

Advantajes of the octagonal shape, 73 

Mode of lighting by skylight, 74 

Illustrations, 

Perspective of octagonal School-house, 73 

School-room, 74 

Section of smoke and Ventilating Pipe, 75 

Plan by Dr. A. D. Lord, 76 

Illustration, 

School-room, 76 

Plans of School-rooms for different systems 

of instruction, 77 

Plan for Infant School 79 

Illustration, 

School-room and Grounds, 79 

Plan by Wilderspiu, 80 



BOOKS ON EDUCATION. 



3 



Faob. 

Plan for Schools on the Monitorial System, 81 

JUiistrations, 

School-room on the plan of Lancaster, 82 

Dr. Bell,.. 82 

Plans for Schools on the Mixed System re- 
commended by Committee of Council on 
Educiitiun, 83 

Organization of Schools in parallel groups 

of Desks, , 85 

illustrations. 

School-room, with Movable Partition,, 83 
Schoolroom, with four Class rooms,.. 84 

Section of Desk, 84 

Arrangement of Curtain to separate 
Classes, 88 

Plans of School-rooms, with Classes sepa- 
rated by Curtains, 88 

No. 1. School for 48 boys and girls, in 4 

classes, 88 

2. School for 48 boys and girls, with 

class room, 88 

3. School for 72 boys or girls, in 5 

classes, 89 

4. School for 72 boys and girls, 89 

5. " " J2U " or " in 5 
classes, 90 

6. School fur 168 boys or girls, 90 

7. " " 240 '^ in 8 classes,.. 91 

8. Infant School, 91 

Plan of Village National School, 92 

Jllu^tratiuHs, 

Perspective, 92 

Ground Plan, 92 

Plans for Rural and Villiige School, recom- 
mended by Massachusetts Board of Edu- 
cation 93 

Mode of Ventilation, 93 

Directions for making Black-plaster Wall,. 93 

Hints for the iirrangement of School-rooms, 94 
Illustrations^ 

Plans for Rural and Village Schools,. . 94 

No. 1. Schoolroom ; building 46 by 30 94 



2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 

9. 
10. 
11. 
12. 
13. 
14. 
15. 



36 by 20 95 
48 by 30 96 
40 by 28 97 
50 by 42 98 
44 by 48 99 

44 by 48 100 
40 by 52 101 
60 by 48 102 

45 by 60 103 
40 by 60 104 
35 by 62 105 
52 by 70 106 

37 by 40 107 
37 by 38 107 



Section exhibiting Mode of Ventilation, 108 
Plans of School-houses recently 

ERECTED. 

Remarks on Plans furnished or sanctioned 
by the Author, Ill 

Plans for District School-houses, 
one story high. 

Plan of School-house, 30 by 20, in Bloom- 
field, Conn 112 

Illustrations, 

Front Elevation, 

Plan of Warming and Ventilation 

Gi>,und Plan, 

Plan of School-house, 34 by 22, in Wind- 
sor, Conn., 114 

Illustrations, 
Perspective, 114 



Page. 
Ground Plan, 115 

Plan of District School-house, 40 by 25, in 

Barrington, R. I., 116 

Illustrations, 

Perspective, 116 

Seat and Desk, 116 

Ground Plan, 117 

Plan ofDistrict School, 34by25 118 

Illustration, 
Ground Plan, 118 

Plan of District School-house, 36 by 27,... 118 
Illustration, 
Ground Plan, 118 

Plan of District School-house, 50 by 30 119 

Illustration, 
Ground Plan, 119 

Plan of District School-houses in Michigan, 119 
Jllistration, 
Ground Plan, 119 

Plans of District School-houses recently 

erected in New Hampshire, 120 

Illustrations, 

District School-room in Dublin, 120 

" " Greenland ... 121 

Plans of School-houses for Union or 
Graded Schools. 

Classification of Schools, 123 

Plan of School-house for two schools in 

Centerdale, R. I., 133 

Illustrations, 

Elevation, Trees, &c., 133 

Ground Plan, 26 by 51, 133 

Plan of School-house for two schools in 

Washington Village, R. I., 134 

Illustration, 
Ground Plan, 134 

Plan of School-house for two schools in 

Warren, R. I., 135 

lllustratiojis. 

Location and Yards, 136 

First Floor, 62 by 44, 137 

Second Floor, 137 

Plan of School-house for three schools in 

Chepachet, 133 

Illustrations, 

Side and Front Elevations, 138 

First Floor, 50 by 34, 139 

Second Floor, 139 

Plan of School-house for four schools in 

Pawtucket, R. I., 140 

Illustrations, 

Perspective, 140 

First Floor, three schools, 141 

Second Floor, 141 

Plans of School-houses for schools of dif- 
ferent grades in Providence, R. I. 142 

Primary School-house, 142 

Illustrations, 

Perspective of a Primary School-house, 142 

Ground Plan, 143 

Tops of desks fur two pupils, 144 

Section of seat and desk for two pupils, 144 

Intermediate School-house, 144 

Illustrations, 

Perspective of Inter. School-house,... 145 

Section uf Ventilators, 144 

Internalarrangement 176 

Section of Writing Desk and Seal,. . . . 177 

Grammar School- house, 148 

/lustration*. 



SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE 



Page. 

High School-house, 154 

III i.^tratioii--, 

Perspective, 155 

Busement, 15() 

First Flocr 1S7 

Second Tloor, 157 

Movable Seat uiid Desk for two, 158 

Vertical Section ot" Furnace, 158 

Plan of Graded School-house in Arsenal 

District, Hartford 160 

Illi.strations, 

Front Elevation, 160 

Ground Plan, 160 

Perspective, fur two Schools, 161 

Plan of Graded School-house in South Dis- 
trict, Hartf.)rd, 163 

III strationf, 

Perspective, 162 

First Floor, 163 

Second Floor, 164 

Third Floor 165 

Plan of High School-house in Hartford,... 166 

List of Apparatus, 168 

lUa^tratiiin--, 

Perspective, 170 

Plan of Yard and Basement, 171 

First Flour, 17-i 

Second FK.ur ]7'2 

Section shuwing Ventilation, 173 

Seat and Desk, I'i3 

Plans of School-houses recently erected in 

Boston, 174 

Organization of Public Schools, 174 

Ingrahani Primary School-house, Boston,.. 176 
EducHti .nal value of School decorations,.. 189 
Specifications for building Primary School- 
house 191 

Composition for making Black Wall, 197 

Illu--triitioii-!, 

Play Ground and First Floor 177 

Internal arrangements. Second Floor,.. 179 

Third Floor, 180 

Primary Scho.d Chair, 181 

View o'f Front Wall, 181 

Section of Smoke Flues, 182 

Section of Ventiducts 183 

P<jsiti(in of Flues and Ventiducts, 184 

Ventilation, &c., of Privies, 186 

Plan of Brimmer Grammar School-house,.. 198 
Jll:if:tration^-, 

First ami Second Floor, 198 

Third Flour, 199 

Plan of Bowdoin Grammar School-house, 200 
Illutratiorf, 

First and Second Floor, 201 

Third Floor, 201 

Plan of Qui ncy Grammar School-house,.. 202 

111 if:tr{ition, 

First Flour, 203 

Remarks nt Dedication of Quincv Grammar 

School '. 204 

Classification of large schools in Boston, .. 206 

Internal .'^rransement of School-houses,... 206 

Form of Specification, 207 

Plan of Putnam Free School-house, New- 

buryport, 210 

lll'istratiori'-, 

First Floor, 212 

Second Floor 213 

Plan of East Public School, Salem, 114 

Illu.t7'ution, 

First Floor 116 

Second Floor, 117 

Kimball's Chair and Desk, 115 



Page. 

Description of Latin and English High 

School, Salein, 218 

Plans of School-houses in city of New 

York, 220 

History of Public Schools, 220 

Plan of Public School-house 222 

IlLf.'trattuiis. 

Primary Department, 223 

Second Floor, 224 

Plan of Primary School-house, 225 

I//.u.ttrattun<, 

Section of Gallery, 226 

Seat and Desk, 226 

Mutt's Patent Revolving Chair 227 

Plan of Ward School, No. 29 228 

Illu.'<tratwns, 

Perspective, 228 

Basement 230 

Primary Department, 233 

lnk-bo.\ and Well 231 

Plan of Ward School-house, No. 30, 232 

III. stratioiif. 

Front Elevation, 232 

B.isement, 233 

First Floor, 234 

Second and Third Floor, 235 

Primary School Chair and Desk 235 

Teacher's Desk, 235 

Cover to Ink- well 234 

Plan of Free Academy-building, 236 

Illustrations, 

Perspective, 218 

Mode of Wanning and Ventilation,.. 238 

Basement, 239 

First Floor, 240 

Second and Third Floor, 241 

Desk and Chairs, 241 

Plan of Academy-building, Rome, N. Y.,.. 243 
Illustrations, 

Perspective, 243 

Basement, 243 

Desk and Chiiirs, 244 

First Flour, 245 

Second Floor, 243 

Plans of School-houses recently erected in 

Philadelphia, .' 246 

History and Condition of Public Schools,.. 246 

Plans of Jefferson Grammar School-house, 248 
Illiistrutions, 

Perspective, 248 

First Floor, 249 

Plans of North-East Grammar School-house, 250 
Illustrations, 

Perspective, 250 

p First Floor, 251 

Plans of Warner Grammar School-house,. 252 
Illustration.", 

Perspective, 252 

First Floor, 252 

Plans of Greenwood School-liouse, 253 

Illustrations, 

Perspective, 253 

First Floor, 253 

Plans of Central High School, 254 

Mode of Ventilation,. 256 

Influence of the School, 258 

Occupations of Pupils, 259 

lUiistrntions, 

Perspective, 2.54 

Basement, 2S5 

First Floor, 256 

Second and Third Floor, 256 



SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE. 






Page. 

History of Public Schools of Cincinnati,. . 2fil 

Hughes City Hi-ii .-^c-hi.oi, 2C1 

Hi utralwii--, 

Persjiective, 260 

Biiseineiit — Luburriturv, 262 

First Floor, .' 262 

SecomI Floor, 263 

High Schools, their pluce in a System of 
Public Instruction, 265 

Plnns for Normal Schools and Schools of 

Practice, 272 

History of Normal Schools, 272 

Plans of Normal School Buildings in Mass,, 274 
Illustrations, 

Bridgewuter State Norniiil School, 274 

Front Elevation, 274 

First Flo.r, 275 

Second Flo, r, 270 

Westtield StMte Normal School, 277 

Front Elevution, 277 

First Floor, 278 

Second Floor, 279 

Framingham State Normal School,... 280 

Front Elevation, 28U 

First Flour, 281 

Plans of State Normal School Building at 

Albany, N. Y., 282 

III i.-trations. 

Perspective, 282 

Basement, 283 

First Floor, 284 

Second Floor, 285 

Third Floor, 286 

Fourth Floor, 287 

Desk and Chairs 286 

Plans of State Normal School at New Brit- 
ain, Conn., 288 

Illutrntiuns, 

Fersiiective 288 

Basement, 290 

First Floor, 291 

Second Floor, 292 

Third Floor, 293 

Plans of City Normal School, Philadelphia, 294 
Illustrdtions, 

Persjective, 294 

Cellar Furnaces, 294 

First Floor, 295 

Second Floor,...; 295 

Third Floor, 295 

Plans of Normal and Model School Building 

at Toronto, Upper Canada, 296 

lUiistrntion^-, 

Front and Side View, 297 

Ground Plan 299 

Second Floor :«li 

Rear and Side View 300 

J'lansof Kneller Hall Training School, Eng- 
land, 302 

III iftration. 
Perspective, 302 

Ventilation and Warming. 

General Principles 303 

Report of Dr H. G. Clark on Ventilation of 

Grammar School in Boston, 307 

General Rules of Boston Committee, 3]4 

Constructiim of Ventducts 323 

Mode reconiirveiided by .1. W. Ingrahiim,. . 185 

Mode adof.ted by Prof Hart, 247 

Mode reconiniended by G. B. Emerson, 329 

III strations. 

Example of imperfect Ventilation, 310 

Plan Ml Eliot School-house, Boston, .. 312 

" Endicott School-house, 3J3 



Page. 

General Plan in Grammar Schools, ... 314 

Section of Chilson'-. iMiruii-e, 317 

Section if Ventilutiiig Stove, 317 

Emerson's Ejecting Ventilator, 318 

" Injecting Ventilator, 319 

Elevation of Ventiducts 320 

Cold-air Ducts iind Smoke Flues 320 

Section ol Ajiparatus in a building of 

two stories, 321 

First Flour of do., 322 

Second Floor of do., 322 

Section of Ingraham School-house,... 184 
Section ofHiirtford High Schoul-lioust', l73 

Plan recummended by D. Leach, 109 

Apparatus f.r Warming 3'i4 

Culver's Hot-Air Furnace, 324 

" Portable Furnace, 325 

Directions fir using, 326 

Culver's Laboratory Furiuice, 328 

Mutt's Ventilating School Stove, 330 

B ston Ventilating Stove, 331 

Chilson's Portable Furnace, 331 

" Air V\ arming and Ventilating 

Furnace, 332 

Directions I'or setting Chilson's Furnace, . . 334 

" for using, do 334 

" for making Ventiducts, 338 

Bushnell's Hot-air Furnace, 339 

Double Fire-place, 340 

Illustration^, 
Double Fire-place — horizontal section, 340 
" " perpendicular " 340 

Mott's Ventilating School Stove 329 

Boston Ventiliiting St.ive, 331 

Chilson's Trio Portable Furnace, 331 

" School Stove, 331 

" Ventilating Furnace, 332 

Plans for setting Chilson's Furnace,... 334 

Section — ground and plan 334 

" position and thickness of walls, 335 

Culver's Hut-air Furnace, 324 

Bushnell's Hot-air Furnace, 339 

School Furniture. 

General Principles 341 

Scale of Uiuieiisions, 343 

///, stratidiis, 

Bench with Back 344 

Gallery for Infant School, 344 

Sand Desk 344 

Gallery used in National Schools, 345 

Gallery in Borough Road School, 345 

Closing Gallery 345 

Desks and Seats made of wood, 346 

Range of Seats and Desks, 346 

Rhattuck's Primary School Chair, 349 

Boston High School Desk and Chair,.. 346 

Mott's School Chair and Desk, 348 

Hartford School Chair and Desk, 347 

Wales' Improved School Furniture,.. . 350 
No. 1. American School (Chairs, 350 

2. do, with desk for two pupils, 350 

3. . do., " one ])upil, 354 

4. New England School Chairs,.. 3.)1 

5. do., with desk for two pupils, 351 

6. do., do , one impil, 352 

7. Bowdoin School Chairs, 352 

8. do., with desk for two,.. 352 

9. do., do., one,.. 353 

10. Washington School Chair 358 

11. do., with desk fur two pupils, 3.53 

12. do., do., one pupil, 354 

13. Normal School Desk for twu,.. 354 

14. do., do., do, one,.. 3.53 

15. Improved Writing Stools, 3.55 

16. Primary School Chair, 355 

17. Basket'Primary School Chair,. . 555 

18. Improved Settees, 3,56 

19. Improved Lyceum Settees,,,.. 356 



V 



SCHOOL ARCHITECTURK. 



Page. 

20. Teacher's Arm Chair, 356 

21. do. do., with cushions, 357 

22. Teacher's table without drawers, 357 

23. do. do., with one drawer, 357 

24. do. do., with two drawers, 358 

25. Movable Skeleton Desk, .3.58 

26. " P.)rtable Desk, 358 

27. Teacher's Desk, 358 

28. do., with drawers and table top, 358 

29. do., do. and top desk, 358 

30. do., two drawers and table toji, 2.59 

31. do., do. and top desk, 359 

32. do., four drawers and table top, 3.59 

33. do., do. and top desk, 359 

34. do., six drawers and table tup, 300 

35. do , do. and top desk, 360 

36. do., With bookcase in front, 360 

37. do., do. do. 361 

38. do., do. do. 361 

39. Teacher's desk, with bookcase, 361 

Drawing Desks, 362 

Illustrations, 

A Leaf and Drawing Desk, 362 

Bracket to support Leaf, 363 

Ross' Movable Drawing Desk, 363 

Drawing Desk and Board recommended in 

Schools of Practical Art, England, 304 

Movable Support and Drawing Board,. .. . 365 

Ross' ArSerican School Furniture, 366 

Scale of Heights, 306 

Illustrations, 

No. 1. N. Eng. Primary School Chair, 366 

2. N. Y. Primary School Clmir,.. 306 

3. N. Eng. Pri. Sch. Busket Chair, 306 

4. do. Pri. Sch. Desk and Chair, 307 

5. do 367 

6. do. Intermediate, 367 

7. do. do 367 

8. N.Y. Pri. doubledesk and chair, 308 

9. Village desk, with seat attached, 368 

10. Improved Writing Stool, .309 

11. Improved sand top Chair, 3i)9 

12. Sin. Gram. sch. desk and chair, 370 

13. Double do 370 

14. Single highschool desk, with lid, 371 

15. Double do 371 

16. Desk and chair for young ladies, 372 

17. do. with portfolio,". 372 

18. do 373 

19. do 373 

20. do 373 

21. Lowell Institute Drawing Desk, 374 

22. Improved Ink Well, 369 

23. " " " I. 370 

24. Settee for Recitation Room,. . . 371 

25. Teacher's Chair, 373 

26. " " 375 

27. " " 375 

28. Recitation Room Table, .376 

29. Primary School Table, 376 

30. " " " 376 

31. Teacher's Table with drawer,. 377 

32. " Desk " " 377 

33. " " " " 377 

34. " " " " 378 

35. " " " " 378 

36. " " " " 378 

37. " " " " 379 

38. " " " " 379 

39. " " " " 379 

Apparatus. 

General Arrangements, 383 

Articles indispensable in every school 384 

" for Primary and District Schools,. 384 



Paue 

Articles for Grammar Schools, 397 

" High School, 40] 

Illustrations, 

Movable Lesson Post, 384 

Gonigraph, 391 

Allen's Spelling and Rending Table,.. 385 

Hanging Blackboard and Shelf 386 

Movable Blackboard, .387 

Easel, or Movable Stand for Black- 
board 387 

Map Exhibitor, 387 

Sponge Box or Damper, 390 

Box and Cover for Glass Ink Well,. . . 391 

Arithmeticon or Numeral Frame, 391 

Geoiuetrical Forms and Solids, 392 

Block to illustrate Cube Root, 3iM 

Drawing Slate 394 

Terrestruil Globe, 395 

Hejnisphere Globe, 395 

Tellurian, 396 

Planetarium 396 

Inertia Apparatus, .398 

Collision Balls and Stand, 398 

Lav\s of Motion, 399 

Mechanicals, 4U0 

Hydrostatics, 400 

Hydraulics, 401 

Pneumatics, 401 

Electricity, 403 

Composition for Blackboard 387 

Directions for making Blackboard 387 

" " " Black Plaster Wall,. 389 

" " " " Canvas, 388 

" " " Crayons, 389 

'' " procuring Large Slates, 390, 

Goodyenr's applications of Metallic Gum to 

school purposes, 403 

Book Bindmg and Covers, 403 

Maps and Charts 403 

Globe.'! 403 

Blackboard 404 

Calisthenic E.xercises, 404 

Set of Ap|)aratus — cost, $50, 403 

" " " 100 404 

» " " 200 406 

" " " 400, 407 

" ■ " " 500, 408 

" " " 700 409 

» " " 1000, 410 

List of Examples and Casts for Drawing 

Classes 41] 

Library. 

Arrangements for a School Library, 413 

Catalogue of Books on Education, 413 

Care and Preservation of School- 

HOU.SES. 

Rules adopted in Rhode Island, 435 

Suggestions respecting Fires, Sweeping, 

Dusting, 436 

Regulations of Chauncey Hall School, 

Boston, 438 

Remarks of Mr. Thayer, 440 

Dedicatory Exercises. 

School Celebration at Salem, Mass., 402 

Remarks of G. B. Emerson,.. ., 402 

" " G.F.Thayer 405 

Dedication of School-house, N. Providence, 450 

Address of President Wayland, 450 

Dedication of High School, Cambridge,... 457 

Remarks of President Everett, 459 



